Our Sustainability Strategy
Sustainability is an ongoing journey and a steadfast commitment for us. We are taking active steps to progressively expand and enhance our sustainability strategy to support our ambition towards net zero, nature positive, and inclusive growth.
The COP28 global stocktake report1 highlights that current global efforts to reach net zero by 2050 are significantly off track. Against this backdrop, climate change will likely generate long-tail effects on the resilience and commercial viability of our portfolio.
Urgent global action is required to further drive mitigation, secure an orderly transition, and to accelerate adaptation and resilience.
Alongside climate, nature and biodiversity are increasingly emerging as environmental priorities. More than half of global GDP is moderately or highly dependent on nature2. The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework3, agreed in 2022, highlights the role of business in halting and reversing nature loss to ensure a nature positive future. With Asia at the heart of the biodiversity crisis, this issue carries greater significance for Temasek. The interconnectedness of climate and nature has also been made clear: we cannot achieve net zero by 2050 if we do not take decisive action to conserve and restore nature. We cannot halt and reverse nature loss if we are not successful in limiting global warming. This has considerable impact on the communities who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change and depend on nature for their livelihoods.
There is also growing pressure on companies to address the needs of their stakeholders. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for concerted efforts from governments, businesses, civil society, and individuals worldwide to tackle pertinent social issues such as poverty, gender inequality, access to education and healthcare, and disparities in income and wealth distribution. Through our institutional efforts and investments which are undertaken on a commercial basis, we strive to help create the conditions for a more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable world.
We recognise the need to take urgent and sustained action to address the climate crisis, reverse nature loss, and build a more inclusive and equitable society. Therefore, we have developed a sustainability strategy which supports our mandate to build a resilient and forward-looking portfolio that delivers sustainable returns over the long term.
We prioritise five key levers for change as part of our sustainability strategy:
- We deploy capital to catalyse solutions that can enable companies to transition to a more sustainable future, and continuously increase our investments that are aligned to the Sustainable Living trend.
- We embed an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework throughout the investment lifecycle. This allows us to systematically evaluate sustainability-related risks and opportunities.
- We engage our portfolio companies to drive ESG value creation and support their transition towards a more sustainable future.
- We “walk the talk” by implementing sustainable practices and develop a company culture that embraces sustainability.
- We seek out opportunities for collaboration with like-minded partners to contribute to the systemic changes required to solve sustainability challenges.
With increasing recognition of the interconnectedness between climate change, the natural environment, and social impact, we are looking to take an integrated approach and systematically strengthen our contributions to nature positive and inclusive growth, through our Nature and Social Roadmaps. These are multi-year initiatives to drive phased progress on elevating nature positive and social inclusive practices within our portfolio.
We are cognisant of the collective challenges faced by businesses and society at large when it comes to advancing sustainability, and recognise that there will be obstacles and complexities for Temasek to navigate along its journey.
Despite these challenges, we remain determined in finding innovative solutions to drive progress within our own company and across our portfolio, in addition to working in partnership with others to enact real-world change.
