.png)
Directors' Masterclass Series 2026: A Veteran's Sustainability Reporting Journey: Challenges and Opportunities
Speaker: Ian Monroe, President and Chief Investment Officer, Etho Capital;
Moderator: Ar. Dr. Serina Hijjas, Council Member, CGM
The masterclass examined how the climate transition is reshaping markets, business models and investment priorities, and why these shifts now sit squarely within the board's remit rather than with sustainability teams alone. Ian set the tone by arguing that net zero by 2050 is far too little, too late. With the world already past the 1.5°C threshold, he said the only target that matters is net zero as soon as possible. He pointed to the recent disaster in Nepal, wildfires in California, and above all heat waves, which he identified as the deadliest climate impact today. As these events grow, he expects policy pressure and board-level legal liability for inaction to rise with them.
Ian emphasised that the good news is the solutions already exist and are cost-competitive on a full lifecycle basis. The eight pillars from his textbook still hold: electrify everything, decarbonise electricity, cut land-use emissions, optimise efficiency, carbon removal, aligned policy incentives, redirecting capital to solutions, and elevating the truth. In Shanghai and Hangzhou he saw almost exclusively electric vehicles, including heavy trucks. Malaysia, by contrast, sits mid-pack on per-capita clean energy and lags on EV adoption, which he framed as both a competitiveness risk and an opportunity.
For board members, Ian set out four drivers of action: cost savings, tightening regulation, market access for Malaysian exports, and resilience against physical climate risk. He urged every company to consider on-site solar with batteries, which creates a "resilient island" that keeps operations and cooling running during outages. He also recommended electrifying fleets and installing employee EV charging with smart or bidirectional capability, so that vehicles and battery-integrated appliances can act as virtual power plants that add grid flexibility and create energy arbitrage returns.
On artificial intelligence, Ian argued that AI is currently doing more climate harm than good, though it need not. Where a company sources its AI matters. Some providers, such as Google and Alibaba, take clean energy and efficiency seriously, while others, including xAI, rely on behind-the-meter gas plants and use water wastefully.China requires data centres to source at least 85% of their energy from clean sources, while DeepSeek illustrates how greater computational efficiency can reduce costs and potentially lower environmental impact.
He warned against "token maxing," where employees are rewarded for maximising AI usage, and advised routing tasks to lighter models first. He contrasted a Crusoe and Redwood Materials data centre powered by solar and repurposed EV batteries with an estimate from former EPA officials of roughly $20 billion a year in health costs from AI data centre pollution. He also warned of an AI market bubble, noting the top 10 companies now make up over 40% of the S&P 500, and suggested a correction could free capital for more sustainable investment.
On supply chains, Ian advised mapping down to tier-two suppliers and helping suppliers adopt clean energy, since their resilience becomes the company's own. He pointed to RE100, EV100, EP100, relevant ISO standards and Green Software Foundation guidance as frameworks for best practice. He cautioned that climate litigation, now aimed at governments and fossil fuel producers, may soon reach major fossil fuel users, citing estimates of over 8 million deaths a year globally and around 23,000 in Malaysia from fossil fuel air pollution. He suggested Malaysia look to Norway as a model for using fossil fuel wealth to fund full decarbonisation.
The Q&A surfaced several themes. On Malaysia's growth as a data centre hub, Ian called for policies that set best-in-class standards on clean energy, water use and community engagement, citing Alphabet paying nearby homes and SMEs to install solar and batteries, and China's strategy of siting data centres in cool, renewable-rich regions. He noted US public opposition to data centres has risen to around 90% in many communities. When an audience member questioned whether the world is seeing an energy expansion rather than a transition, and raised AI's social costs including job losses and youth mental health, Ian agreed that paradigm shifts are needed and argued that growing public frustration has opened a rare window for them. On the slow pace of renewables, he acknowledged that retiring existing fossil infrastructure is the hardest challenge and said businesses, including SMEs, must drive change where national policy lags. Finally, on alternatives to GDP such as Gross Development Regeneration, he strongly endorsed broader accounting frameworks, drawing on Bhutan's Gross National Happiness.
The session concluded with clear calls to action. Boards should treat the energy transition as a matter of strategic cost, risk and fiduciary duty, with accountability assigned at board and C-suite level. Companies should electrify everything they can as quickly as they can, and treat storage and on-site solar as essentials rather than extras. AI should be adopted mindfully, with attention to energy source, efficiency and employee incentives. Supply chain resilience requires mapping and supporting suppliers beyond tier one. The moderator proposed that Climate Governance Malaysia circulate a board-level summary of these takeaways, including the eight pillars, to directors unable to attend.
In essence, the masterclass framed climate governance as a core driver of competitiveness, resilience and legal risk management. As Ian put it, the technologies to do far more good than harm already exist; what remains is for business leaders to make the decisions that deploy them.
Watch Recording
Comments