Green Finance Advisor of Friends of the Earth (HK)
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange plans to make its listed companies quantify and reveal more about their climate-related risks, starting in January 2025.
The proposed new disclosures would be stricter and more extensive than Hong Kong’s current “comply or explain” framework, which asks companies to make disclosures or justify their absence. They would align the market with rules being developed by the International Sustainability Standards Board, established by the IFRS Foundation as a complement to its International Accounting Standards Board.
Under Hong Kong’s new proposed rules,
companies will have to report details of transition plans, measure and disclose
Scope 3 emissions, and elaborate for investors the risks and opportunities
presented by climate change. For the first two years, companies can describe
some of these measures without quantifying them, but as of 2026, they must be
fully compliant, HKEX said in a consultation
paper . IPO applicants will also have to disclose material ESG
information in their prospectuses.
The proposal, which is open for feedback until July 14, would make Hong Kong
one of the world’s first exchanges to try to align compulsory disclosures with
the ISSB. Singapore has mandatory climate reporting for some industries while
others are only expected to “comply or explain.” China is
considering mandatory ESG disclosures, starting with state-owned
enterprises, and Australia is working on a standard for
climate-related financial disclosures.
Indeed, the ESG disclosure in Hong Kong has been improved over the last 3 years.
According to the data compiled by Bloomberg, using ESG Disclosure Score as an
indicator to measure the ESG disclosure level, from fiscal year 2020, 2021 and
2022, the ESG data disclosure has been leading both global and APAC peers. Even
though ESG disclosure was on “Comply or explain” basis in the past, majority of
listed companies had started to up their game on ESG disclosure. The
announcement of mandatory TCFD disclosure no later than 2025 since December
2020 gave no surprise to the market to be prepared for the improved
disclosure.
With improved data, the race to net zero for Hong Kong corporations would
become more competitive and investors and lenders could then access their ESG
and climate-related risk more effectively.
Source: Bloomberg