Petronas Group Legal's inaugural ESG Legal Conference

Petronas Group Legal organised its inaugural ESG Legal Conference on 7th February 2023, convening all its in-house lawyers across the group at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. The aim was to better equip them in supporting Petronas’ sustainability agenda.

The conference kicked off with firm calls to action from Charlotte Wolff-Bye, Chief Sustainability Officer of PETRONAS and Razman Hashim, PETRONAS Group General Counsel.

Jia Yaw was invited as a panelist for the first panel discussion entitled ESG Due Diligence, alongside:

• Anthony Crockett, Partner, Herbert Smith Freehills, Hong Kong

• Kuok Yew Chen, Partner, Christopher & Lee Ong

• Siti Rafidah Moslim, Head of Governance & Embedment, PETRONAS

• YM Tengku Mohamed Fauzi Hamid, Commissioner, SUHAKAM

The panel discussion was moderated by Halimatun Saadiah, Group Chief Audit Executive, PETRONAS, who guided the discussion from the micro to the macro perspectives and moderated the questions from the floor.

Jia Yaw participated in his capacity as the co-chair of the Malaysian CSO-SDG Alliance. He spoke about how the SDGs, Human Rights and Climate Change frameworks should be our North Star. To an audience of fellow lawyers, he emphasised the need to unlearn and relearn.

So much needs to change, and there's so little time. A lot hangs on the lawyers within our national oil company to respond to the ground swell of challenges it will face.