Drivers and Sources of Business Sustainability Initiatives in the World Including Asia

This chapter discusses initiatives and drivers of recent moves toward business sustainability performance and integrated sustainability reporting and assurance with a keen focus on Asia. Global and national stock exchanges have promoted sustainability performance reporting by adopting laws, regulations and listing standards that specifically mandate sustainability reporting. The global reporting initiative (GRI) was launched in 1997 to bring consistency, complete and global standardization to sustainability reporting. The GRI promotes sustainability reporting as a standard practice of disclosing sustainability‐related issues that are relevant to companies' business and their stakeholders. In April 2013, the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) released the draft of its framework consultation on integrated reporting, which provides guidelines on communication with stakeholders. The chapter presents sources and drivers of sustainability in Asian jurisdictions. In summary, countries in Asia have their own sustainability programs and initiatives that are shaped by their unique individual economic, cultural, political and legal infrastructures.