Author: sHq_LoGiNz

At the 2026 IWBI Social Sustainability Summit in Singapore, one message came through clearly: the future of sustainable finance in Asia will not be defined by carbon alone.

In a fireside conversation titled Building Communities Where People Thrive: A Singapore Perspective on Social Resilience & Inclusive Growth, Abigail Ng, Chief Sustainability Officer of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), joined Giovanni Cossu, Head of Sustainability at CapitaLand Development (CLD), in a moderated conversation that ranged from transition finance to the decarbonization of the built environment. Their exchange surfaced a central question increasingly relevant across the region:

How do we finance the transition to a lower-carbon economy, while ensuring workers, communities and industries are not left behind?

Ng began by grounding the audience in a simple but often overlooked reality: whether the goal is healthier buildings, stronger communities, resilient infrastructure or social impact, progress ultimately depends on capital.

“Finance underpins many of these conversations,” she noted, emphasizing that mobilizing capital at scale is what turns ambition into implementation. For an audience spanning real estate, design, policy, education and corporate leadership, it was an important reminder that social sustainability is not only a design or operational challenge, it is increasingly a capital allocation challenge as well.

As Asia continues to balance rapid economic growth, energy security and decarbonization, MAS is supporting the development of new financial solutions that move beyond emissions reductions alone, towards adaptation and resilience needs, that benefit corporates and communities.

From Carbon Credits to TRACTION

Ng began by introducing TRACTION—the Transition Credits Coalition, a multi-stakeholder initiative that MAS convened to explore how Energy Transition Credits (ETCs) can accelerate Asia’s transition toward cleaner, more resilient and diversified energy systems. ETCs are high integrity carbon credits generated from the emissions reduced from the early retirement of coal plants and its replacement with clean energy source. The proceeds from the sale of such credits can reduce the costs incurred by coal asset owners and investors from voluntarily decommissioning the coal plants early and support Just Transition efforts.

ETCs are subject to rigorous methodological guardrails and multi-stage verification processes. TRACTION recommends independent validation of a baseline retirement date, i.e. the earliest date a coal plant would have realistically closed without credit intervention, to prove additionality. ETCs are also subject to ongoing monitoring to ensure the permanent decommissioning of coal infrastructure and the verifiable replacement of that capacity with clean energy. Verification extends to the social license to operate, where project proponents provide transparent reporting on the allocation of proceeds towards Just Transition initiatives, ensuring that commitment not merely a pledge, but a verified financial flow to the affected workforce.

But in Asia, decarbonization presents a uniquely complex challenge.

A significant share of the region’s electricity still comes from coal-fired power plants—many of them relatively young assets with less than 15 years of age. Asking plant owners to shut these facilities down early is not simply an environmental decision, it is also an economic and social one.
This is where TRACTION becomes particularly relevant.

Through TRACTION, MAS and its partners are exploring how ETCs can help coal plant owners retire assets ahead of schedule while supporting a broader transition toward cleaner, more diversified energy systems.

One pilot project in the Philippines is already exploring how a coal-fired power plant could accelerate its phase-out by approximately 10 years.

A Just Transition Is Not Optional

What makes MAS’s approach particularly notable is that social impact is not treated as a secondary benefit, it is built directly into the financial design.

“Just transition actually is one of the key foundations,” Ng explained during the session.
“Coal-powered power plant industries in Asia actually employ close to 7 million people,” she noted, highlighting that the region’s energy transition is not only about assets, but about livelihoods, communities and multi-generational economic stability.

ETCs, per the crediting methodologies in the market today, can only be issued after the coal fired power plant is permanently retired and a portion of the renewable energy replacement capacity is online. According to Verra’s VCM0052 methodology, the amount of funds allocated to implement the just transition plan must exceed 2% of the expected net revenues from the sales of carbon units.

These funds can be used to support activities including:

• mitigating loss of work of individuals, businesses, and communities whose livelihoods are directly impacted by accelerated CFPP retirement
• communication and consultations, including consensus-building with the identified stakeholders
  operations and management of just transition plan implementation

In other words, the energy transition cannot succeed if it is only low-carbon, it must also be fair, inclusive and economically viable.

Scaling Impact Requires More Than Good Intentions

When asked whether these models can scale across Asia, Ng was candid:
“It’s not easy, but it can be done.”

Like many breakthrough sustainability models, demonstration projects must come first. But moving from pilot to scale requires a different kind of capital.

This is where MAS sees blended finance playing a critical role.

By combining catalytic public capital, philanthropic funding, impact investment and eventually commercial financing, blended finance helps projects move through what Ng described as the “financing valley of death”, the stage where promising innovations often struggle to secure enough capital to scale.

Green Finance and the Built Environment: Connecting Capital to Lived Outcomes

The second question in the fireside chat shifted the lens from energy systems to the built environment, and asked how MAS thinks about the intersection of green finance and social outcomes.

Ms Ng highlighted that green finance must be evaluated not only by what it excludes, but by what it enables. “We want to see green loans and green bonds connecting to real outcomes for the people who live and work in these buildings, improved overall health, air quality, thermal comfort, access to green space. The financial label has to mean something on the ground,” she said.

She also drew attention to Singapore’s designation of 2026 as the Year of Adaptation, a signal that the city-state is also focusing its sustainability agenda toward resilience and adaptive capacity. In the region, there are growing adaptation and resilience needs to cope with the increasing impacts from physical climate risks which have direct consequences on infrastructure and property values, livelihoods and communities. There is a need for capital to be mobilized to finance resilience initiatives, and for MAS this is an area being explored with the financial industry.

Partnerships, Embodied Carbon and the Limits of Good Intentions

The conversation turned to one of the most intractable challenges in built environment decarbonization: embodied carbon in construction materials.

Mr Cossu acknowledged the complexity directly. “No single institution can drive a just transition alone,” he said, “and that is perhaps nowhere more true than in construction, where you have developers, contractors, material suppliers, banks and regulators all needing to move together.”

In this regard, MAS recognises that ecosystem-wide partnerships are essential. For example, industry associations like the Singapore Sustainable Finance Association (SSFA) which MAS supports, helps in connecting to the real economy through capacity-building and facilitating a credible and inclusive transition.

Asked what effective public-private partnership actually looks like on harder problems like this, Ng drew a distinction between partnerships that work and those that stall. Those that work, she argued, share three characteristics: a clear commercial rationale for each party, a shared definition of success, and early investment in building trust, before the difficult negotiations begin.

Why Common Language Matters

Capital only flows efficiently when markets speak the same language.

Ng emphasized that one of MAS’s most important roles is not just financing innovation, but creating frameworks, guidance and common reference points so that investors, banks, developers and supply chain partners can align around the same goals.

“If you have a common language, there could be a lot of friction,” she noted.

This philosophy has shaped MAS’s work on the Singapore-Asia Taxonomy, where Singapore helped pioneer the concept of transition categories, recognizing that many companies in emerging markets may not be “green” today, but need credible pathways to get there.

That pragmatic, transition-oriented approach has since attracted interest from other jurisdictions looking to develop similar frameworks.

The Next Frontier: From Environmental Transition to Human Transition

While taxonomies and transition frameworks across Asia have made important progress in defining environmental thresholds and transition pathways, the social dimension remains less systematically embedded.

That is why conversations like this matter.
As policymakers, investors and corporations increasingly focus on decarbonization, resilience and adaptation, the next frontier of sustainable finance may not simply be about reducing emissions, but about ensuring the transition strengthens livelihoods, protects communities and builds long-term social stability.

And as the region continues to grow, one thing is becoming increasingly clear:

The question is no longer whether we can finance the transition.

The question is whether we can finance a transition where people thrive.

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• Supplier engagement and supplier enablement are distinct drivers for impact.
• There’s a growing awareness for coupling sustainability with long-term business resilience and transformation.
• Incentives and operational support lead to meaningful outcomes.

Innovation Forum recently convened its Sustainable Apparel and Textiles conference in Amsterdam, convening 300 stakeholders from across the apparel and textiles value chain to discuss the future of sustainable business transformation.

Representing Cascale at the event, Christina Mašánová engaged in industry sessions, networking discussions, and business development meetings focused on the evolving challenges and opportunities shaping the consumer goods sector.

Held under Chatham House rules, the conference brought together brands, manufacturers, NGOs, solution providers, and sustainability leaders around a central theme increasingly resonating across the industry: sustainability must be integrated into core business strategy rather than treated as a standalone function.

Throughout the event, discussions reinforced that long-term business resilience and value creation will depend on how organizations operationalize sustainability across sourcing, finance, and commercial decision-making. At the same time, participants acknowledged that the industry still needs more practical case studies demonstrating how these approaches can be implemented and scaled successfully.

A recurring topic throughout the conference focused on the distinction between supplier engagement and supplier enablement. Conversations highlighted growing recognition that suppliers are often expected to deliver sustainability progress without sufficient investment in the systems, incentives, and operational support needed to achieve meaningful outcomes.

Sessions exploring circular business models further emphasized the need for companies to move beyond concerns about sales cannibalization and instead focus on long-term resilience, innovation, and business transformation.

Originally published in GoDaddy’s 2025 Global Stakeholder Impact Report

The internet was built to be open — and when it’s open, opportunity expands for everyone.

At GoDaddy, our purpose has always been to make opportunity inclusive for all. In 2025, the internet entered a new era — one shaped by AI agents acting on behalf of people and organizations.

These agents are not just tools. They are becoming participants in the digital economy — researching, transacting, supporting customers, and enabling growth at scale.

The question we focused on this year was clear: How do we ensure this next era of the web remains open, trusted, and accessible to entrepreneurs?

Our answer is infrastructure.

Democratizing the Agentic Open Web

This year we enhanced Agent Name Service (ANS) — a global open standard for AI agents, which began with a publicly available Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Internet-Draft. Just as domain names established ownership of digital presence, ANS extends that ownership into the agentic era — enabling verified, portable identities for AI agents across the web.

Identity builds trust.
Trust enables commerce.
Commerce creates opportunity.

Without open identity infrastructure, agents risk operating only inside closed ecosystems. With ANS, entrepreneurs maintain control of their agents, data, and customer relationships — reinforcing the openness that made the internet transformative in the first place.

This is not about adding complexity or promoting a product. It is about making sure the internet is accessible to all.

Impact Through Practical Innovation

Across our business, we continued to align innovation with measurable outcomes for our AI transformation. Consistent with our data-driven approach, we focus less on labels and more on results. This year was no different. Our approach is straightforward: build durable systems, report transparently, and tie impact directly to long-term value creation.

• We further strengthened data security and authentication standards to support trusted digital identities.
   
• We advanced responsible AI governance practices across our platform.
   
• We improved operational efficiency across our infrastructure while maintaining disciplined investment in renewable energy and resource management.

Building for the Long Term

Every major shift involving the internet — from domains to mobile to cloud — expanded access for entrepreneurship. The rise of AI agents is another such shift.

Our responsibility is to make sure this transition strengthens the open web rather than fragmenting it.

ANS is one step in that direction. It reflects our belief that infrastructure matters — and that the next generation of digital growth must be built on openness, trust, and ownership.

We remain focused on operating responsibly and empowering entrepreneurs with tools that are accessible, affordable, and resilient. When we do that well, we create value for our customers, communities, employees, and shareholders alike.

The open web has always been a catalyst for opportunity. In the agentic era, we are committed to keeping it that way.

Aman Bhutani
Chief Executive Officer, GoDaddy

Learn more about GoDaddy’s 2025 Global Stakeholder Impact Report. 

About this Report

The GoDaddy 2025 Global Stakeholder Impact Report details our progress toward our corporate sustainability goals, strategies, and initiatives in support of our overarching purpose and values. Unless otherwise noted, this report reflects our corporate sustainability performance across our global operations covering the fiscal year period from January 1 to December 31, 2025. To demonstrate our commitment to transparent communication regarding our sustainability progress, we routinely share updates through our website and our annual reporting. We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback on this report by contacting ESG@GoDaddy.com.

This report references the Global Reporting Initiative Standards, includes select Sustainability Accounting Standards Board metrics for the Internet Media and Services sector, and the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures. We also disclose our contributions and progress toward priority UN SDGs. For additional information on how we align with these frameworks and key indicators demonstrating our sustainability performance, please refer to the Frameworks & Metrics section.

About GoDaddy

GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain name registrar, helps millions of entrepreneurs globally start, grow, and scale their businesses. People come to GoDaddy to name their idea, build a website and logo, sell their products and services and accept payments. GoDaddy Airo®, the company’s AI-powered experience, makes growing a small business faster and easier by helping them to get their idea online in minutes, drive traffic and boost sales. GoDaddy’s expert guides are available 24/7 to provide assistance. To learn more about the company, visit www.GoDaddy.com.

Originally published in GoDaddy’s 2025 Global Stakeholder Impact Report

The internet was built to be open — and when it’s open, opportunity expands for everyone.

At GoDaddy, our purpose has always been to make opportunity inclusive for all. In 2025, the internet entered a new era — one shaped by AI agents acting on behalf of people and organizations.

These agents are not just tools. They are becoming participants in the digital economy — researching, transacting, supporting customers, and enabling growth at scale.

The question we focused on this year was clear: How do we ensure this next era of the web remains open, trusted, and accessible to entrepreneurs?

Our answer is infrastructure.

Democratizing the Agentic Open Web

This year we enhanced Agent Name Service (ANS) — a global open standard for AI agents, which began with a publicly available Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Internet-Draft. Just as domain names established ownership of digital presence, ANS extends that ownership into the agentic era — enabling verified, portable identities for AI agents across the web.

Identity builds trust.
Trust enables commerce.
Commerce creates opportunity.

Without open identity infrastructure, agents risk operating only inside closed ecosystems. With ANS, entrepreneurs maintain control of their agents, data, and customer relationships — reinforcing the openness that made the internet transformative in the first place.

This is not about adding complexity or promoting a product. It is about making sure the internet is accessible to all.

Impact Through Practical Innovation

Across our business, we continued to align innovation with measurable outcomes for our AI transformation. Consistent with our data-driven approach, we focus less on labels and more on results. This year was no different. Our approach is straightforward: build durable systems, report transparently, and tie impact directly to long-term value creation.

• We further strengthened data security and authentication standards to support trusted digital identities.
   
• We advanced responsible AI governance practices across our platform.
   
• We improved operational efficiency across our infrastructure while maintaining disciplined investment in renewable energy and resource management.

Building for the Long Term

Every major shift involving the internet — from domains to mobile to cloud — expanded access for entrepreneurship. The rise of AI agents is another such shift.

Our responsibility is to make sure this transition strengthens the open web rather than fragmenting it.

ANS is one step in that direction. It reflects our belief that infrastructure matters — and that the next generation of digital growth must be built on openness, trust, and ownership.

We remain focused on operating responsibly and empowering entrepreneurs with tools that are accessible, affordable, and resilient. When we do that well, we create value for our customers, communities, employees, and shareholders alike.

The open web has always been a catalyst for opportunity. In the agentic era, we are committed to keeping it that way.

Aman Bhutani
Chief Executive Officer, GoDaddy

Learn more about GoDaddy’s 2025 Global Stakeholder Impact Report. 

About this Report

The GoDaddy 2025 Global Stakeholder Impact Report details our progress toward our corporate sustainability goals, strategies, and initiatives in support of our overarching purpose and values. Unless otherwise noted, this report reflects our corporate sustainability performance across our global operations covering the fiscal year period from January 1 to December 31, 2025. To demonstrate our commitment to transparent communication regarding our sustainability progress, we routinely share updates through our website and our annual reporting. We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback on this report by contacting ESG@GoDaddy.com.

This report references the Global Reporting Initiative Standards, includes select Sustainability Accounting Standards Board metrics for the Internet Media and Services sector, and the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures. We also disclose our contributions and progress toward priority UN SDGs. For additional information on how we align with these frameworks and key indicators demonstrating our sustainability performance, please refer to the Frameworks & Metrics section.

About GoDaddy

GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain name registrar, helps millions of entrepreneurs globally start, grow, and scale their businesses. People come to GoDaddy to name their idea, build a website and logo, sell their products and services and accept payments. GoDaddy Airo®, the company’s AI-powered experience, makes growing a small business faster and easier by helping them to get their idea online in minutes, drive traffic and boost sales. GoDaddy’s expert guides are available 24/7 to provide assistance. To learn more about the company, visit www.GoDaddy.com.

Originally published in GoDaddy’s 2025 Global Stakeholder Impact Report

The internet was built to be open — and when it’s open, opportunity expands for everyone.

At GoDaddy, our purpose has always been to make opportunity inclusive for all. In 2025, the internet entered a new era — one shaped by AI agents acting on behalf of people and organizations.

These agents are not just tools. They are becoming participants in the digital economy — researching, transacting, supporting customers, and enabling growth at scale.

The question we focused on this year was clear: How do we ensure this next era of the web remains open, trusted, and accessible to entrepreneurs?

Our answer is infrastructure.

Democratizing the Agentic Open Web

This year we enhanced Agent Name Service (ANS) — a global open standard for AI agents, which began with a publicly available Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Internet-Draft. Just as domain names established ownership of digital presence, ANS extends that ownership into the agentic era — enabling verified, portable identities for AI agents across the web.

Identity builds trust.
Trust enables commerce.
Commerce creates opportunity.

Without open identity infrastructure, agents risk operating only inside closed ecosystems. With ANS, entrepreneurs maintain control of their agents, data, and customer relationships — reinforcing the openness that made the internet transformative in the first place.

This is not about adding complexity or promoting a product. It is about making sure the internet is accessible to all.

Impact Through Practical Innovation

Across our business, we continued to align innovation with measurable outcomes for our AI transformation. Consistent with our data-driven approach, we focus less on labels and more on results. This year was no different. Our approach is straightforward: build durable systems, report transparently, and tie impact directly to long-term value creation.

• We further strengthened data security and authentication standards to support trusted digital identities.
   
• We advanced responsible AI governance practices across our platform.
   
• We improved operational efficiency across our infrastructure while maintaining disciplined investment in renewable energy and resource management.

Building for the Long Term

Every major shift involving the internet — from domains to mobile to cloud — expanded access for entrepreneurship. The rise of AI agents is another such shift.

Our responsibility is to make sure this transition strengthens the open web rather than fragmenting it.

ANS is one step in that direction. It reflects our belief that infrastructure matters — and that the next generation of digital growth must be built on openness, trust, and ownership.

We remain focused on operating responsibly and empowering entrepreneurs with tools that are accessible, affordable, and resilient. When we do that well, we create value for our customers, communities, employees, and shareholders alike.

The open web has always been a catalyst for opportunity. In the agentic era, we are committed to keeping it that way.

Aman Bhutani
Chief Executive Officer, GoDaddy

Learn more about GoDaddy’s 2025 Global Stakeholder Impact Report. 

About this Report

The GoDaddy 2025 Global Stakeholder Impact Report details our progress toward our corporate sustainability goals, strategies, and initiatives in support of our overarching purpose and values. Unless otherwise noted, this report reflects our corporate sustainability performance across our global operations covering the fiscal year period from January 1 to December 31, 2025. To demonstrate our commitment to transparent communication regarding our sustainability progress, we routinely share updates through our website and our annual reporting. We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback on this report by contacting ESG@GoDaddy.com.

This report references the Global Reporting Initiative Standards, includes select Sustainability Accounting Standards Board metrics for the Internet Media and Services sector, and the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures. We also disclose our contributions and progress toward priority UN SDGs. For additional information on how we align with these frameworks and key indicators demonstrating our sustainability performance, please refer to the Frameworks & Metrics section.

About GoDaddy

GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain name registrar, helps millions of entrepreneurs globally start, grow, and scale their businesses. People come to GoDaddy to name their idea, build a website and logo, sell their products and services and accept payments. GoDaddy Airo®, the company’s AI-powered experience, makes growing a small business faster and easier by helping them to get their idea online in minutes, drive traffic and boost sales. GoDaddy’s expert guides are available 24/7 to provide assistance. To learn more about the company, visit www.GoDaddy.com.