Editorial

Strategic Sustainable Treasury

As 2023 draws to a close, this edition gathers key opinions from the industry on where treasurers will be most focused in 2024. In an uncertain world, the treasury playbook is reassuringly familiar as teams prioritise supply chain resilience against the backdrop of geopolitical risk and better cash forecasting.

As this edition goes to press, Dubai is preparing to host COP28 and it remains to be seen whether the conference is able to boost political will for climate action. While businesses wait for comprehensive political leadership, some are forging ahead integrating sustainability across their operations, led by treasury. We speak to Thai Union’s Group Treasurer Yongyut Setthawiwat on sustainability endeavour at the world’s biggest tuna producer, and hear how the strategy is improving the bottom line and boosting consumer demand for its products.

These pages also explore how the lack of clarity around regulations – particularly related to sustainability – is causing headaches for corporate treasurers, eager to comply. Elsewhere our Corporate View features Viktoria Hadarits, Assistant Treasurer at Lightsource bp, the largest solar developer in Europe. Alongside her passion for sustainability, she explains what drew her to treasury after sitting on the ‘other side of the table’ and discusses the possibilities being opened up by AI and APIs.

As the energy transition splutters into life, oil producers like Saudi Arabia must adapt. This edition explores the risk and opportunity for companies seeking to take advantage of the desert kingdom’s huge domestic market and grandiose infrastructure projects to diversify the economy. The Saudi government says foreign companies wanting access to its market must set up local operations, pay tax and most importantly, employ Saudi nationals. Does the opportunity outweigh the reputational risk, legal uncertainty and challenges of hiring locally?

Our payments feature concludes that despite the proliferation of electronic payment options, cash isn’t going away any time soon. While our Question Answered explores transaction banking trends in Asia, finding burgeoning corporate demand for support setting up China +1 strategies. Last, but by no means least, we delve into mental health in the workplace. Working remotely, changing expectations and greater awareness all mean that organisations are doing more to ensure the good mental health and wellbeing of their employees, but stigmas remain and there is still plenty to do.