How Resilient Is Your Business to Nature & Biodiversity Loss?
Part 1 : Dialogue & Networking | 10.00 am – 12:00 pm
Part 2 : Roundtable Discussion | 12.30 pm – 1:30 pm
What is biodiversity risk and how does it impact your organisation? Many companies struggle to understand and address nature-related risks due to their complexities. Unlike the more straightforward metrics of climate change, measuring biodiversity risks can be challenging, making it difficult for organisations to align them with their economic goals and activities.
In response to this challenge, WWF-Malaysia has conducted a study to assess the exposure of Malaysian corporates to nature-related risks and their readiness to mitigate them as well as building on existing initiatives for enhancing business resilience.
Join us for an engaging half-day programme designed to shed light on the vulnerability of corporations to nature-related risks and examine its potential impacts on businesses of all sizes and sectors. The presentation and dialogue session will address several key questions:
- What are the most pressing nature-related risks being faced by the Top 20 listed companies in Malaysia?
- What are the implications of nature-related risks of businesses to the financial sector?
- How does the TNFD framework provide companies with a structured approach to assess and disclose nature-related risks?
- What can we learn from companies that have started on this journey?
Send us your burning questions or issues you would like to bring up during the dialogue session to advocacy@icdm.com.my. This dialogue session will be held under the Chatham House Rule.
We will also have the option for you to join in the roundtable discussion after the dialogue session for a deeper conversation and contribute your views towards actionable plans moving forward.
PROGRAMME | Tuesday, 14 May 2024
Part 1: Dialogue & Networking
| 9.30am | Registration & networking over light refreshment |
| 10:00am | Setting the Scene: Role of the Board Michele Kythe Lim, President & CEO of ICDM |
| 10:05am | Opening Address: How Nature and Business Should Come Together Dr. Jason Hon, Associate Director, Peninsular Malaysia and Conservation Science, WWF Malaysia |
| 10:10am | Presentation: Vulnerability and Resilience of Malaysian Corporates Towards Nature-Related Risks Fatin Zani, Sustainable Finance Manager of WWF-Malaysia |
| 10:40am | Open Dialogue: Managing Nature-Related Risks – Why and How Moderator: Mr. Sharath Martin, Board of Trustee of WWF-Malaysia & Senior Policy Consultant, ACCA Asia Pacific Panelist:
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| 12:00pm | Session End |
Part 2: Roundtable & Brainstorming Session
| 12:00pm | Coffee & Networking Break |
| 12:30pm | Roundtable Discussion: Challenges, key asks, and next steps
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| 1:30pm | Session End |
Speaker’s Profile
Michele Kythe Lim
President & CEO
ICDM
Michele brings with her leadership and advisory experience on a wide spectrum of corporate governance and boardroom matters that includes board, committees and director effectiveness evaluation, competency development needs, remuneration and succession planning, legal and compliance, and corporate performance. Her passion in developing high-performing people has been the driving force in making her a forward-looking leader in the corporate sector.
Michele was Group Head, Corporate Secretarial and General Counsel for the last five years with IHH Healthcare Berhad, one of the largest listed healthcare providers globally. She oversaw legal, corporate secretarial and governance functions across several jurisdictions such as Singapore, Turkey, India, Asia Pacific, North Asia and the CEEMENA region while keeping watch on local matters.
Some of the key areas she was instrumental on includes mergers and acquisitions, takeovers, joint ventures, corporate schemes, and operational matters. She was also on the Board of Directors on a subsidiary board and Chief Sustainability Officer in charge of sustainability reporting and practices for the Group.
Prior to IHH, Michele spent six years from 2006 to 2012 at Malaysia’s national car manufacturer Proton Holdings Bhd where she held various positions in the Group Legal division, including Chief Legal Counsel. She was also board member of several Proton Holdings Berhad local and foreign subsidiaries and associated companies, member of the Group Management Committee, Management Audit Committee, Group Risk Management Committee, various project steering committees and task forces.
Upon leaving legal practice at Shook Lin & Bok where she specialised in the areas of banking, commercial/corporate, land and tort, Michele joined Pengurusan Danaharta Nasional Bhd in 1998 until 2005 as Assistant General Manager in its Legal Affairs and Risk Division. Here she oversaw negotiations in project conception, acquisitions of syndicated/bilateral domestic and foreign loans, club deals, share sale agreements, and risk participation agreements.
Michele holds a LLB Hons degree from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK (1991) and is a Barrister-at-Law at Middle Temple, London, England. She has been an advocate and solicitor of the High Court of Malaya since October 1993. She completed the Senior Management Development Programme of Harvard Business School in 2009, Professionalism in Directorship Programme by Malaysian Alliance of Corporate Directors (MACD) in 2012 and the NAM Institute for the Empowerment of Women (NIEW) Women Directors’ Training Programme in 2014. Michele is also a licensed company secretary.
Dr. Jason Hon
Associate Director
Peninsular Malaysia and Conservation Science
WWF Malaysia
Dr. Jason is a distinguished conservationist who specialises in environmental and wildlife conservation. With over two decades of experience, Dr. Jason currently leads the WWF-Malaysia Peninsular Malaysia Conservation Programme and oversees the Tiger Conservation and Sustainable Markets Programmes. Prior to this, he served as the Head of Sarawak Conservation Programme for 10 years.
Dr. Jason is actively engaged in supporting civil societies and nature-based conservation bodies, offering expertise in project proposal development, technical report writing and conducting awareness programs and public talks on conservation subjects.
Dr Jason holds a Doctorate degree from the Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies at Kyoto University and Master’s Degrees in Ecology from Aberdeen University, Scotland.
Sharath Martin
Board of Trustee of WWF-Malaysia
Senior Policy Consultant, ACCA Asia Pacific
Sharath Martin has spent the last three decades in the realms of finance, accounting and sustainability. He currently serves as the Senior Policy Consultant for ACCA in the Asia Pacific region where he focusses on raising the Asian voice on thought leadership and contemporary business and finance issues. His career is distinguished by roles and positions at a Big Four firm, a globally operating listed company, and a capital market regulator.
An alumnus of the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, Sharath holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Financial Strategy and is an ACCA Fellow. Sharath serves on the Board of Trustees of WWF-Malaysia, which works to sustain the natural world for the benefit of people and wildlife, focussing on six major themes: forests, oceans, wildlife, food, climate and energy, as well as freshwater. He is also Deputy Chair of two British Malaysian Chamber of Commerce (BMCC)’s networks – Sustainability and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Dr. Tunku Alina Alias
ICDM Member & Independent Non-Executive Director
IJM Corporation Berhad
Dr. Tunku Alina is an independent director of several public listed companies and serves on various Board Audit, Risk Management, Nomination and Remuneration committees. She is also Chair of the board of JA Russell & Co Sdn Bhd. She is a sustainability and corporate governance practitioner, and volunteers as council member with Climate Governance Malaysia. Her career in corporate governance at board level is underpinned by many years in legal practice as well as continuing board education in sustainability, climate issues, circular economy and ESG governance. She is a mediator with the Malaysian Bar Council and an associate mediator with the Singapore Mediation Centre. Her PhD is in Islamic Finance with a focus on the waqf, an Islamic endowment foundation.
Dr. Renard Siew
Head of Corporate Sustainability
Yinson Holdings Berhad
Dr. Renard is the Head of Corporate Sustainability for Yinson where he is responsible for advancing his organisation’s work in the field of climate change and sustainability. He was the Co-Chair of the Climate Change & Disaster Risk Management Working Committee and UNEP-FI’s Collective Commitment on Climate Action. In 2020, he was appointed an SDG Champion-Climate Action by the World Economic Forum (WEF). He is a member of the WEF Expert Network Group and serves on the WEF Global Future Council on SDG Investment. He was accepted into the Forbes Fellowship Programme and attended the inaugural UN Climate Action Summit in New York. Renard is also a supervisor at the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL). He has also lectured and been appointed Adjunct Professor for various universities. Prior to this, he was involved in the implementation of the sustainability agenda for a number of public-listed corporations (Sime Darby, CIMB, MRCB) and was a researcher at the Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets (CEEM) contributing thought leadership in: sustainability/ integrated reporting, GHG reporting and verification, ESG integration, socially responsible investment (across different asset classes: equities, infrastructure and property/real estate), climate change and sustainable construction for the building/infrastructure sector.
Dr. Renard is a graduate of Cambridge University and UNSW. In 2013, he was selected as one of 15 scholars to attend the PhD Academy at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). He has published in many international refereed journals. In 2014, he won a Highly Commended Paper award by the Emerald Literati Network and was inducted into the prestigious Global Young Academy as recognition of his research impact. He was the recipient of the Yayasan Sime Darby Scholarship, Cambridge Bursary Scholarship, ARG Hermes Scholarship, The Equity Initiative (Atlantic Fellows), Brookfield Multiplex Engineering Prize among others. For his work in sustainability, he was named one of Asia’s 21 Young Leaders by Asia Society, a Young Leader by the World Cities Summit, Ten Outstanding Young Malaysians (Environmental Leadership), Thomson Reuters Changemaker, Asia’s Most Influential by Tatler Asia and a Generation Tatler honouree.
Dr. Yasmin Rasyid
General Manager Sustainability
Sime Darby Property Bhd
Dr. Yasmin holds a Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Biotechnology and a PhD in Sustainability Science from Universiti Malaya. Dr. Yasmin brings with her over two decades of experience, with a career spanning multiple NGOs, including WWF and MENGO. Her diverse roles encompassed environmental management, community development, establishing strategic partnerships for sustainability, and social responsibility. Most recently, she served as the Sustainability Director for Lendlease Malaysia. Dr. Yasmin’s professional journey has been marked by an unwavering commitment to sustainability, evident in her founding of EcoKnights in 2005. Her dedication to environmental and societal well-being mirrors our organisation’s values and aspirations.
Dinagaran Chandra
Head of ESG Investments
Permodalan Nasional Berhad
Dinagaran Chandra (Dina) is an experienced sustainability professional with a diverse background in corporate governance, risk management, environmental assessments, sustainable finance, and corporate sustainability. Holding sustainability credentials from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP), Dina is dedicated to advancing the integration of sustainability considerations into business strategies. Currently, as the Head of ESG Investments at PNB, Dina is spearheading PNB’s aspirations to achieve a net-zero portfolio by 2050, scaling-up climate-aligned investment opportunities and operationalization of PNB’s labour rights commitments. Furthermore, Dina is also driving the integration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors throughout the investment value chain at PNB.
Perpetua (Pep) George
Asia Pacific Sustainability, Biodiversity, Managing Director
PwC
Based out of PwC Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, Perpetua “Pep” George is Managing Director, Asia Pacific Sustainability, Biodiversity for PwC, where she is a subject matter expert covering biodiversity, nature-based solutions and related disclosure. She brings with her more than 20 years’ experience in sustainability strategy development and implementation in private sector and civil society.
Her role is part of PwC’s approach to turn theory into meaningful action, as the firm expands specialist capabilities in sustainability and a number of key areas in alignment with PwC’s global strategy. Pep is building core competency and capability around the nature and biodiversity agenda, including integration into PwC’s range of sustainability solutions and services.
Prior to joining PwC, she was Wilmar International’s General Manager for Group Sustainability, overseeing one of the world’s largest agribusiness and palm oil companies in their sustainability strategy implementation throughout their global business.
Fatin Zani
Sustainable Finance Manager
WWF-MY
Fatin Zani holds an MSc in Islamic Finance from the International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance (INCEIF), a university set up by Bank Negara Malaysia, and a BSc in Actuarial Science from the London School of Economics. At WWF-Malaysia, Fatin is pivotal in fostering collaboration with the financial sector on various climate and biodiversity-related issues. Fatin actively contributes to several Bank Negara Malaysia’s Joint Committee on Climate Change-led initiatives, including the Climate Change and Principle-based Taxonomy (CCPT), the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Application Guide, Climate Risk Management, and Scenario Analysis, and also participates in the Value-based Intermediation Financing and Investment Impact Assessment Framework (VBIAF) sectoral guide working groups. Her extensive expertise includes impactful tools such as the Paris Agreement Capital Transition Assessment (PACTA) for climate portfolio alignment, the Biodiversity Risk Filter tool, and innovative nature-based solutions, reflecting her dedication to advancing sustainable practices.
