Across Asia, businesses are confronting a rapidly evolving operating landscape, where climate change, biodiversity loss and human rights can no longer be tackled as separate agendas. 

In Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, a common story is emerging: environmental degradation, land-use pressures, and climate impacts are increasingly intersecting with questions of community rights, livelihoods, and environmental justice. These challenges are deeply interconnected – affecting the right to a healthy environment and access to clean water, land, health, food security, and livelihoods – and demand integrated strategies from businesses and other actors.

To support stronger corporate responses to these intersecting issues, UNDP – through its Business and Human Rights (B+HR) portfolio and the regional initiative Promoting Responsible Business in Climate Change and Biodiversity in Asia (PRBCB) – delivered a series of national-level trainings in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

The trainings introduced an approach that links net-zero and nature positive business strategies with human rights due diligence, providing practical tools to assess and disclose greenhouse gas emissions, manage nature-related impacts, and strengthen stakeholder engagement. These sessions also helped participants align with global frameworks such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), and the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). They also served as pilot sessions for UNDP’s forthcoming Training Facilitation Guide on a Business and Human Rights Approach to Net-Zero and Nature Positive Strategies, helping ensure the guide reflects real world experience and priorities in the region.

Country Highlights

In Malaysia, 41 corporates joined a training focused on aligning business activities with the country’s newly adopted National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights (2025–2030). The sessions also linked corporate accountability with Malaysia’s pathway to carbon neutrality by 2050 and the National Policy on Biological Diversity (2022-2030), with exercises on emissions measurement, biodiversity risk assessment and nature-related disclosures. 

In Thailand, 39 participants took part in a training co-organized with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), exploring the intersection of human rights, climate change, and biodiversity within Thailand’s National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights (2023–2027) and the One Report ESG disclosure framework, which mandates sustainability reporting for listed companies. The workshop strengthened understanding of climate-related risks, biodiversity management, and just transition strategies, supporting Thailand’s commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2065 and to strengthen corporate transparency on environmental and social performance.

In Indonesia, 43 business representatives attended the Sustainability Academy Vol. 2: A Business and Human Rights Approach to Net-Zero and Nature Positive, held with the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN). The sessions connected Indonesia’s National Strategy on Business and Human Rights (NS-BHR) with climate goals under the FOLU Net Sink 2030, underscoring the shared duty of the State and private sector to respect, protect, and fulfil the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. The trainings further saw participation of the Ministry of Human Rights, that provided an overview of how comprehensive corporate reporting on human rights and environmental risks can be included in official government’s Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) tool for businesses, PRISMA.

Across all three countries, many participants shared that the trainings helped them more clearly articulate the close links between environmental degradation and human rights impacts. Even seasoned sustainability professionals noted that understanding these connections will strengthen how they engage with communities, assess risks and design more sustainable solutions.  

The trainings also come at a time of growing policy attention on the topic. In August, Malaysia launched its first National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights, and in both Indonesia and Thailand, discussions on mandatory human rights due diligence regulation are gaining momentum.  These developments will increasingly require companies to address, and disclose, their impacts on people and the planet in a more systematic way that seeks to improve transparency and accountability for human rights impacts. At the regional level, the ASEAN Declaration on the Right to a Safe, Clean and Healthy and Sustainable Environment (R2HE) was also recently launched during the ASEAN Summit. The declaration refers to the importance of businesses assessing, mitigating and disclosing the impact that their operations have on R2HE. 

Together, these developments signal a wider regional shift toward integrated and rights-based approaches to environmental and climate action, ensuring that responses to environmental crises also protect and uplift the people who are most affected.