Esther An, Chief Sustainability Officer, City Developments Ltd has spent more than 30 years building sustainability into business at CDL, long before ESG was a buzzword. She published CDL’s first sustainability report in 2008, led Singapore’s first corporate green bond and was named on the TIME100 Climate list in 2023.

Just back from Qinghai, the “Third Pole” at the source of the Mekong, she shares with Lynlee Foo about why melting ice there matters for Southeast Asia. She also talks about moving from Hong Kong to Singapore for love, being called crazy for reusable bags in the 1990s, and why the West’s climate pullback is Asia’s chance to lead.