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Programme Sirius (Sustainability Innovation for Regenerative & Inclusive Purpose), supported by 13 Asia-Pacific fintech leaders at its inaugural launch, was unveiled today to empower Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs) in their transition towards sustainability, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Programme Sirius is an industry-led knowledge initiative that aims to support MSMEs operating on digital platforms in their journey towards sustainability. It will foster open industry dialogues where like-minded industry partners can exchange ideas on sustainability innovations and share best practices to support MSMEs on their sustainability journey, helping their transition into a low-carbon economy, advancing their accessibility to sustainability financing, and uplifting MSMEs with new growth opportunities.
International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, will collaborate with Ant International to develop and promote a set of Digital Sustainability Impact Management Toolkits in the next two years. These toolkits aim to empower MSMEs to adopt environmentally and socially friendly practices to improve MSMEs’ access to sustainable finance through digitalization while driving the entire economy towards a low-carbon development path.
To support MSMEs in commencing their sustainability journeys, Gprnt, an initiative by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, will collaborate with Ant International to provide a technology-enabled reporting solution for MSMEs to embark on simplified sustainability disclosures against basic Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) metrics. Gprnt will further augment Programme Sirius by sharing how MSMEs can better harness data and technology to gain access to sustainable business, finance, and supply chain opportunities.
At the launch, 13 industry partners from 11 economies have committed to be part of Programme Sirius: AlipayHK (Hong Kong SAR, China), ANEXT Bank (Singapore), Bigpay (Malaysia), bKash (Bangladesh), DANA (Indonesia), GCash (the Philippines), Hipay (Mongolia), Kakao Pay (Republic of Korea), MPay (Macao SAR, China), TNG Digital (Malaysia), TossPay (Republic of Korea), TrueMoney (Thailand) and Zalopay (Vietnam).
Corporates and businesses today face increasing reporting requirements from regulators, financial institutions, and supply chain partners to disclose and track their sustainability performances. Small Medium Sized Enterprises (“SMEs”) represent 90% of all businesses and 50% of employment worldwide1, yet their limited size means they lack the capability and data collection mechanism for sustainability related reporting. MSMEs, which form key components of larger firms’ supply chains, face even greater challenges from the complexities of the reporting landscape, insufficient resources, and know-how to generate basic sustainability reports, and high cost of employing technological solutions and consulting services to develop effective sustainability reporting solutions.
With multinational companies aiming to curtail their carbon footprint and extending these expectations to their suppliers, local merchants could gain competitive edge by embracing sustainability. To facilitate MSMEs, including those operating in digital channels, to transition towards sustainability, there is a great urgency to call for industry collaborative efforts and innovations to help in addressing these key areas of challenges.
