We need clean air, not another sustainability report

 When breathing becomes a privilege, it reflects a failure of the system.

A child struggling to breathe should matter more than a company’s sustainability score.

That should be obvious. Yet every return of regional haze forces an uncomfortable question: are increasingly elaborate environmental, social and governance reporting requirements making the world better, or merely making corporate responsibility look better on paper?

We produce disclosures, establish committees and celebrate compliance. Meanwhile, communities need something simpler: air they can breathe without fearing what it will do to their children.

For Malaysia, the climate and haze crisis must be judged against that basic expectation. A polished sustainability report is not evidence that the people exposed to environmental harm are being protected.

The damage enters our homes

Haze is not merely an unpleasant view from an office window. Smoke contains fine particles, known as PM2.5, that can penetrate deep into the lungs.

Exposure can trigger coughing, wheezing, breathing difficulties and asthma attacks, and increase emergency visits and hospital admissions for respiratory conditions.

Children, older people, expectant mothers and those with existing heart or lung disease face greater risks. Outdoor workers face higher exposure because earning a living may require remaining outside when others can retreat indoors.

Behind these clinical descriptions are ordinary families making difficult decisions.

A parent must decide whether to take leave, arrange childcare or bring a wheezing toddler to a clinic. An older person with breathing problems faces another anxious night. A delivery rider must weigh the need for income against prolonged exposure.

The burden extends beyond treatment. Families can face transport costs, medicine bills and lost work hours. Employers must manage absences. Healthcare facilities must prepare for additional patients.

When schools close, lessons are interrupted and care arrangements become harder. Children lose opportunities to learn, play and socialise.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) identifies lost learning and recreational opportunities among the wider consequences associated with wildfire smoke and related disruption.

The injustice is plain: protection should not depend on whether a household can afford filtered air, private treatment or time away from work.

A climate crisis with human fingerprints

Climate conditions can make fires more dangerous, but weather must not become a convenient excuse for preventable damage.

Singapore’s environment ministry has explained that healthy peatlands are wet ecosystems that do not burn spontaneously. Draining peatlands and burning vegetation create fire risks, while prolonged dry conditions can worsen the intensity of fires.

The connection runs both ways. Damaged peatlands become vulnerable to burning, while fires release stored carbon and destroy ecosystems that should help protect the climate.

Preventing haze therefore requires more than extinguishing flames. It requires responsible land management before the burning starts.

The same crisis disrupted transport, trade and tourism and forced school closures. These are historical figures, not estimates for the present episode.

Their significance is that governments and businesses have long had evidence of how destructive uncontrolled fires can become.

Make businesses answerable

ESG reporting should help expose these risks, identify responsibilities and direct resources towards prevention.

But disclosure is a means, not the destination.

A zero burning policy should prompt questions about implementation. Who monitors the land? What happens when fire risks rise? Are suppliers scrutinised? Are prevention teams adequately equipped? Can independent investigators examine what happened?

Malaysian companies with operations abroad should be expected to explain their prevention systems wherever they operate. Geographic distance cannot be a persuasive answer to questions about group oversight.

Equally, accountability requires evidence. A hotspot near a concession is a reason to investigate, not an automatic verdict of guilt.

Authorities must establish where fires occurred, who controlled the land, what duties applied, what preventive measures existed and whether failures contributed to the damage.

Sustainability reports should become documents whose claims can be tested against operational records, independent findings and actual outcomes.

Investors, too, should ask whether returns are being sustained while environmental and health costs fall on people outside the balance sheet.

Replace reassurance with consequences

Malaysia needs a public response that begins before air quality deteriorates.

Authorities should publish clear warnings, practical school and workplace protocols, and arrangements to protect vulnerable communities. Health services should prepare for increased demand, rather than leave families navigating another emergency alone.

Regional cooperation must become operational. The Asean Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution already provides for prevention, monitoring, information exchange and mutual assistance.

Governments should demonstrate how these commitments translate into timely action. What about the penalties for those nations that fail to abide by these agreements?

Regulators must turn disclosures into investigations where warranted, and findings into enforcement. Boards must take responsibility for prevention across their operations and supply chains.

Investors and lenders must demand evidence that commitments are implemented.

Where wrongdoing is proven, those responsible must face meaningful penalties and pay for the damage caused, with board members held accountable wherever the evidence and applicable law establish personal liability.

Yet what accountability, if any, have we seen at board level in Malaysia over haze linked to operations in Kalimantan?

If Malaysian companies operate there, their directors must answer legitimate questions about oversight, fire prevention and whether their sustainability commitments are being honoured beyond our borders.

The costs must not simply remain with families, healthcare workers and taxpayers.

For Malaysia and our neighbours, the demand should be unequivocal: prevent the fires, establish responsibility, enforce the law and ensure those found liable pay for the damage.

Do not ask communities choking on haze to applaud another sustainability report. Show them what changed because of it.

Fewer fires. Fewer hospital visits. Fewer school closures. Cleaner air.

That is the ESG scorecard that matters. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT