SDSN and Sunway Malls Partner to Support Sustainability in the Malaysian Retail Sector

The SDSN recently partnered with Sunway Malls, the Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development (JSC) at Sunway University, the Malaysian Retailers Association (MRA), and the Malaysian Retail Chain Association (MRCA) to launch the Sustainability Collaboration Action Network (SCAN), a capacity-building collaboration for the Malaysian retail sector. SCAN is the first alliance network in Malaysia to solely focus on sustainability in the retail industry.

Sunway Malls, part of the Sunway Group, is one of Malaysia’s largest mall owner-operators and a leader in sustainable retail practices. Recognizing that the retail industry has a significant role to play in sustainable development, Sunway Malls has set ambitious resource consumption and waste reduction goals and enlisted the SDSN’s SDG Academy to help design foundational SDG training for its retail tenants. The inclusion of the MRA and the MRCA, two of the largest retail industry organizations in the country, has helped to further expand efforts to the entire Malaysian retail community.

SCAN was formally launched on August 24 at Sunway University, host of SDSN’s Kuala Lumpur office. In addition to launching SCAN, the event announced the creation of the ReX (Retail Extended Learning) platform, a three-tiered educational program to train the entire sector. It begins with an online course that covers the basics of sustainability and the SDGs, as well as practical topics, including water, energy, and waste management; green leases; green procurement; and green fit-out. The SDG Academy served as an advisor in the development of Sunway Malls' original content and provided materials from its online catalog to give global context to the need for a sustainable retail industry. Sunway Malls is now offering the course for free to Malaysia’s nearly one million retail-sector employees as a public good.

In addition to the online course, ReX’s offerings will include microcredential programs organized by the JSC and pathways for retail managers and executives into JSC’s Master in Sustainable Development Management program.