Infrastructure, food, finance: The complex picture for sustainability in Asia-Pacific markets

In this episode of the All Things Sustainable podcast, we take the show on the road to Singapore, where S&P Global Sustainable1 hosted its annual summit June 26. We sit down with leaders from the sustainable agriculture, banking and technology sectors to unpack key sustainability challenges and opportunities facing diverse Asia-Pacific markets.

We discuss decarbonization technologies with Manish Pant, Executive Vice President of International Operations at Schneider Electric. Schneider Electric is a French multinational focused on electrification, automation and digitization that was just named the world’s most sustainable company by TIME and data firm Statista.    

Manish explains how the company is working with clients to decarbonize and electrify at scale in a way that also prioritizes energy access, security and affordability. He characterizes the current moment as "the golden period for the Global South.”   

“The demographic momentum, the focus on renewables as well as a lot of infrastructure development is what characterizes this part of the world,” he says. “The challenge and the opportunity that we have is we are going to be building a lot.”   

We also speak with Kavickumar Muruganathan, Microsoft’s ESG Planning Director for Asia Pacific, Cloud Operations and Innovation, to understand how one of the world’s largest technology companies is thinking about developing AI; its use cases for sustainability; and how the company is developing data centers in the region.    

We sit down with Justin Ma, Executive Director of Sustainable Finance at Standard Chartered Bank, to talk about trends in sustainable finance and the continued momentum he sees in Asia-Pacific markets.    

And we explore how the agriculture sector is balancing food security, access and affordability while also improving the sustainability of agricultural practices in an interview with Nikita Asthana. Nikita is Head of Sustainability Finance at global agriculture services firm Olam Agri, and she explains how agricultural practices can impact climate change and nature loss and the role smallholder farmers play in sustainable agriculture.    

“Climate change is the biggest threat to food security,” Nikita says. “The realization has to happen at scale and not just by a few companies that are more directly impacted. It has to happen at the scale of governments and policymakers. It has to happen at the scale of financial institutions.”  

Listen to our podcast episodes from the S&P Global Sustainable1 Summit in London earlier this year:  

Why businesses are going ‘back to basics’ in sustainability strategies 

Why insurance is becoming central to climate risk conversations 

How HSBC is financing infrastructure for a low-carbon economy 

Learn about energy transition data and services from S&P Global Commodity Insights here. 

This piece was published by S&P Global Sustainable1, a part of S&P Global.      

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