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Alaya Consulting is a specialist consultancy focusing on ESG reporting, pre-assurance and sustainability training.
Alaya Consulting is a specialist consultancy focusing on ESG reporting, pre-assurance and sustainability training.
Associate consultant
Ruby Fang joined Alaya Consulting as an associate consultant in hopes to promote corporate social responsibility and sustainable development. Her main role includes day-to-day client communication, data management and preparation of reports. She graduated from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology with a major in Environmental Sciences and a minor in Social Sciences. Ruby has also completed the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) accreditation training.
Associate consultant
I joined Alaya Consulting with an interest in environmental protection and sustainable development, hoping to provide better solutions for different companies, promoting sustainable development and achieving carbon neutrality. I was mainly responsible for data collection, environmental disclosure, carbon audits and assisting in the preparation of reports. I am fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. I graduated with a master’s degree in environmental engineering and management from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and a bachelor’s degree in atmospheric science from Nanjing University. I am also a yoga enthusiast.
Associate consultant
Xiaotong is responsible for handling data collection, writing ESG reports, and day-to-day client communications. She also assists with ESG disclosures and client support. She obtained her Master of Chemical Engineering in Shenzhen University, with a longterm focus on environmental pollutant assessment.
She also graduated in Bachelor of Engineering Science from Chang’an University, majoring in water pollution management.
Intern
Alisa Lam is an intern working at Alaya consulting during her gap year. She plans on studying Politics, International Relations and Global Sustainable Development at Warwick University in 2022. She has a keen interest in understanding what makes the best sustainability report, promoting corporate social responsibility and learning how to tailor sustainable strategies for different companies. She understands that implementing environmental and social policies is crucial in building a successful and resilient enterprise in today’s world. She is responsible for writing and revising reports as well as doing research for Alaya.
Management Trainee
Gabriel joined Alaya Consulting as a management trainee, responsible for conducting ESG advisory and reporting along with assisting the business development and marketing team.
He graduated from The University of Hong Kong with a bachelor’s degree of science majored in Environmental Science. Gabriel understands that working towards improving environmental and social issues is fundamental to building a sustainable and successful business. He would like to make a positive impact by joining the ESG advisory industry.
Associate consultant
Better ESG management shapes a more resilient and sustainable future.
Responsible for handling social data collection and analysis; Assist in preparing the sustainability report and daily communications with clients; Advise clients on ESG- related issues to optimize ESG disclosure and improve ESG performance.
Graduated from Uppsala University in Sweden with a master's degree in business and economics. Master thesis themed in green finance.
Associate Consultant
Eason joined Alaya Consulting as an associate consultant, responsible for preparing ESG reports. He is passionate about sustainability and eager in helping enterprises to improve their ESG performance. He graduated from The Chinese University of Hong Kong with a bachelor’s degree in science, major in Earth System Science and minor in Biology. Eason’s hobbies are playing table tennis and playing the guitar.
Consultant
Alva Yeung is keen in helping companies create sustainability strategies to help mitigate environment and social impact. Coming from an international relations background, she is familiar with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, UN Global Compact and other international initiatives. She is also responsible for social data analysis, facilitating stakeholder communication, ESG report writing and day-to-day client communication. Alva has completed the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) accreditation training.
Alva obtained her Master of International Relations and Public Affairs in University of Hong Kong and Bachelor Degree in City University of Hong Kong, major in Asian and International Studies.
Business Development and Marketing Manager
Sunny joined Alaya in 2020 with a goal to bolster ESG and sustainability in Hong Kong.
He works with Alaya to develop and promote its initiatives such as HERA and ESG Newswire.
He also works with existing and new partners to collaborate and host events promoting ESG strategy and disclosure.
Sunny has great plans to design and develop Alaya’s own ESG rating system in the coming future.
Born in India, bred in Hong Kong, and a bachelor’s degree from NYU, Sunny comes from a rich and diverse range of experiences.
He majored in Finance and Marketing and minored in Social Entrepreneurship.
He co-founded his own social enterprise, Grounded Upcycling, in New York that upcycles spent coffee grounds into soap and face masks.
In his free time, Sunny likes to go hiking, read, or play Squash!
Founder
Tony is the founder of Alaya Consulting Limited. With more than 16 years of experience in advising C-suite executives, both in-house and from the client side, he is particularly experienced in the development of corporate sustainability strategies, training, communication and ESG reporting approaches.
Tony works with client companies to help them improve disclosure levels and ESG ratings. Recent clients include AAC Technologies, CIMC, Panda Green Energy, Chiho Environmental Group, Integrated Waste Management, Baguio, MicroPort, Tianjin Port and others. Recent projects include organising the Hong Kong ESG Reporting Awards, contributing to the development of industry best practices.
Tony is a Chartered Company Secretary, a GRI Nominated Trainer, a carbon audit professional accredited by the Association of Energy Engineers, a Practitioner of Institute of Environmental Management Association and a certified sustainability assurance practitioner. He has also successfully completed the practitioner training of Integrated Reporting.
Prior to setting up Alaya, Tony assumed senior roles in various leading communications agencies and a Fortune top 10 financial services group. Before embarking on his career in communications, Tony spent a number of years in banking and financial journalism. He received a master’s degree in Corporate Governance from Hong Kong Polytechnic University and a bachelor’s degree in International Business from The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
A unified standard needed to take ESG to the next level
Since COVID-19 hit the world in an unexpected way, it has demonstrated to corporates that the easily neglected ‘non-financial’ factors are indeed equally important to long-term sustainability of businesses. The concern on ESG issues is higher than ever before
ESG reporting in the Asia Pacific
While the EU has always been a pioneer in ESG reporting, the Asia Pacific region is now catching up in building a more sustainable economy. Asia Pacific countries such as Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, etc. have already established disclosure and reporting requirements and guidelines.
In 2019, HKEX took a step ahead toward sustainability by introducing new amendments to tighten ESG regulatory framework, including making at least part of the ESG reporting mandatory for listed companies. This puts Hong Kong in a leading position regarding ESG regulatory and policy governance and disclosure.
The amendments include a number of significant changes to the regulatory framework for ESG disclosures but most importantly, HKEX amendments aim to put ESG on the board. The idea is to make the boards play a leadership role and be accountable for ESG reporting, imposing a fiduciary duty on the board to engage in developing strategies with respect to ESG, and to get involved in the entire process from oversight to reporting. This can help drive companies to focus more on meeting the treble bottom lines.
China is also taking steps to achieve sustainability. According to the graph below, it can be seen that there has been a steady increase in the percentage of companies with ESG reports.
Source: Analysis of Wind data
China’s goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 constitutes a move to put a sharper focus on transitioning into a low-carbon economy. In order to catch up with global developments, in 2020, China Securities Regulatory Commission also formulated plans to enforce regulations requiring listed companies to disclose environmental information.
Hong Kong’s continuous efforts in sustainability reporting
Prior to the new amendments, Hong Kong has been putting in efforts to transition itself into a more sustainable global financial hub. Hong Kong has been an active partnership with Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative since 2018. With recent HKEX amendments, Hong Kong is moving upwards in the rankings for sustainability. Moreover, the new requirements are setting new global trends of reporting. The introduction of reporting principles of “materiality” is in line with the principle of reporting climate-related information in EU Non-financial Reporting Directive (NFRD). Also, EU and the UK have long ago adopted the principle of ‘comply and explain’, and HKEX by the latest amendments is upgrading the disclosure obligation to cover all Social KPIs.
Apart from that, Hong Kong’s financial sector has also been working towards green finance and incorporating ESG into the industry best practices to keep up with global financial market trends. MPFA issued a circular back in 2018 encouraging application of ESG standards into investments and disclosure. The following year, HKMA incorporated ESG factors in its responsible investment measures while Securities and Futures Commission carried out a survey on ESG integration.
Global cooperation to address challenges
Although ESG reporting is becoming mainstream, we are still at an early stage of the whole sustainability reporting movement. ESG reporting not only focuses on compliance, but also quality that most investors and the public are looking for. For example, according to GRI principles, the quality of data needs to meet a certain standard and have comparability, accuracy, clarity, reliability and timeliness. The complexity of ESG reporting imposes a lot of challenges in terms of effective sustainability disclosure.
In the absence of unified reporting standards, there is a lack of structured base references for companies and investors to benchmark at the global level. Currently, there are varying international reporting standards. Different companies are using different standards in their reporting and the haphazard mix of international frameworks and standards hinders data consistency. Moreover, since there are no global ESG disclosure obligations, we lack a systematic global platform for making ESG data readily available to the public and the investors. The inadequacy of ESG data hinders transparency, reliability, clarity and comparability, making it difficult for companies and investors to compare, analyze and interpret data.
Recognizing this problem, towards the end of 2020, five sustainability standard-setting global organizations, namely CDP, CDSB, GRI, IIRC and SASB announced a shared vision on comprehensive corporate reporting, aiming to provide a globally accepted framework with a coherent standard for providing information to the public in an effective manner. These organisations are collaborating among themselves to slowly take steps for unification of standards. The collaboration between GRI and SASB aims to provide clarity and compatibility, while the collaboration between IFRS and GRI intends to build connectivity between financial and sustainability reporting.
In a post-COVID world, one can expect to see economies and corporates shifting towards prioritizing sustainability and incorporating ESG in their operations. Although more organizations are now promoting ESG and more ESG-conscious investors are emerging, they are still not enough to drive a strong change in the sustainability reporting ecosystem. Global cooperation is required to bring in a unified, systematic and coherent reporting system on an international platform, while regulations from governments are needed to impose mandatory responsibilities and pressure companies. ESG reporting still has a long way to go. Global big brands are taking the lead in ESG disclosure to influence and raise social awareness, international cooperation and government regulations, and we believe sustainability disclosure will develop into a strong and stable trend all over the world.
Alaya HK ESG Reporting Benchmarking Report