Climate change mitigation and voluntary disclosure in Malaysia’s listed property companies

Abstract

Climate change mitigation is a challenge faced by most nations of the world. The task is even more challenging in Malaysia considering the occurrence of sequence of floods within the past and the need to be a part of the developed economy by 2020 which needs environment protection. This paper examines the state of climate change mitigation and the practice of voluntary carbon disclosure in sustainable development practice among listed Property companies in Malaysia. Consequently the paper analyses policies and programs on-going in Malaysia to create an enabling environment for the implementation of climate change mitigation. From the studies, it can argued that Malaysia has made significant progress in setting up legal framework for the implementation of climate change mitigation and voluntary environmental disclosure, but critical mass is yet to be achieved. This was achieved as a function of Malaysia’s membership to United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and also participates in the Clean Development Mechanism; and further establishes nationwide ecological protection laws which are implemented in the government’s Development Plans and development industry master plan. Lastly, the impetus given to the free market sector to be participants in mitigation through the Bursa Malaysia listing requirement that specifies corporate social responsibility reporting as part of the annual reports, with measurement, disclosure and management of emission integral part. The review allows us to infer that the Malaysia voluntary environmental disclosure and climate change mitigation practice in the property sector has made initial progress but there is need for more market driven motivation to be introduced so that more companies especially those in carbon-intensive practice would be involved.