Sustainability and ESG Report Design

Sustainability reports, climate disclosures, and integrated reports for SGX-listed companies, financial institutions, and public-sector clients in Singapore and across Asia.

A sustainability report is no longer a marketing artefact. It is a regulated disclosure that investors, rating agencies, and stakeholders read alongside the annual report — and it is held to the same standard. Made Good’s Design Collective matches your brief to an independent studio with deep ESG reporting experience, so your report meets framework requirements, lands on schedule, and reads with the clarity your stakeholders deserve.

The regulatory context, briefly

Sustainability reporting in Singapore and the wider region has shifted from voluntary to mandatory in the space of two reporting cycles. SGX now requires all listed issuers to provide climate-related disclosures aligned with the IFRS S2 standard, with phased mandatory assurance from FY2025 onwards. Financial institutions face additional MAS expectations on climate risk and net-zero transition planning.

For Singapore subsidiaries of European-headquartered groups, the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) brings ESRS reporting into scope, with double-materiality assessments and granular value-chain data requirements that significantly raise the design and production complexity of the report.

What this means in practice: your sustainability report now has to do three jobs at once. It must satisfy the framework auditor, communicate strategy and progress to investors and rating agencies, and remain readable for employees, customers, and the public. Design is what makes the third job possible without compromising the first two.

Frameworks and standards we design against

The studios in our network are fluent across the full reporting standards landscape and design layouts that map cleanly to the disclosure requirements your auditors and assurance providers will check.

• GRI Standards — the most widely used global standards for sustainability reporting
• SASB Standards — industry-specific sustainability disclosures, now part of the IFRS Foundation
• TCFD — Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (governance, strategy, risk management, metrics and targets)
• IFRS S1 and S2 — ISSB sustainability and climate disclosure standards (now mandatory for SGX issuers)
• SGX climate disclosure rules — Singapore-specific phased requirements, including third-party assurance from FY2025
• EU CSRD and ESRS — for SG entities consolidated into European parent groups
• Integrated Reporting framework — for organisations combining financial and non-financial reporting in a single document

What we design

A modern sustainability report is a content system, not a single document. We design the full set of assets your communications, IR, and sustainability teams need to release the report and brief stakeholders effectively.

• Full sustainability or ESG report — the core PDF and printed document, designed for both screen reading and print production
• Executive summary — a 12-20 page distilled version for time-poor stakeholders and rating agency engagement
• Climate-related disclosure section — designed to map cleanly to TCFD/IFRS S2 pillars for assurance review
• Data tables and performance indicators — designed for both readability and audit-trail clarity
• Infographics and data visualisations — turning emissions data, scenario analysis, and value-chain maps into stakeholder-ready visuals
• Sustainability microsite — a digital companion to the PDF, often hosted under your IR or corporate domain
• Investor and analyst presentation pack — slide-format extract of the headline disclosures and metrics
• Internal launch and employee briefing materials — town-hall decks, intranet visuals, line-manager talking points
• Social and stakeholder cutdowns — LinkedIn carousels, key-stat graphics, investor email assets

How we work

Sustainability reporting cycles are unforgiving. The design process is built around your reporting calendar, your assurance provider’s review windows, and your printer’s deadlines.

1. Brief and scope. A discovery call with your sustainability, IR, and communications leads. We confirm framework requirements, deliverable list, page-count expectations, key dates (board approval, assurance sign-off, print, release), and brand standards. We return a fixed scope and quote within two business days.
2. Design system. Before laying out the full report, we develop the design system — covers, section openers, data table treatments, infographic styles, typography hierarchy. This is signed off by your team in week one or two, then applied consistently across the document.
3. Layout and review cycles. Typically two to three full review cycles across the report. Content changes from your team are absorbed at each cycle. Assurance provider markups are integrated late in the cycle without restarting the layout.
4. Production and release. Print-ready PDF delivery to your printer, web-optimised PDF for the IR site, microsite handover (if in scope), and final stakeholder asset pack ready for the release-day comms plan.

Realistic timeline: 8 to 16 weeks from kickoff to release-ready, depending on report length, framework complexity, and the number of assurance and review cycles. Tighter timelines are possible with a stripped scope or if a design system already exists from a prior cycle.

Featured work

The case studies below are anonymised. Most of our partners’ sustainability and ESG work is delivered under client NDAs; full reference work is shared privately under mutual NDA at the brief stage. More on how we present project work →

SGX Mainboard-listed REIT — first IFRS S2-aligned climate disclosure

Brief: Refresh the sustainability report to incorporate the issuer’s first IFRS S2-aligned climate-related disclosures, alongside continued GRI reporting. Tight 10-week window between board approval and release.

Approach: A Collective partner studio with prior REIT and TCFD experience designed a new disclosure section that mapped cleanly to the four IFRS S2 pillars, with data tables structured for the assurance provider’s review checklist. Data visualisations were standardised across the report to make year-on-year comparisons obvious.

Outcome: Report delivered on schedule with no design-related assurance findings. Investor and analyst feedback in the post-release window specifically called out the clarity of the climate section.

Regional financial institution — integrated annual and sustainability report

Brief: Combine the previously separate annual report and sustainability report into a single integrated report, without losing the depth of either. Multi-language production for regional markets.

Approach: The partner studio designed a two-track navigation system within the document — financial readers and sustainability readers each have a clear path through the report — and built a master template that supported localisation into three languages without breaking layouts.

Outcome: The integrated format is now the institution’s standard, used across multiple reporting cycles. Production efficiency improved meaningfully versus the previous parallel-report process.

Energy and infrastructure group — climate transition plan disclosure

Brief: Design a standalone climate transition plan document supplementing the annual sustainability report, addressing scenario analysis, capex realignment, and Scope 3 reduction roadmaps for an investor and lender audience.

Approach: Information design-led: scenario pathways, decarbonisation wedges, and capex allocation charts were developed as a connected visual system, with a consistent data taxonomy across the document. Stakeholder-specific summary spreads supported the lender briefing process.

Outcome: The transition plan was cited in subsequent sustainability-linked financing arrangements as evidence of disclosure quality.

About the Design Collective

Made Good’s Design Collective is a curated network of independent design studios and senior practitioners, matched to your brief by sector, craft, and current capacity. Sustainability and ESG report work is led by partners with deep prior experience inside large reporting agencies, listed-company in-house teams, and Big Four sustainability practices. More on how the Collective works →

Frequently asked questions

How much does a sustainability report cost to design?

Design fees vary with report length, framework complexity, deliverable scope (PDF only versus PDF plus microsite plus presentation pack), and the number of review cycles. As a directional range, full sustainability reports for SGX-listed issuers typically fall between SGD 30,000 and SGD 120,000 for design and production, with additional cost for sustainability microsites and supporting collateral. We return a fixed scope and quote at the brief stage.

How long does it take to design a sustainability report?

Eight to sixteen weeks from kickoff to release-ready, depending on report length, framework complexity, and review cycles. The bottleneck is usually content readiness and assurance turnaround, not design. We work backwards from your release date and lock the design system early so the final review cycles are content edits rather than layout changes.

What is the difference between GRI, SASB, TCFD, and IFRS S1/S2?

GRI is a broad, multi-stakeholder standard covering economic, environmental, and social topics. SASB is industry-specific and focuses on financially material sustainability factors. TCFD is climate-specific and structured around four pillars: governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets. IFRS S1 and S2 are the new ISSB standards — S1 covers general sustainability disclosures, S2 covers climate-related disclosures and substantially incorporates TCFD. Most listed issuers report against multiple frameworks; our designs structure the report so each framework’s requirements are clearly addressed without duplicating content.

Do SGX-listed companies need to report against IFRS S2?

Yes. SGX has phased in mandatory IFRS S2-aligned climate-related disclosures, with assurance requirements escalating from FY2025 onwards. The disclosures must be presented in a manner the external assurance provider can verify, which is partly a content question and partly a design and structure question.

Can you work with our existing sustainability consultancy or assurance provider?

Yes. We frequently work alongside sustainability consultancies (who handle materiality, data collection, and framework mapping) and external assurance providers. Our role is the design and production layer that turns their content into the released report. We are framework-fluent enough to integrate assurance markups efficiently late in the cycle.

Do you work with companies outside Singapore?

Yes. Most of our work is for Singapore-headquartered or SGX-listed clients, but the network includes partners experienced with EU CSRD and ESRS reporting (for SG subsidiaries of European groups), as well as wider Asia-Pacific reporting standards. Reach out with your specifics.

Start a brief

If you are preparing a sustainability or ESG report for the upcoming reporting cycle and want senior design execution from a studio matched specifically to your brief, we would like to hear from you.

Start a brief →

Questions before you brief? Email hello@madegooddesigns.com.