• Published on 6 November 2024
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Gprnt deploys pioneering tools for sustainability disclosure

Gprnt, a digital platform for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting and data launched by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) released its inaugural Disclosure and Marketplace offerings.

These tools will simplify sustainability reporting for businesses and connect them to an ecosystem of solutions to support their decarbonisation needs. The launch of these tools reaffirms Gprnt’s mission to deliver digital utilities that support the baseline sustainability reporting and data needs of businesses in Singapore.

The launch underscores Gprnt’s continued collaboration with strategic partners Ant International and MUFG Bank, reinforcing the shared commitment by all parties to develop solutions to aid businesses in meeting their varied sustainability needs, in a simple, streamlined, and cost-effective manner. Gprnt is also supported by Microsoft and the newly-established Global Finance and Technology Network (GFTN), which join to enhance the platform's scalability and support multi-country implementation efforts.

“The launch of Gprnt’s solutions is a milestone in Singapore’s sustainability journey. Gprnt’s suite of solutions will provide businesses with digital infrastructure to access and report verifiable ESG data in a streamlined manner, strengthening their climate risk management and net-zero efforts,” said Ravi Menon, chairman of the GFTN board of directors and Singapore’s ambassador for climate action. “The value proposition of these solutions will become increasingly compelling as Gprnt scales regionally to support the broader transition across Asia.”

Empowering businesses with accessible reporting

While 9 in 10 companies globally have expressed interest in ESG reporting as a means to address mounting compliance and stakeholder pressures, many of these businesses, especially small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), face numerous challenges to getting started. The Gprnt Disclosure tool is designed to overcome these hurdles by offering a simple, automated, generative AI-powered solution to easily measure businesses’ Scope 1 and 2 emissions.

Helping businesses get started: Many SMEs lack the knowledge and capacity to commence sustainability reporting. Gprnt offers these SMEs a way to jumpstart this process by leveraging the platform’s integrations with government databases and private sector solutions, to easily calculate their basic emissions output.

Generating baseline ESG data: Gprnt will provide metric packs for core use cases such as basic emissions reporting, climate risk management, and green procurement. This allows businesses to generate the baseline ESG data needed to access each use case.

Simplifying reporting: The process of generating a sustainability report is often the most time and resource-intensive component of an organisation’s sustainability programme. Gprnt offers the prospect of harnessing technology and automation to not only simplify the collection of verifiable data, but also transpose this data into a basic disclosure report that can be generated on demand.

Gprnt Disclosure is free for all businesses’ individual use, with users retaining full control over their data and whom to share it with. The Disclosure tool can also be customised and deployed by larger organisations for a competitive fee, to collect data from their value/supply chains and support their own Scope 3 reporting efforts.

Equipping businesses to take action

Many businesses’ sustainability journeys are hindered by the fragmented landscape of sustainability solutions. According to recent research, nearly half of Singapore's SMEs are unaware of the tools and resources they need to get started on sustainability. Many businesses struggle to navigate overlapping offerings by different providers, leaving them overwhelmed and uncertain about where to begin.

To address this, Gprnt has launched a marketplace that serves as a centralised portal to anchor the ecosystem of sustainability solutions. It pairs with Gprnt Disclosure by connecting users to relevant solutions via a proprietary intelligent recommendation engine, for them to take action on their sustainability data. This allows SMEs to be linked to solutions that not only fit their respective profiles and needs but demonstrate clear value-add atop the baseline services offered by Gprnt.

Listing on the Gprnt Marketplace is presently offered free of charge. At its time of launch, 78 sustainability solutions have been onboarded, spanning Scope 3 carbon accounting, decarbonisation, energy optimisation, green and sustainability-linked financing, capacity-building, and third-party assurance offerings. Gprnt will embark on further initiatives to expand industry participation in the Marketplace and synchronise its listings with other key portals such as the NetZeroHub.SG.

Driving collaboration toward National and Regional Sustainability Goals

As a purpose-driven organisation, Gprnt has attuned its 2025 roadmap toward forging strategic and commercial partnerships that support the local and regional reporting needs of Singapore’s financial institutions, corporations, trade associations, and government agencies.

From Q1 2025, Gprnt will:

• Work closely with Ant International and MUFG Bank on leveraging Gprnt capabilities to tackle shared strategic priorities such as regional SME empowerment, sustainable supply chain financing, and joint community outreach.
• Pursue pilots with Canadian Solar, China Construction Bank Corporation Singapore Branch, City Developments Limited, DBS, HSBC, Maybank Singapore, NTT DATA Singapore, OCBC, Standard Chartered Bank, and UOB, across a variety of use cases;
• Partner Trade Associations and Chambers (TACs) such as the Singapore Manufacturing Federation and Sustainability Alliance to deploy sustainability reporting tools, and the Singapore Business Federation to support the Singapore Emissions Factors Registry;
• Engage the Singapore Exchange (SGX Group), MAS, and the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) on a climate-related disclosure (CRD) module to help larger Singapore companies in meeting their mandatory CRD requirements, and progressively their broader sustainability reporting needs;
• Collaborate with Enterprise Singapore to enable Singapore companies to obtain their basic emissions for disclosures, and the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE) to continue and explore ways to support statutory boards’ efforts to manage their data and publish their environmental sustainability disclosures.

“Gprnt’s suite of solutions and tools will play a significant role in simplifying the management and reporting of sustainability data, enabling organisations to focus on developing impactful sustainability strategies,” said Lim Tuang Liang, government chief sustainability officer, MSE. “We look forward to continuing and strengthening our collaboration with Gprnt to facilitate agencies’ efforts to manage their resource use as well as exploring other synergies.”

Helge Muenkel, chief sustainability officer at DBS, said: "Our pilot with Gprnt reflects DBS' commitment to empowering businesses, especially SMEs, on their sustainability journeys. The tool aims to help small businesses overcome traditional barriers like cost, complexity and resource limitations. This should simplity the reporting process for SMEs and offer them an accessible way to quantify their emissions, setting a foundation for deeper sustainability practices. As companies across sectors face growing regulatory and stakeholder pressures, DBS is excited to play a role in making meaningful, data-driven decarbonisation accessible to all."

Supporting Asia’s transition

Looking ahead, Gprnt will cater further products and partnerships to address Asia’s growing demand for sustainability reporting and data capabilities amidst increasingly complex regulatory landscapes. In this vein, users can expect the rollout of new features across 2025-2026 such as access to a new digital assurance module, an AI-powered sustainability assistant, a portfolio analytics tool to enhance users’ precision in acting on their reported data, and an ESG data registry powered by aggregated insights from Gprnt’s user base.

Gprnt will work closely with its industry partners to drive the adoption of these solutions in and beyond Singapore, to support all organisations in continually streamlining their ESG reporting and compliance efforts, as needed to drive meaningful and informed actions toward net zero outcomes.

Re-disseminated by The Asian Banker