ESG & Public Policy

Meeting global needs and challenges

Shifts in the regulatory and legislative landscape can impact businesses and commercial imperatives significantly. In particular, the areas of environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) have been identified by governments, businesses and investors as an important way of determining a company’s sustainability and value creation in the long term. As ESG gains momentum and matures to accelerate market transformation, regulators and industry bodies have, in recent years, moved to implement new frameworks and/or enact policy changes to keep their economies relevant and encourage continued investments.

Our ESG & Public Policy Practice understands intimately the legal ramifications and challenges that follow these paradigm shifts. We are well-placed to advise clients on the changing ESG drivers, policy frameworks, legislation and regulation through our sophisticated public policy experience and unmatched legal knowledge across multiple practice areas. We take a holistic approach in our advice to clients in identifying ESG and public policy risks on the horizon, and how to manage such risks to stay competitive and be recognised as responsible corporate citizens.

Multi-disciplinary approach

ESG and public policy issues are multi-faceted. As such, we adopt a multi-disciplinary approach in working across the various award-winning practices within our Firm and regional network to advance the interests of our clients. Apart from lawyers who are legislative advocates as well as professionals who have considerable personal experience with the legislative and executive branches of some of the region’s local governments, we also have access to the largest and most established in-house economics team of any law firm in Singapore, with years of experience advising on public policy and regulatory matters.

Network and experience

Even as public policy, ESG standards and structures continue to develop locally, much of the applicable frameworks stem from international regimes. Through our strong regional network of offices in Singapore, Myanmar and Vietnam; associate firm, Rahmat Lim & Partners in Malaysia; and network firm, Soemadipradja & Taher in Indonesia, we are well-placed to support clients whose ESG and public policy objectives transcend jurisdictions and extend throughout South-east Asia, providing them with an integrated and seamless service.

Our experience includes sustainable and green/blue finance; investments, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions in the renewables sector; green energy and low carbon/carbon trading projects; environmental due diligence; investigations into complaints or disputes over ESG wrongdoing, business and human rights compliance; ESG reporting and disclosure standards and frameworks; legislative process and drafting; managing government relations; public policy gap analyses; strategy and advocacy; public consultations and policy papers; and environmental, health and safety regulatory compliance.