ESG by ZYTAnswers about ESG, carbon and reporting
30 questions, answered plainly — what the frameworks are, how emissions are actually calculated, what Singapore and Malaysia require, and exactly how ESG by ZYT arrives at a figure. Written for someone who has just been asked for a number and has never done this before.
Sustainability, plainly
What ESG actually means, why your customer is asking, and what a small business is realistically expected to do.
What is ESG?
ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance — three groups of things about a company that are not in its financial accounts but still affect whether it is a good business to buy from, lend to or work for. In practice, "doing ESG" for a small business usually means measuring a few of those things and being able to show the figures.
Why is my customer suddenly asking for my emissions?
Because your emissions count as part of theirs. In greenhouse gas accounting, everything a company buys carries the emissions of the supplier who produced it, and the buyer has to report them. If your customer has been asked for that figure by a regulator, an investor or their own biggest customer, the only way they can get it is to ask you.
What does a small business in Singapore or Malaysia actually have to do?
Legally, in most cases, nothing. Neither Singapore’s nor Malaysia’s mandatory climate reporting rules reach a typical small or medium enterprise — both start with listed companies and work down to very large private ones. What you are likely to face instead is a customer, a bank or a tender asking for figures.
What is the difference between a carbon footprint and a sustainability report?
A carbon footprint is one number — the greenhouse gases associated with your business over a period. A sustainability report is a document that covers environmental, social and governance topics together, explains which of them matter to your business and why, and usually contains a carbon footprint as one part.
The frameworks
GRI, IFRS S1 and S2, the UN Global Compact, the GHG Protocol — who publishes them, what each one is for, and which applies to you.
What is GRI?
GRI — the Global Reporting Initiative — publishes the most widely used sustainability reporting standards in the world. GRI tells you what to disclose and how to word the claim, covering environmental, social and governance topics. It does not tell you how to calculate emissions; for that it defers to the GHG Protocol.
What is the difference between reporting "in accordance with" and "with reference to" the GRI Standards?
"In accordance with" is the full claim and requires you to satisfy all nine requirements in GRI 1. "With reference to" is the lighter claim: you use some GRI disclosures, say which, and make no assertion of completeness. Both are legitimate published positions — claiming the first without meeting all nine is not.
What is a "material topic", and how do I decide mine?
A material topic is a subject where your business has a significant impact on people or the environment — significant enough that leaving it out would mislead a reader. Under GRI 3 you determine your own material topics through a documented process, and that process, not just the conclusion, is part of what you report.
What are IFRS S1 and S2, and what is the ISSB?
The ISSB — International Sustainability Standards Board — is the sustainability counterpart to the body that sets international accounting standards. It publishes IFRS S1 (general sustainability disclosures) and IFRS S2 (climate). Unlike GRI, these are being written into law: Singapore’s and Malaysia’s mandatory climate reporting rules are both built on them.
What is the GHG Protocol?
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol is the measurement standard underneath almost everything else. It defines Scope 1, 2 and 3, sets the rules for what counts as yours, and specifies how to turn an activity into a tonne of CO2e. GRI 305 and IFRS S2 both tell you to disclose emissions; the GHG Protocol is how you calculate them.
What is the UN Global Compact, and should a small business join?
The UN Global Compact is a voluntary commitment, not a reporting standard. You sign up to ten principles covering human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption, and in return you take on one obligation: an annual Communication on Progress. It is a statement of intent that you then have to keep evidencing.
GRI, IFRS S1/S2, UNGC, CDP, SBTi — which one applies to me?
For most small businesses in Singapore and Malaysia: none of them are mandatory, and the right first move is a GHG Protocol carbon figure, because every framework wants that same number. Choose a disclosure framework only once you know who is asking and what they will do with it.
Carbon accounting
Scopes, emission factors, and why the same activity produces a different number in a different country.
What are Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions?
Scope 1 is what you burn yourself — fuel in your vehicles, gas in your kitchen. Scope 2 is the electricity you buy, burned at someone else’s power station. Scope 3 is everything else that happens because of your business, upstream and downstream: what you buy, how staff commute, how customers use what you sell.
What is an emission factor?
An emission factor is the conversion rate between something you did and the greenhouse gas it caused — for example 0.412 kg of CO2e per kilowatt-hour of Singapore grid electricity. You multiply your activity by the factor to get emissions. Almost all the judgement in carbon accounting is in choosing the right factor.
What does CO2e mean, and what is GWP?
CO2e — carbon dioxide equivalent — is a common unit that lets different greenhouse gases be added together. Each gas is converted using its Global Warming Potential, or GWP: the number of times more warming it causes than the same mass of CO2 over 100 years.
What is the difference between location-based and market-based Scope 2?
Location-based Scope 2 uses the average emissions of the grid you are physically plugged into. Market-based uses what you contractually bought — a green tariff, a power purchase agreement, or renewable energy certificates. The GHG Protocol requires both to be reported wherever such contracts are available.
Why is Scope 3 so much harder than Scope 1 and 2?
Because the data belongs to other people. Scope 1 and 2 come from your own meters and bills; Scope 3 spans fifteen categories covering everything you buy and everything that happens to what you sell, and almost none of it is measured by you. Most Scope 3 figures are estimates, and the honest ones say so.
What is a reporting boundary, and why does every figure need one?
A boundary is the statement of what a figure covers: which parts of the business, which activities, which period, and on what basis. Without it a carbon number cannot be compared to anything or checked by anyone — two businesses can report wildly different figures for identical operations purely by drawing the boundary differently.
Singapore and Malaysia
The rules as they actually stand in Singapore and Malaysia, and why the two are not interchangeable.
Who has to report climate disclosures in Singapore, and when?
All SGX-listed issuers must report Scope 1 and 2 emissions for financial years starting on or after 1 January 2025. Straits Times Index constituents add Scope 3 from FY2026. Large non-listed companies were originally due from FY2027, but ACRA and SGX RegCo extended that to FY2030 in August 2025. Everyone else has no mandatory requirement.
What is Malaysia’s National Sustainability Reporting Framework, and who does it cover?
The NSRF, issued by the Securities Commission Malaysia in September 2024, adopts IFRS S1 and S2 as Malaysia’s baseline sustainability disclosure standards. It phases in over three groups: the largest Main Market companies from FY2025, the rest of the Main Market from FY2026, and ACE Market plus large non-listed companies from FY2027.
Why can’t I use a Singapore emission factor for my Malaysian site?
Because the underlying infrastructure is different, not just the number. Singapore runs a gas-dominated grid and incinerates its waste; Peninsular Malaysia is coal-heavy and landfills. Applying one country’s factor to the other is not a rounding error — for waste it is the wrong model entirely, since landfill produces methane and incineration does not.
Does Singapore’s carbon tax apply to my business?
Almost certainly not. Singapore’s carbon tax applies only to facilities emitting at least 25,000 tonnes of CO2e a year directly — refineries, power stations, large petrochemical plants. The rate is S$45 per tonne for 2026 and 2027, with a stated intention to reach S$50–80 by 2030. There are no exemptions below the threshold because there is no tax below it.
Is there government support for SME sustainability reporting in Singapore?
Yes. Enterprise Singapore’s Enterprise Sustainability Programme includes an SME Sustainability Reporting Programme for companies with revenue below S$100 million. Support defrayed 70% of eligible costs for applications up to 31 March 2026, and 50% for applications from 1 April 2026 to 31 October 2027.
How ESG by ZYT works
Where every figure comes from, what the software refuses to do, and what it does not do yet.
Where do the emission factors in ESG by ZYT come from?
From published national and regional sources, recorded individually with a publisher, a citation, a vintage year and a tier. Singapore factors come from EMA, NEA and PUB; Malaysian grid factors from the Energy Commission and Sarawak Energy; fuels, refrigerants and flights from global references. Every factor names its source in the report.
How does ESG by ZYT actually calculate a figure?
Activity quantity × resolved emission factor = kg CO2e, and then the factor used is snapshotted onto the entry. The snapshot is the part that matters: a published figure stays reproducible even after the registry is updated, because the entry records the value, tier and resolution that produced it rather than pointing at whatever the registry says today.
How does ESG by ZYT decide whether a report is "in accordance with" GRI?
It derives the claim level rather than letting you choose it. A report is downgraded from "in accordance" to "with reference to" unless four conditions all hold: material topics have been determined, the GRI 3-1 process is described, every required disclosure has a value, and no factor used is provisional.
Is the quick footprint a real carbon footprint, or a marketing gimmick?
It is a real calculation and a deliberately narrow one. It uses the same factor registry and the same engine as the full inventory, so the arithmetic is identical — but it asks three to five questions, so its boundary is narrow and it says so on the face of the PDF. It is a screening estimate, not an inventory.
Will a report from ESG by ZYT be accepted by my customer, SGX, or a sustainability team?
For a customer’s supplier questionnaire or a tender, yes — that is what it is built for, and the figures carry the boundary, factors and sources a reviewer asks for. For a regulatory filing, no software makes a report acceptable on its own: mandatory filings need assurance, and this product does not provide or replace it.
What does ESG by ZYT not do?
It does not assure your figures, does not report market-based Scope 2, does not compare against a base year, does not notify GRI on your behalf, and does not apply GRI Sector Standards. It also cannot check whether the numbers you entered are true. Each of these is a real limitation with a real consequence, listed here rather than left to be found.
Why does ESG by ZYT organise data collection by department instead of by scope?
Because nobody in a small business knows what "Scope 3 Category 5" means, but the kitchen supervisor does know the gas bill. Collection is split into eight clusters named after who holds the data — power, transport, cooling, cooking, waste, people, digital, procurement — and each can be sent to that person by a link.
How is ESG by ZYT different from other ESG software?
Most carbon platforms are built for companies with a sustainability team and priced accordingly — enterprise tools commonly run tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. ESG by ZYT is built for a business where the person doing this also does three other jobs, and it is opinionated about refusing to produce numbers it cannot stand behind.
How the figures are produced
Every emission factor, the calculation and snapshot rules, what the claim gate checks before it will call a report “in accordance”, and a plain list of what ESG by ZYT does not do — assurance, market-based Scope 2 and base-year comparison among them.
Read the methodology →