UAE may soon roll out ESG standards for all businesses to comply with minimum ESG standards

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Waqas Ahmed

Area Manager

Get in touch

Waqas Ahmed

Area Manager

UAE businesses could soon have some ESG (Environmental Social Governance) benchmarks to comply with.

Rather than leave it to businesses to decide how to make their contribution to sustainability, a set of unified benchmarks will make it easier for them to follow – and help with the UAE’s own path to Net Zero on carbon emissions by 2050, according to a top official at DIFC.

“Globally, there are about 1,100 ESG-related standards,” said Christian Kunz, Head of Group Strategy and Innovation at Dubai International Financial Centre. “So, rather than the UAE adopt all these benchmarks, the focus could be on a few of them - say, 10 – making up the national benchmark.

“With the COP28 to be hosted by UAE, there will be more clarity on the pathway towards Net Zero, and how or whether there should be benchmarks or regulations to meet them.”

COP28 will be the latest edition of the UN’s Climate Change Conference, which the UAE will play host to. The event is scheduled for late 2023 and Expo City Dubai will be the venue.

Would ESG efforts become part of a business’s reporting requirements, much in the way the financials get done? “Things have to go past just the voluntary,” said Kunz. “Public-private partnerships could be one solution, and so would all actions related to COP28. There are already a number of working groups drawing up a plan of action.