In today’s business landscape, companies are increasingly recognizing the importance of understanding sustainability issues and effectively reporting them to stakeholders. With recent regulatory changes and growing investor demand for climate-related information, public companies and financial institutions find themselves at the crossroads of both exciting opportunities and formidable obstacles ahead.

The postponement of the implementation of IFRS S1 and S2 for Hong Kong listed companies to 1 January 2025, as announced by The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, along with the introduction of new standards by The Hong Kong Monetary Authority regarding the sale and distribution of green and sustainable investment products by registered institutions, has produced a fresh array of opportunities and challenges for public companies and financial institutions in Hong Kong and the region.

In a similar vein, the United States has also taken significant steps towards climate-related disclosures. On March 6, 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enacted rule changes mandating companies to divulge specific climate-related information. These disclosures encompass a wide range of aspects, spanning from greenhouse gas emissions to anticipated climate risks and transition plans. The overarching objective of these requirements is to equip investors with consistent, comparable, and consequential information to facilitate informed investment decisions, while concurrently establishing clear and uniform reporting obligations for issuers. Additionally, there would be extra territorial rules applying to European companies outside of the EU as well.

Given this evolving regulatory landscape, the question arises: How can public companies (global or local) and financial institutions effectively prepare for these upcoming requirements in Hong Kong and the region?

Five steps to prepare for sustainability and climate disclosure requirements

Following the adoption of different rules pertaining to sustainability and climate disclosure, public companies and financial institutions are under huge pressure to accelerate their efforts to capture, measure and disclose emissions data.

1. Conduct a Comprehensive Audit

To kickstart the journey towards sustainability and climate disclosure, it is crucial for companies to conduct a thorough audit. This audit should encompass quantifying greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the company’s operational footprint and identifying the most material sustainability issues. While this process may pose challenges in emerging markets, initiating the audit early on allows for the formulation of effective disclosure strategies.

2. Perform a Holistic Assessment

Having completed an audit, companies need to then understand asset-level physical risks and quantify their financial impact and evaluate the business impact of climate transition risks. By conducting scenario mapping exercises, organizations can assess the potential effects of both physical and transition risks. This comprehensive assessment aids in developing robust business, operational, and communication strategies.

3. Set Science-Based Targets and Metrics

It is essential for companies to establish science-based targets for emissions reductions and align their efforts with various jurisdictions and requirements. These targets should be tangible and achievable to facilitate benchmarking against industry peers.

4. Strengthen Communications and Trainings

Engaging stakeholders, including customers, partners, investors, and employees, is crucial in the sustainability and climate disclosure journey. Proactive communication efforts should be undertaken to ensure transparency and build trust. Additionally, organizing internal training programs equips employees to become ambassadors for sustainability, fostering a culture of environmental responsibility within the organization.

5. Continuous Evaluation and Reporting

Sustainability and climate disclosure is an ongoing process, requiring constant evaluation and reporting. Regularly assessing performance helps identify any gaps and ensures compliance with evolving international standards. Staying ahead of the latest requirements and industry developments is vital to meet the expectations of global stakeholders.

As sustainability and climate-related issues continue to gain prominence, public companies and financial institutions must adapt and embrace the changing landscape. By following these five essential steps—conducting audits, performing assessments, setting targets, strengthening communications and training, and continuous evaluation and reporting—organizations can navigate the complexities of sustainability and climate disclosure requirements effectively. Embracing these practices not only supports regulatory compliance but also enhances your reputation, attracts investors, and contributes to a more sustainable future.

Our team has come across this question from our clients frequently, “How should we engage with Gen Z employees?”

As Gen Z continues to grow in today’s workforce, managers are finding they need to adjust their strategies to effectively engage this generation. Digital natives and pragmatists with greater cultural intelligence, today’s Gen Z workers have different ideals, priorities and expectations from their baby boomer counterparts – one of the oldest generations still working today. They prioritize purpose, collaboration, personal growth and recognition over more traditional metrics.

The pandemic caused lasting disruption to work patterns worldwide, and younger employees are seen to be more detached from their work than other generations. With distractions galore, maintaining focus and passion in their roles presents unique challenges for organizations. However, getting these dynamics right can pay dividends in performance and retention.

Tips for Engaging Gen Z in the Workplace

Create a purpose-driven working environment – Entrust employees with meaningful work that plays to their strengths. Orchestrate inputs on strategic decisions and innovations that shape the future and give autonomy where possible over work schedules and project elements. Make them feel inspired and motivated to contribute to the company’s success so they can see how it benefits them and their career. Engagement often improves when people feel ownership over their roles.

Support connections that fuel engagement – Provide training to managers to empower them to manage a multi-generational workforce. Explore new touchpoints to younger colleagues through digital channels, optimizing your content for a mobile-first experience. This is essential to effectively reaching this audience. Use creative, short video content and graphics to drive easier accessibility. Gamifying content can also create participation, which is effective with some types of internal campaign launches to retain attention beyond the first impressions and limit bounce rates.

Enable collaboration and recognition to boost motivation – Networking comes naturally for the younger generation, which prefers to interact through instant messaging or online collaboration, rather than lengthy emails or in-person meetings. Create a collaborative environment where they can feel recognized for their contributions, both big and small. Apart from traditional hall-of-fame awards, ask them for ideas and opinions that can show how you value their participation and contributions. Then celebrate the ideas (and the employees responsible) that are put into action and generate positive results.

Managing and engaging the younger portion of talent requires updating approaches to match Gen Z values. By connecting work to meaningful causes, encouraging digital teamwork and celebrating contributions, managers can ignite passion and increase engagement. When combined with other strategic initiatives to improve the employee experience, the payoff has potential to be immense — an energized, loyal team that drives innovation and growth in the years ahead.

The NCAA Division 1 Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments bring together casual and serious college basketball fans to cheer on their favorite teams and players, and more often than not, programs and prospects that fans have never had a rooting interest in before. Year after year, the tournaments deliver incredibly compelling storylines. This year’s story, undoubtedly, is the surge in popularity of the women’s game. 

Since the tournament’s founding in 1939, the NCAA Division 1 Basketball Tournament has been synonymous with the men’s tournament, and while the men’s game remains extremely popular – there’s been a paradigm shift. For the first time ever, more people watched the women’s championship game than the men’s, according to Nielsen. Additionally, this year’s women’s tournament generated 60% more earned media coverage than the men’s tournament, while also setting viewing records across all six rounds. 

The women’s game is taking center stage – with growing popularity and interest in the teams and their all-star rosters – carving out new and exciting marketing and communications opportunities for brands. Now the question is just how big this opportunity will be and which brands will be at the forefront of advancing women’s sports. 

We identified three takeaways from this year’s tournament, the trends to watch and the opportunities for next year and beyond. 

Drafting off the Popularity of the Tournament Remains a Winning Proposition: March is often when brands try to attach themselves to the men’s or women’s tournaments to better connect with their target audience. Now, seeing the opportunity to drive visibility and conversation, other organizations are getting in the game, too. During the tournament, it “leaked” that the Big3 offered Caitlin Clark, the University of Iowa’s record-breaking player, $5 million to suit up for the 3-on-3 league – a “historic offer” to a “generational athlete,” according to Ice Cube. The offer generated 1.5K original stories, so don’t be surprised if you see other professional teams or leagues, or upstarts looking to draft off emerging players, leveraging the popularity of the tournament in the future. Brands can get in the game too, as long as there’s an authentic connection to an athlete or another component of the tournament, e.g., team, coach, etc.  

Women Athletes Deliver Proven Value: Watch any sporting event and you’ll see professional athletes during the commercial breaks. But this March – those athletes were predominantly non-professional women athletes. For those brands that wanted to connect with consumers using current college basketball athletes, there were more well-known women superstars in college basketball than men to choose from. That’s particularly evident when reviewing internet search volume for March, where Clark generated 900% more searches than two of the more popular men’s basketball athletes in Zach Edey of Purdue University or Dalton Knect of the University of Tennessee. Moving forward, brands would do well to identify the rising stars in the women’s game –  now –, to build their playbook for sponsorships and NIL deals headed into next season. An added benefit of utilizing the top women’s players – they’re staying in college (and at leading schools) longer than their male counterparts, providing a longer runway and better opportunities for brands to curate authentic connections with their growing fanbases. 

Leverage Media with Cultural Influence: One of the more interesting moments during this year’s tournaments was Angel Reese, Louisiana State University’s (LSU) star player, declaring for the WNBA Draft, even though she still had a year of college eligibility left. The interesting part wasn’t that Reese declared for the Draft, it’s HOW she did it – with a feature in Vogue (Angel Reese Is Taking Her Talents to the WNBA). Until now, you may not have put Vogue and women’s college basketball in the same category, but the match-up of Reese’s crossover star power, and the popularity of women athletics, made this exclusive one to remember. The Vogue story delivered significant conversation around Reese’s decision, generating 8.5K earned media stories that continue to drive conversation today, and solidify her position as a budding WNBA superstar. In the article, Reese said of her decision to share the news exclusively with Vogue, “I didn’t want anything to be basic.” Not only was Reese not “basic,” she opened the door for brands to target more culturally focused outlets like Vogue, as opposed to relying solely on sports outlets.

What once was a moment dominated by the men’s tournament has shifted dramatically. Women’s players are the rising superstars, taking their lion’s share of the brand opportunities. With several of the women’s game greats declaring for the Draft, there’s optimism and interest to see how their phenomenon evolves, and who will rise next. 

March continues to be one of the greatest times of the year for brands to connect with fans through their shared love of basketball. For those interested in joining the conversation, laying the groundwork for more inclusive partnerships and activations starts now. 

Chris Potter, Gabby Hawley, Miranda Xie, Matt Groch and Steve Hickok contributed to this article.