Business within boundaries: A multi-stakeholder and systems approach

INTRODUCTION 

Human pressures are disrupting the functioning of the Earth system across nine critical processes – climate change, biosphere integrity, land system change, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows, ocean acidification, atmospheric aerosol loading, the generation of novel entities and ozone depletion. The safe limits for each of these nine processes are collectively called the planetary boundaries, and the 2025 Planetary Health Check reflects that we breached seven of them. 

The potential consequences of consistently transgressing these planetary boundaries are dire – already, we are experiencing the disastrous impacts of climate change, deforestation, ocean acidification, and poor air quality on resource security, livelihoods, health, and overall quality of life. In recent years, micro-plastic pollution, a type of novel entity, has emerged as a hazard permeating our air, marine, and freshwater ecosystems and food chains. The Philippines topped the WorldRiskIndex of 2025, with India and Indonesia ranking second and third, respectively. We are caught in a feedback loop: “Business-as-usual” practices exacerbate transgressions of the planetary boundaries. These transgressions, in turn, put our businesses and larger communities at risk, necessitating reforms to the usual practices. The 2024 Philippines Statistical Yearbook (table 17.33, using data from 2022) estimates the cost of damages triggered by “natural” hazards (including tropical cyclones) at more than PhP 32 billion in just one year. In this sense, addressing sustainability is inevitably connected to managing disaster risks. 

There is a need, therefore, for business operations to be guided by the safe limits of the planet and to collectively work “within boundaries.” However, translating these planetary assessments into planning and target-setting at the organizational level is challenging given the difference in scale, domains measured and metrics used. Interactions among the nine Earth system processes also mean that transgressions of one boundary can exacerbate others, which necessitates a systemic approach to impact assessment. Moreover, the business sector comprises a multistakeholder ecosystem. Businesses do not exist in a vacuum. Other sectors such as the local and national government, and non-government organizations have roles in the business ecosystem and are therefore crucial in supporting innovations in business practice towards enhancing resilience and sustainability.  

A shared vision is needed to synergize efforts towards moving communities away from transgressions of the planetary boundaries and providing a decent quality of life at the same time. However, while there are many diverse sustainability initiatives underway across different sectors, awareness of the planetary boundaries and their implications for target-setting is uneven. To help address this gap, our two-day event held at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, supported by the Australian National University (ANU) Philippines Institute and the ASEAN University Network thematic network for Ecological Education and Culture (AUN-EEC), explored the question of what it means to do “business within boundaries.” We probed the different sustainability concerns across sectors and how these map against the planetary boundaries framework. We explored the roles of the public sector, private sector, non-government and civil society organizations, the academe, and the media in supporting transitions to sustainability and resilience. 

The event was held in hybrid mode, with speakers, panelists, and participants joining mainly from the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Australia. This policy brief shares key insights from the event on the themes of bridging the local and the global in sustainability reporting and the pentahelix approach to innovation. We also identify policy enhancements and opportunities for collaborations across sectors and across the ASEAN and Australia to collectively address these common challenges.

Articulating Alignment  

The Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission first required sustainability reporting for publicly-listed companies under the Philippine Stock Exchange in 2019, initially implementing a “comply or explain approach.” In 2025, the SEC drafted new guidelines adopting the Philippine Financial Reporting Standards (PFRS). These are aligned with the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). A phased rollout is proposed for the new mandatory reporting requirements, with the first reports due in 2027. Aside from publicly listed companies, large non-listed entities will also be required to submit reports by 2029. 

A key challenge to implementation of these new guidelines is building and mainstreaming organizational capacities for accurate and holistic sustainability reporting. In a 2024 study on the State of Sustainability Reporting in the Philippines, data availability, manpower and cost were identified by organizations as initial barriers. Concerns about greenwashing were top-of-mind among sectoral representatives at the event and are echoed in the larger Southeast Asian community. A greenwashing assessment of the ASEAN-5 countries (Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia) cites weak disclosure standards and regulatory oversight as among the drivers of frequent greenwashing practices (note: at the time of writing, this assessment is in preprint format and pending peer review). Another study by the OECD on Sustainable Policies and Practices for Corporate Governance in Asia found that independent assurance of sustainability disclosures by a third party is encouraged but not yet the norm. Thus, as the Philippines and other ASEAN countries strengthen reporting requirements, questions that stakeholders grapple with include: What evaluation and validation measures will be put in place to encourage transparency and promote accountability? How can we promote double materiality, i.e. to have organizations seriously consider their impact on socio-ecological systems in addition to the financial risks that they are exposed to from external changes and hazards? 

The goal of ensuring that sustainability reports are reflective of actual environmental performance and are useful for distilling priority actions is precisely why we need to bridge organizational pressures with local concerns as well as global conditions. The latter may seem to represent another layer of analysis or understanding, but it can actually be incorporated in existing sustainability reporting if we undertake steps to map disclosures against planetary boundaries. Salient issues across sectors included climate change and plastic pollution. Climate is already one of the planetary domains while plastic pollution is considered as a novel entity. Water and air quality monitoring are routinely reported to the relevant offices of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in most cases, and these intersect with the planetary boundaries concerned with freshwater use, biogeochemical flows (particularly from nitrates and phosphates), and aerosol emissions. Deforestation, highlighted as a cause of rampant and severe flooding, falls under land system change. Requiring organizations to express pressure data will provide a more accurate picture of environmental performance at the local scale and enable estimations of contributions to disruptions at the planetary scale. Thus, there are opportunities to align disclosures with the domains described by the planetary boundaries framework and with any global agreements or targets for these domains, such as the Paris Agreement for climate change, and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework for biosphere integrity. These global agreements can inform target-setting at the organizational level, assisted, for example, by guidance from the Science-based Targets Initiative and the Science-based Targets Network. In complement, local impact assessments can refine targets based on local needs and vulnerabilities. 

Beyond aligning environmental disclosures to the planetary boundaries, the latter can be made more meaningful at the local and regional scale if mapped against the social issues that are intertwined with ecological. For example, poverty lies at the heart of the sachet culture in the Philippines, which, in turn, generates plastic pollution. The demand for land for food, housing, and other commercial activities drives deforestation. Exacerbating these drivers is the difficulty of holding people in power accountable, as documented by the attacks on journalists and environmental activists. Thus, in the Philippines, any discussion on how to live and work within planetary boundaries should be advanced from the lens of equity and justice. This underscores the need for a whole-of-society approach.

The Pentahelix Model of Collaboration  

The Pentahelix Model of collaboration and innovation builds on the classic Triple Helix Model, which originally recognized the interdependencies and synergies among the academe, private sector and government. The additional stakeholders in the Pentahelix Approach have varied depending on the study or context. For example, research on fostering innovations and an innovation-based economy has considered the media and the community. Initiatives on social innovation would benefit from the inclusion of civil society and social entrepreneurs. The Pentahelix Model has been applied to different purposes in Indonesia, with a study on village business innovation considering social institutions, government programs, market support, innovation sources, and communication media; and another study on sustainable tourism and the SDGS considering government, academia, business, media, and local communities. Despite these slight variations, the Pentahelix Model is, in general, more inclusive and, potentially, more democratic. By recognizing the larger society, it allows for diverse perspectives to be brought to the table. In this event, we adopted a Pentahelix Model that considers the academe, private sector, government (local and national), non-government organisations and civil society organizations (NGOs/CSOs), and the media. 

Academic representatives shared that while impact measurement using various sustainability indicators is relatively well-established, the planetary boundaries framework is still an emerging concept. Educational institutions can take advantage of their outreach and extension functions to dialogue and work with other sectors to establish common language, standards, values, and goals. The academe and the media can work in tandem to ensure that different stakeholders have access to accurate information on which to base advocacy and decision-making. In the same vein, the media is seen as playing an important role in preventing greenwashing and calling for accountability. To strengthen this role, engagement of the media, for example, in capacity-building and other initiatives would be crucial. 

Similarly, industry representatives shared that while metrics relating to carbon emissions, land use and water consumption are already embedded in key performance indicators, those associated with the other processes represented by the planetary boundaries are not yet familiar. Furthermore, cost metrics are still a priority; hence, there is a need for a paradigm shift from focusing on financial materiality towards also addressing impact materiality. Of interest was the idea of “industrial symbiosis", i.e., establishing a network of private sector actors, convened by local governments, to collaborate on advancing sustainability through a circular economy. Such a network would also co-support relevant research and the development of local products and technologies. The private sector can also explore alternative systems and learn from indigenous peoples and traditional knowledge. In addition, sustainability initiatives in the private sector need to capacitate not only large firms but also the nano-, micro-, small and medium enterprises who are vulnerable to hazards and other disruptions given limited resources. According to the 2021 Updating of the List of Establishments conducted by the Philippine Statistical Authority, micro-enterprises accounted for more than 90% of establishments. The resilience of these enterprises is essential for ensuring the continued livelihoods of a substantial part of the population; hence, they must have a seat at the table of public-private sector networks. Viable options are needed to support smaller enterprises with shifting resource use and supply chains to more sustainable alternatives and reducing the cost of innovative materials. 

While national governments set strategic directions and broad policies, local governments play a key role in operationalising these national policies and plans in their unique contexts and maintaining high-resolution databases that serve as foundations for projects, plans and activities. The local government representative affirmed their potential role as a convenor of public-private partnerships and joint ventures with NGOs/CSOs, the private sector, the academe, and other stakeholders. Similarly, NGOs/CSOs position themselves as matchmakers and catalysts – bridging the gaps where needs are not being met and connecting advocacies to find points of convergence among stakeholders.

Laying the Foundations for Collaboration 

Given the whole-of-society approach needed to implement “business within boundaries”, collaboration emerges as a key factor for success. Collaboration needs to be coordinated not only among the sectors represented in the Pentahelix Model, but also across generations, highlighting the role of the youth; and across borders, with countries sharing best practices and resources across ASEAN and Australia. 

Because it is their mandate to set strategic directions and develop implementing rules and regulations, policymakers can help build strong foundations for “business within boundaries” and support multi-stakeholder collaborations. Actions that policymakers can progress include: 

Formal directives on the above will serve as an enabling mechanism for action, ensuring that we have a basis for allocating time and resources for related initiatives.  

In addition to the above, we recommend for support to be channeled towards multi-sector collaborative initiatives that will:

CONCLUSION

Transitioning to living and working within planetary boundaries requires a systems approach. This entails understanding not only the interactions of biophysical processes described in the planetary boundaries framework, but also the interactions among people and institutions that both drive and are impacted by ecological crises. Addressing the complexity of socio-ecological challenges necessitates a whole-of-society and transboundary approach. This brings to the fore the relational part of sustainability, the “heartware approach” (Dr. Zeeda Fatimah Mohamad, Universiti Malaya 2025) which involves wider and more inclusive circles of conversation and developing a sense of community with other people as well as with nature. 

During our two-day event, cross-sectoral stakeholder discussions identified salient issues in sustainability transformations and initial steps that can be taken to bring the awareness of the planetary boundaries into societal consciousness and governance structures. While it was acknowledged that between the ASEAN and Australia, economic growth and security remain among the top priorities for cross-sectoral and cross-government collaboration, these are not necessarily in conflict with the concept of "business within boundaries.” Disruptions in the Earth system such as the collapse of our resource base will ultimately erode countries’ abilities to support their populations. Thus, the paradigm of living within planetary boundaries provides an essential reframing of what growth and security might look like for the region. Collaborations across sectors, borders, and generations will be crucial to achieving this paradigm shift.

Disclosures 

CKGG and SJL are supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council (CKGG: Discovery Project DP230101280; SJL: Future Fellowship FT200100381).