For Singtel Group, sustainability is “not about compliance or ticking boxes, but about doing what’s right while creating long-term value.” Speaking to ESG Post following the company’s wins at the Asia Sustainability Reporting Awards, Aileen Tan, Group Chief People and Sustainability Officer at Singtel, reflects on how climate risk, AI, double materiality and transparent reporting are shaping the Group’s business strategy.
At the 11th edition of the awards, Singtel received multiple recognitions, including Platinum for Asia’s Best Diversity Reporting, Silver awards for Asia’s Best Community Impact Reporting, Asia’s Best Sustainability Report (Governance) and Asia’s Best Climate Reporting, as well as Bronze for Asia’s Best Sustainability Report (Large Company). Tan explains why Singtel views sustainability reporting as a discipline that builds trust, sharpens performance and underpins resilience in an increasingly complex operating environment.
How does sustainability fit within your overall business strategy and long-term value-creation goals?
Managing climate-related and other emerging risks have always been a key priority for the Singtel Group, as we believe these to be fundamental to business resilience and long-term success. We are committed to creating sustainable value for all our stakeholders – our people, customers, communities and supply chain.
As a leading communications technology group, we are well aware that the rapidly evolving landscape of technology and sustainability brings both promising opportunities and significant risks. AI is a clear example of this. While we aim to leverage AI as a growth driver through our unique role as adopter, provider and enabler across the AI value chain, AI deployment comes with greater energy and water consumption. This underscores the need for us to step up our environmental initiatives.
Our sustainability strategy is guided by our purpose to Empower Every Generation and shape a better, more inclusive world for all. We’ve adopted a sustainability framework built around four key pillars, Climate Change and Environment, People and Future of Work, Community Impact and Sustainable Value Creation. These pillars help embed responsible growth, resilience and long-term value creation in how we operate, innovate and create long-term value. They also ensure that we keep up with changing regulatory requirements, and that we meet our stakeholders’ high expectations for sustainability.
We’ve realised that we can make a much bigger and more positive impact on the world by working with others. One example of this is our launch of the new Singtel Group Responsible Procurement Policy last year. It consolidates and formalises our expectations for the thousands of suppliers that we work with in areas such as labour rights, environmental impact and the responsible sourcing of materials. The policy will help ensure that we collaborate with businesses that share our sustainability ambitions and that we embed sustainable, ethical and responsible sourcing into the way we do business.
What do your award wins at the 11th Asia Sustainability Reporting Awards mean for your sustainability team and your organisation?
Winning at the 11th Asia Sustainability Reporting Awards is a meaningful milestone for our sustainability team and for the organisation as a whole. For us, reporting isn’t just a compliance exercise. It’s about creating clarity, building trust and showing in a transparent way how our decisions translate into real-world impact. These awards affirm that our efforts to communicate openly and responsibly are resonating, not just with our stakeholders but within the broader sustainability community.
More importantly, the recognition reinforces a mindset that sustainability is not a destination we arrive at once targets are met. It’s a continuous journey that demands consistency, discipline and accountability. Reporting plays a critical role in that journey: it pushes us to measure what matters, to acknowledge both progress and gaps, and to refine our approach as we learn.
It also gives us a platform to engage others – partners, suppliers, customers, peers – who are equally committed to driving positive change. When we are transparent about what works and what doesn’t, we help elevate standards across the ecosystem. Ultimately, these awards motivate us to keep raising the bar and to continue contributing to a future that is more resilient, inclusive and sustainable.
Sustainability reporting has evolved rapidly. How has your reporting approach matured over the past few years, and what were the biggest lessons from this journey?
Sustainability reporting has evolved rapidly in recent years, and our approach at Singtel has matured in step with these developments. The landscape has become significantly more dynamic, driven by new standards, heightened regulatory expectations and increased scrutiny from investors and the broader market. This has pushed us to strengthen the credibility, clarity and relevance of our disclosures, and to ensure they are aligned with global norms and stakeholder expectations. Reporting is a continuous journey that demands consistency, discipline and accountability.
Over the past few years, we have expanded the scope of our reporting to cover the full breadth of our business and geographical footprint, including smaller overseas offices to provide a more comprehensive picture of our Group-wide impact. We have also begun integrating industry-specific indicators, such as the GSMA ESG metrics for the telecommunications sector, to enable more meaningful comparisons and benchmarking. More recently, we have started preparing for the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards issued by the ISSB, which will further enhance consistency, comparability and transparency across our disclosures.
Another notable shift we have made has been to move beyond simply cataloguing activities to measuring progress and impact. Rather than reporting on what we do, we increasingly focus on what it achieves. This approach provides a clearer picture of performance, outcomes and longer-term value creation for stakeholders.
A key learning through this journey has been finding the right balance between too much and too little information. Reporting should empower, not overwhelm. As such, we focus on making our disclosures concise, relevant and meaningful, emphasising the issues that matter most to stakeholders
Could you walk us through the process of materiality assessment — and how you are now integrating double materiality or value-chain impacts into your reporting?
Materiality assessments are an essential part of how we shape our sustainability journey at Singtel. They help us stay grounded in what really matters to our people, our customers, our partners and the communities we serve. By understanding where we can create the most meaningful impact, we are able to focus our energy and resources where they will make the greatest difference. This approach ensures that our efforts are guided not only by regulatory expectations, but also the outcomes and priorities that matter most to our stakeholders.
We recently completed a double materiality assessment to prepare for the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, overlaying our assessment with a financial lens. Our material topics were identified through a structured process that included industry benchmarking, a deep assessment of impacts across our value chain and a careful evaluation of the significance and likelihood of ESG risks and opportunities. We considered both the “outside-in” perspective, or how external sustainability trends may affect our business, and the “inside-out” perspective, which looks at how our activities influence people, the environment and the broader economy.
Importantly, this assessment was conducted at the company level across the Group. This allowed us to recognise the unique contexts and responsibilities of each business unit, giving us a more holistic and accurate view of the issues that matter most to Singtel.
The insights from this work, together with refreshed targets for each material topic, will be shared in our Sustainability Report this year as part of our ongoing efforts for transparent and meaningful reporting.
Reporting aside, which sustainability initiative or achievement from the past year are you personally most proud of?
I’m pleased that we achieved most of the 2025 targets that we had set for ourselves following a materiality assessment conducted in 2020, especially in the areas of climate and carbon reduction, our people and digital enablement of our community. Our climate strategy was once again recognised with an ‘A’ score in the CDP Climate Change assessment, and Singtel is the first Southeast Asian telecommunications company to achieve this highest rating by CDP.
How do you engage internal teams and business units in the sustainability agenda so that reporting reflects genuine performance, not just compliance?
We have always believed that sustainability has to be strategic and purposeful. It’s not about compliance or ticking boxes, it’s about doing what’s right for our people, customers and communities, while creating long-term value for the business. For our reporting to reflect genuine performance, our entire organisation needs to be part of the journey, not just a small sustainability team.
This is why consistent engagement with our internal teams and business units is so critical. We hold regular conversations with business units and internal stakeholders, helping them understand why sustainability matters commercially, operationally and reputationally, and how they can translate commitments into tangible progress in their own areas. Practical ideas often emerge from these discussions, from how we can support enterprise customers in reducing their carbon footprint, to clarifying data ownership and improving the quality of inputs for our disclosures. When people understand how their work connects to our broader sustainability goals, they are more motivated and better equipped to drive measurable outcomes.
We also place strong emphasis on embedding sustainability into business operations. Our Group Sustainability function works hand-in-hand with cross-functional steering committees and working groups to operationalise initiatives aligned with our material topics. This helps move the organisation from experimentation and innovation to deployment at scale, ensuring successful pilots don’t remain isolated success stories but become systematic ways of working. This operational integration is essential for achieving impact, not just intent.
To reinforce shared accountability, we have integrated collective ESG targets into our top executives’ KPIs, linking them to both short- and long-term incentives. These targets span climate and environment, responsible business, community impact and digital inclusion, as well as people and talent dimensions such as diversity, culture and retention. They are cascaded throughout the organisation, with relevant operational ESG metrics assigned to teams and individuals. This ensures sustainability becomes part of how we manage performance and make decisions, not a parallel activity.
Ultimately, our aim is to build a culture where sustainability is understood not as a trade-off but as a driver of efficiency, risk management, innovation and long-term competitiveness. That’s what enables reporting to reflect real performance and impact, not just compliance.
Looking ahead, what are your top three sustainability priorities for the next few years?
From an ESG perspective, our priorities are clear and aligned to where Singtel Group can create the greatest impact:
Our first priority is delivering on our 2030 SBTi-aligned climate targets through our 4D environmental strategy: Decarbonise, Dematerialise, Defend and Deliver. This framework guides how we reduce emissions and material footprints, protect against climate risks and deliver stronger environmental outcomes across our value chain.
A major focus over the next few years will be energy transition pathways initiatives that keep us on the right trajectory toward our net-zero ambition by 2045 with credible, externally validated emissions reductions.
Our second priority is strengthening our social impact through greater digital inclusion and future-ready skills as society enters a more AI-driven phase. We see this in two dimensions:
- Supporting communities through digital literacy, scam awareness and technology enablement for vulnerable groups such as seniors, youth, low-income households and migrant workers—often in partnership with organisations like IMDA and the South West CDC.
- Preparing our workforce for the AI era by equipping employees with data literacy, AI fluency and emerging tech skills to support employability and responsible transformation.
This ensures technology becomes an equaliser rather than an amplifier of inequality.
Our third priority is reinforcing governance mechanisms that safeguard trust, particularly as we deploy more advanced digital and AI-powered technologies. This includes:
- stronger data and cyber governance
- responsible AI guardrails and risk management
- enhanced ESG disclosures and transparency
- ethical business conduct across operations and supply chains
For us, governance is about stewardship rather than compliance, ensuring that innovation is responsible, safe and aligned with societal expectations.
Underpinning all three priorities is the need to embed sustainability across the Singtel Group. We want every business unit, regardless of structure or geography, to feel genuine ownership, integrate responsible practices into everyday decisions, and contribute to the delivery of our targets. This organisational engagement is essential for scaling impact beyond pilots and for translating strategy into performance.
