MAS Launches Digital Platform For Seamless ESG Data Collection And Access

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) today launched Gprnt (pronounced “Greenprint”), an integrated digital platform that harnesses technology to simplify how the financial sector and real economy collect, access and act upon environmental, social and governance (ESG) data to support their sustainability initiatives.

Gprnt is the culmination of MAS’ Project Greenprint ^[1] and offers an enhanced digital reporting solution for both large businesses and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to seamlessly report their ESG information. This is currently undergoing live testing with selected banks and SMEs, and will be progressively rolled out from Q1 2024 onwards. When fully implemented, Gprnt’s reporting solution is expected to help companies automate their ESG reporting process, and allow end users (such as financial institutions, regulators and large corporates) to access relevant data and timely insights to support their sustainability-related decision making. The platform will also synergise across Project Greenprint’s existing functions to support enhanced data access and product innovation by the ESG community ^[2] .

Following its launch, Gprnt will expand its cross-border capabilities to better serve the more sophisticated data needs of larger multi-national entities and other regional economies. To achieve this, a new entity, Greenprint Technologies Pte Ltd, will be set up, with HSBC, KPMG in Singapore, MAS, Microsoft and MUFG Bank joining as strategic partners.

Automating ESG reporting for businesses
Gprnt will function as an inclusive and interoperable data layer that serves both businesses and corporates as well as financial institutions. It will simplify ESG reporting by enabling businesses to automatically convert their economic data into sustainability-related information.

Data collection: Gprnt will pursue integrations with a range of digital systems employed by businesses in their day-to-day activities. These include systems for utilities consumption, bookkeeping and payroll solutions, building and waste management, payments gateways, and networks for artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) sensors and devices.

• These integrations will allow businesses to consent to the release of data via application programming interfaces (APIs), to enable Gprnt to help businesses compute their basic sustainability metrics in an automated and efficient way.
• To make this data collection more seamless for businesses in Singapore, Grpnt will also enable the retrieval of relevant data from trusted government sources via Myinfo business, by using their Singpass ^[3]

Data computation: Gprnt will translate and compute source data into ESG-related outputs for businesses to report.

• Where businesses’ source data is unavailable, the platform will provide AI tools such as intelligent document processing (IDP) to extract key data from user-uploaded documents.
• A GPT4-powered chatbot ^[4] will aid businesses in crafting their sustainability disclosures and recommending actionable insights.
• The platform will cater for the mapping of sustainability metrics across key global reporting standards ^[5] and automatic generation of basic sustainability reports from the middle of next year onwards. This reduces duplicative reporting for businesses that are required to adhere to different standards should their activities span multiple geographies and markets.

Data access: Businesses have the discretion to decide whom to share their ESG information with. These include:

• Financial institutions, for purposes of obtaining green and sustainability-linked loans;
• Industry partners, to access green business and supply chain opportunities;
• Government or regulatory bodies, to fulfil climate reporting requirements or apply for sustainability-related grants; and
• International platforms such as the Net Zero Data Public Utility , for businesses seeking to affirm their climate transition commitments at the global level ^[6] .​

Meeting the needs of smaller businesses, multinational firms and national authorities alike
Gprnt will initially focus on addressing the baseline reporting needs of SMEs, which form the backbone of the global economy but face numerous challenges to commencing their sustainability reporting journeys ^[7] . For Singapore-based SMEs, MAS is consulting government agencies such as the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), Enterprise Singapore, and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to ensure that Gprnt’s reporting solution can fully support local SMEs’ reporting needs. Trade Associations and Chambers (TACs) are critical enablers for initiating SMEs on these journeys, and MAS is pleased to announce that the Singapore Manufacturing Federation (SMF) will be the first TAC to partner Gprnt in offering a basic sustainability reporting tool to its member base of approximately 5,000 entities.

Gprnt will progressively scale its capabilities and network of data sources next year, to serve the more advanced needs of larger multi-national corporations (MNCs), financial institutions, supply chain players and national authorities. Gprnt will partner these organisations to co-develop focused modules for sectoral data collection and outcomes tracking, to better support the transitioning of key sectors such as energy, industrial and real estate. Gprnt will also collaborate with ESG data providers and core banking solution providers like Temenos to develop capabilities that streamline how bank users leverage their data to access sustainable financing.

New entity to drive Gprnt
The Gprnt platform will be managed by a newly-created entity, Greenprint Technologies Pte Ltd. Strategic partners HSBC, KPMG in Singapore, MAS, Microsoft and MUFG Bank will bring capabilities and expertise to support commercialisation of the platform and onboarding of further partners in due course. The new entity will closely engage key financial institutions and technology providers to drive the adoption of Gprnt’s automated disclosure solution.

Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of MAS, said, “Gprnt provides a key data bridge that can generate the trusted and high quality ESG data needed by the financial sector to more efficiently allocate capital towards green and transition initiatives. By harnessing generative AI and data APIs at scale, Gprnt will greatly simplify sustainability reporting for SMEs, and in doing so unlock the data needed by the public and private sectors to support SMEs’ sustainability journeys. Greenprint amply demonstrates how a regulator and the industry can come together to co-build technologies that enhance the quality and use of good data. I look forward to seeing how the new Gprnt platform will power the next bound of growth and innovation in the global ESG data landscape.”

^[1] For more information, see https://www.mas.gov.sg/development/fintech/green-fintech . Project Greenprint’s four utilities – a disclosure portal, a data registry, a solutions marketplace, and data orchestration capabilities – will be consolidated and synergised under the new platform.

^[2] The Gprnt platform will provide a launchpad for the ESG data and FinTech community to innovate new products and enhance existing capabilities, through: • Its data registry which will facilitate access to aggregated data and insights from Gprnt’s ecosystem; and • Its marketplace function which will be launched next year to connect solution providers to investors, financial institutions and corporates. Deeper synergies will be forged with Gprnt’s reporting solution to allow users to augment their reporting with third party capabilities such as the calculation of entities’ Scope 3 emissions, application of AI-powered benchmarking and target setting, and generation of ESG-related scores or ratings. A developer sandbox and tools such as software development kits (SDKs) will also be availed to support open experimentation and innovation.

^[3] Relevant government data entails businesses’ entity profile, water and electricity consumption data. Singpass accounts must be linked to a valid Unique Entity Number (UEN) in order for this data to be accessed.

^[4] The capability is powered by Microsoft Azure’s OpenAI GPT4 model.

^[5] Such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standard, the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework, and in future the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) standards.

^[6] For more information, see https://www.mas.gov.sg/news/media-releases/2023/mas-and-sgx-group-to-collaborate-with-csdc

^[7] These challenges include navigating the complexities of the sustainability reporting landscape, due to the presence of multiple global standards and sectoral reporting frameworks; insufficient resources and know-how to generate basic sustainability reports on their decarbonisation efforts; and high cost of employing technological solutions and consulting services.