ICDM Director Series 2025: Director’s Agenda for a New Era of Governance
In an age of unrelenting complexity and shifting stakeholder expectations, the role of the Board has moved far beyond traditional oversight. Today’s directors are expected not only to steer organisations through change but to transform how governance is defined, delivered, and held accountable.
As global regulatory frameworks tighten, ESG disclosures become mandatory, and public scrutiny heightens, Board members must now lead with foresight, resilience, and purpose-driven accountability. The ICDM Director Series 2025 responds to this need—offering high-impact, director-centric programmes focused on the most urgent and consequential issues in the boardroom today.
Curated for board leaders across industries, this year’s Director Series addresses a central theme: “Redefining Oversight for a Complex World.” Each programme is designed to provoke critical reflection, provide strategic clarity, and equip directors with actionable tools to strengthen governance in areas that increasingly define organisational value and risk.
As PwC’s 2024 Annual Corporate Directors Survey notes, “Boards that fail to actively engage on ESG, tax transparency, and ethical conduct risk falling behind—both in value creation and reputational capital.” Similarly, McKinsey's 2023 research on board effectiveness underlines that the most impactful boards are those that “actively reshape their agendas in response to new pressures—climate risk, regulatory activism, and societal expectations.”
Series 1: From Disclosure to Decarbonisation – Climate Governance for the Modern Board
Overview:
As the climate crisis escalates, directors must move beyond awareness into strategic climate governance. Boardrooms are now expected to demonstrate not only oversight but leadership in environmental stewardship, climate disclosures, and transition strategies. This programme addresses the essential question facing today’s Boards: How do we ensure that climate disclosures are not just compliant, but credible and value-creating?
This highly practical and forward-looking session will arm directors with a clear understanding of GHG accounting, the evolving carbon markets, and the board’s critical role in embedding decarbonisation strategies into business resilience and stakeholder confidence.
With regulatory expectations rising globally—from ISSB’s S2 standards to Bursa Malaysia’s enhanced sustainability reporting requirements under the National Sustainability Reporting Framework (NSRF), directors must understand how GHG inventories, assurance frameworks, and credible carbon claims intersect with fiduciary duty.
📌 Reference: ISSB S1 & S2 Climate Disclosure Standards (IFRS), Bursa Malaysia Sustainability Reporting Guide (2023 3rd Edition), CDP Global Disclosure Reports, and MSCI ESG Ratings Insights (2024).
Key Themes & Learning Outcomes:
- Demystifying GHG Accounting and the Board’s Oversight Role
- Why GHG reporting matters: regulatory risk, investor pressure, and board accountability
- Core principles of carbon accounting: relevance, accuracy, transparency
- Overview of key standards: GHG Protocol, ISO 14064, ISSB S2, and TCFD
- Board questions to assess credibility and rigour in climate reporting
- Designing a Robust GHG Inventory for Strategic Decisions
- Understanding inventory components: Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions
- Setting organisational and operational boundaries
- Data governance: collection, estimation, quality assurance
- Prioritising material emissions and integrating inventory into transition planning
- Board’s role in approving targets and overseeing changes in methodology
- Carbon Markets, Compliance, and Corporate Opportunity
- Voluntary vs compliance markets: understanding how they function
- Credits and offsets: nature-based vs technology-based solutions
- National and global developments: Article 6 (Paris Agreement), Bursa VCM, EU ETS
- Governance risks: greenwashing, reputational damage, due diligence on claims
- Strategic board oversight: monetising carbon, managing residual emissions, enhancing disclosure integrity
Why This Matters:
In today’s stakeholder economy, climate risk is investment risk. Boards that fail to grasp the fundamentals of carbon accounting and market mechanisms risk undermining not just compliance—but corporate strategy and credibility.
“Directors who do not understand the basics of climate-related financial risks may breach their legal duties under fiduciary law.” — Commonwealth Climate Law Initiative (2023)
Who Should Attend?
Board directors, audit and risk committee members, sustainability committee chairs, and C-suite leaders tasked with ESG and climate transition oversight.
Key Takeaway:
This is not a session about climate science. It is about strategic, financial, and reputational governance in the context of a decarbonising world. Directors will leave better equipped to ask the right questions, understand emissions data, assess claims, and navigate climate disclosures with confidence and credibility.
