Contributor:  TAISE 
TAISE has been educating the public and private sector on how to adopt transparent governance frameworks that address sustainable development issues of local relevance for the 2030 SDG Agenda. The Asia-Pacific Sustainability Action Awards (APSSA)  has seen a surge in participation from organizations across different sectors.Alessia, who served as one of the judges, shared her reasons why you should consider being part of APSSA. 

Alessia has followed closely how the selection process criteria encourages organizations to think of their impact as a key value differentiator for business and society. The TAISE has placed a steady focus on the levers that participants chose in designing an initial sustainability roadmap, recalibrating its efforts to achieve multi-year progress, and ultimately, aligning organizational and societal performance objectives.  

Each institution – ranging from Taiwanese businesses to academic hubs, medical centers and government agencies – is tasked to address the SDGs as enablers of stronger management capabilities. The institutions that enter the APSSA process have a keen focus on their immediate stakeholders – employees, supply chain partners and customers – by embedding sustainability as a driver of business resilience and an amplifier of organizational well-being and corporate culture. In the case of multinational enterprises, the lens shifts from the Taiwanese market to discover lessons learned that may be readily transferable to other geographies. Such is the case for electronics companies that have found their strategic hub in Taiwan and seek to fully integrate transparent procurement practices with traceability initiatives that balance circularity efforts, or the scientific research collaborations on industrial-scale breakthroughs in renewable energy pilots. 

The thematic innovations that have been praised for creating the most impact on business and society include connecting migrant workers with opportunities for digital access to financial services; aligning environmental management of campus operations with health and safety of university staff members and students; promoting local access to social, sustainable and green bond markets. At the sector level, the implementation of smart papermaking processes as well as the redesign of agricultural methods to help address food shortages are only a few of the hundreds of projects undertaken by the organizations that have embarked on their sustainability journey through the TAISE and the APSSA in the Asia-Pacific region.