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ESG training: Hong Kong body to expand planning course to Greater Bay Area, Southeast Asia and Middle East

  • International Chamber of Sustainable Development will expand accredited planner course to the bay area in September
  • In the past two years, more than 3,000 individuals have completed the course in Hong Kong

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The sun sets next to a smokestack from a coal-burning power station in Beijing. Photo: Reuters
Eric Ng

The International Chamber of Sustainable Development (ICSD), a Hong Kong-based professional training body, will expand its accredited environment, social and governance (ESG) planner course to the Greater Bay Area in September.

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The addition is part of a bigger planned expansion, as the non-profit organisation also plans to offer the sustainability education programme in Southeast Asia and the Middle East by working with partners in Singapore and Bahrain, said ICSD adviser Peter Fong Kwok-wing.

“China is a vast market for sustainable development, and mainland regulators have strengthened requirements on ESG disclosure and action plans,” Fong, who is also vice-president of Hong Kong Financial Services Institute, said on Tuesday. “This course will aim to meet mainland organisations’ unmet needs, starting with the Greater Bay Area.”

It will be offered in Mandarin with Chinese teaching materials to cater to the needs of mainland participants. Online registration has started.

The Greater Bay Area, which comprises Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in southern Guangdong province, has a total population of more than 86 million.
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China’s Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges published new climate and sustainability disclosure guidelines in February. They require more than 400 listed companies – accounting for more than half of the market value in China’s exchanges – to publish sustainability reports covering their greenhouse-gas emissions and decarbonisation plans by 2026.

Under tightened rules announced last month by the stock exchange in Hong Kong, the largest listed firms must report their full supply chain emissions for the financial year beginning January 1, 2026, as part of the city’s effort to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

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