The Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) encourages listed companies to measure and publicly report their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and impact, said Chief Executive Officer Rajeeva Bandaranaike.
“This is a part of sustainable reporting,” he said on Thursday when the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE), in collaboration with the Rotary District 3220 Sri Lanka and the Maldives, the Sri Lanka Institute of Directors, and the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, rang the Bell for Sustainability on the occasion of the visit by President of Rotary International, Jenifer Jones to Sri Lanka.
“In the future, CSE wishes to publicly demonstrate its commitment to sustainability, while promoting better business practices within the Sri Lankan Capital Market.
“Corporate Sustainability involves strategies and practices to create long-term shareholder, consumer and employee value, meeting the needs of stakeholders while protecting and enhancing the human and natural resources needed in the future,” he said.
Bandaranaike recalled that the Colombo Stock Exchange joined the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges initiative, launched by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in 2009.
CSE has taken a number of initiatives since then to provide guidance to listed companies on ESG disclosures in Sri Lanka. “Arrangements with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to conduct workshops on corporate transparency and sustainability reporting, is one such.”
The CSE in collaboration with Tundra Fonder hosted the ‘CSE–Tundra Fonder Sustainability Forum’ to discuss, understand and integrate ESG analytics into business planning and operations. President of Rotary International, to Sri Lanka Jenifer Jones said that the government must focus more on environment protection and should also promote growing more mangrove plantations that are very environment- friendly. She also said that the plastic waste management should be a key issue in the corporate agenda as this is a huge environmental issue. – SS
