The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), Malaysia’s lead digital economy agency, announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with UN Global Compact Network Malaysia & Brunei (UNGCMYB) to further raise awareness, build capacity and increase adoption of sustainability and climate action across the digital economy in Malaysia.
The UNGCMYB is the official local network of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), which aims to mobilise a global movement of sustainable companies and stakeholders. UNGCMYB works to awaken, activate, and accelerate Malaysian and Bruneian businesses to be sustainable and profitable.
MDEC and UNGCMYB will work together to raise awareness, build capacity, and increase adoption across businesses in the digital economy in five key areas:
- Developing a Climate Action Guide and Toolkit for digital economy businesses, to help them take action and to assess their carbon footprint;
- Exploring ways to increase access to chargeable sustainability e-learning programmes for tech small and medium enterprises (SMEs); and promoting freely accessible e-learning resources, including through the Digital UNGC Academy;
- Encouraging digital economy businesses to adopt initiatives that address Climate Change, for example, renewable energy or energy efficiency measures;
- Promoting sustainable practices among tech organisations to help them achieve sustainable performance; and
- Developing and collaborating on outreach and engagement events.
The MoU builds on existing cooperation between both organisations, namely the Malaysia Businesses Sustainability Pulse Report 2022 in which MDEC was a partner. The report launched on 14 July 2022 and aims to understand the extent of Malaysian businesses’ readiness in adopting, measuring, managing, and monitoring sustainability within their respective organisations.
The Chief Executive Officer of MDEC noted that public-private partnerships aimed at championing sustainable actions are imperative and have been made a national development priority in the Twelfth Malaysia Plan (12MP). This Plan is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
MDEC, as the lead agency in advancing Malaysia towards becoming a globally competitive digital nation, is fully committed to encouraging the adoption of sustainable practices in the digital economy ecosystem, he said.
He added that businesses may struggle to translate and relate to SDGs as these goals can appear to be beyond their grasp. Part of the efforts following today’s MoU signing is to help provide resources and actionable items that can be adopted by businesses to achieve SDGs.
The Executive Director of UNGCMYB noted that the digital economy will be the heart of global development moving forward, hence it will play an outsize role in ensuring sustainable development. With this partnership with MDEC, it is hoped that the Malaysian digital economy ecosystem will become a key catalyst for sustainable nation-building and a global contributor to achieving the SDGs.
This MoU aligns completely Government of Malaysia’s aim of continuing building sustainable economic growth that is inclusive for everyone and to ensure that no one is left behind.
Malaysia remains committed to climate action and is striving to become a carbon-neutral nation at the earliest by 2050. As outlined in 12MP, the Government is aiming for a 45% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions intensity of GDP by 2030, compared to a 2005 baseline, and to achieve a 31% renewable energy mix by 2025.
