By WAN IMRAN, FULLER IMPACT CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER  

LAST year at the SIDC–CASI Sustainable and Responsible Investment Conference, the Securities Commission (SC) said something that I don't think got the attention it deserved. 

Speaking to a room of local and international delegates, the SC didn't just acknowledge that Malaysia's sustainability workforce was growing.  

Then SC Chairman, Dato’ Mohammad Faiz Azmi, called on sustainability practitioners to organise themselves; to come together, look honestly at training needs, skills gaps, and entry requirements, and start putting themselves in a position to set professional standards for the field. 

You read that correctly. The regulator didn't say "we'll define this for you." It said the profession needs to define itself. 

I've spent the better part of six years working with Malaysian companies trying to build sustainability capability from the ground up. And if there's one sentence that captures what's missing from this entire conversation, it's that one. 

We built the frameworks but not the profession 

In the space of two years, Malaysia has moved with real speed. The National Sustainability Reporting Framework (NSRF) is in force and the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, namely the IFRS S1 & S2, are now the baseline for how our largest listed companies report.  

That's the infrastructure currently in place.  

But here's the question nobody's answered yet: who is qualified to do the work that is required for all of this? 

When a company needs its financial statements audited, there's no ambiguity about who can sign off on them.  

The designation means something: a defined body of knowledge, an entry standard, a code of conduct, ongoing competency requirements, and a body that can revoke your right to practise if you get it wrong.  

Although some may say that it’s a bureaucratic process more than anything, it is what lets a bank, an investor, or a regulator trust a number without re-checking it themselves. 

Sustainability reporting in Malaysia doesn't have that yet. Anyone can call themselves an ESG consultant. Anyone can prepare a sustainability statement. Some will do it well. Some won't.  

Right now, there's no shared standard that tells a board, or a regulator, which is which. 

A turning point 

Malaysia didn't always have this for accountancy either. The Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA), a statutory body established under the Accountants Act 1967, exists precisely because the alternative; a market full of people doing financial work with no common standard; became untenable once capital started moving at scale.  

Globally recognised accountancy qualifications operate alongside it today, but the foundation was a locally anchored, enforceable standard. 

We are at that exact inflection point with sustainability. The capital is moving. The reporting requirements are real and increasing.  

The only thing missing is the standard that tells everyone involved, including boards, investors, regulators, and the practitioners themselves what "qualified" means. 

Who sets the standards and who delivers it 

When we talk about a professional standard, the instinct is to think of a single body that sets the rules and trains the practitioners. That model has its strengths but it also has a well-documented limitation: it concentrates expertise in the hands of whoever gets in first, and over time, delivery becomes the territory of a small group of anchor institutions rather than a broader community of qualified providers. 

A more durable model would look slightly different.  

It separates standards-setting from delivery. A central body defines what competency looks like i.e. the body of knowledge, the entry requirements, the code of conduct, and it certifies a wide ecosystem of providers to deliver against that standard, rather than controlling delivery itself. 

We already have working examples of this. The IFRS Foundation's ISSB Training Partner programme and GRI's certified training partner network both function on this principle: set the standard, open the delivery.  

Fuller Academy, for instance, holds both FSA Credential Approved Education Provider and ISSB Training Partner recognition with the IFRS Foundation to deliver globally, and the reason models like this work is precisely because they don't require delivery to flow through a single institution. 

HRD Corp's Train the Trainer certification runs on the same logic domestically with how the standard is centralised alongside a broad delivery ecosystem. 

Building blocks already exist but they aren't connected yet 

Locally, several ESG-focused associations have formed in the past year, each doing real work, each attracting genuinely capable people. 

What's missing is the connective layer. A recognised, Malaysia-anchored standard that these efforts can converge around – one that raises the floor for everyone working in this space. 

The risk of getting this wrong isn't that we fail to build a professional body. It's that we build one that looks rigorous from the outside but functions as a closed ecosystem on the inside which limits the depth and reach of what a community of practitioners could otherwise drive forward. 

Counterintuitive almost. 

The SC has already started this conversation. The practitioner community, including organisations like ours that sit in the capacity-building space, has a responsibility to help carry it forward.  

The standards, when they arrive, should lift the baseline for everyone in the field. After all, inclusivity should not be exclusive. 

The next question is: who will deliver on all of it, and how do we build that profession in a way that doesn't repeat the mistakes of the ecosystems that came before?