Sustainability reporting in the UAE has crossed a line. For listed companies on the Dubai Financial Market and the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, an ESG section is no longer a discretionary narrative bolted to the back of the annual report. It has become a structured, metric-based disclosure that investors and raters can place side by side with the disclosure of the company down the street. That shift, from prose to comparable numbers, changes what a report has to do and how it has to be built.
This guide is written for the people who build those documents: company secretaries, investor relations and communications teams, and finance leads at listed companies and large organizations. It covers two things in depth. First, how the UAE’s ESG disclosure expectations have matured into a metric set, and how the DFM and ADX guides and the global frameworks fit together. Second, how to produce a report in Arabic and English so that both languages read as the original, not as a translation tacked on at the end.
A note on scope. Walk Production is an integrated creative agency that designs and writes annual, sustainability, and integrated reports for listed companies and organizations, with a track record across Malaysia and Singapore, now serving the UAE market. We are not an audit, assurance, ESG advisory, or legal firm. This guide is about what to present and how to present it clearly. Regulatory facts here are summarized at a point in time and the area is being updated actively, so always confirm the current text and your obligations against the official sources cited below.
Why ESG disclosure changed the UAE report
For years, a UAE annual report was read primarily through its financials. The audited statements, the chairman’s statement, and the governance report told the market what it needed. Sustainability content, where it appeared, was a narrative of intent: a page on community work, a paragraph on the environment, a photograph of a tree planting.
That model has been overtaken. The regulator introduced ESG reporting expectations for listed companies, and both exchanges published guides that translate the principle into a defined list of metrics. The effect is structural. When a guide sets out specific environmental, social, and governance metrics, disclosure stops being a question of how eloquently a company describes itself and becomes a question of whether it can report the same data points, on the same basis, year after year.
Two consequences follow for the people who produce the report.
The first is comparability. An investor reading three UAE issuers in the same sector now expects to find the same metric, an emissions figure, a workforce ratio, a board independence measure, in each report, and to compare them. A report that buries those numbers in prose, or reports them on a different basis each year, undercuts its own credibility even if every individual sentence is true.
The second is integration. Once ESG data carries the same comparability expectation as financial data, the two halves of the report can no longer be drafted by separate teams who meet at the final proof. The sustainability narrative has to connect to the strategy narrative, and the ESG metrics have to be as carefully governed as the financial statements. The report is read as one document, so it has to be built as one.
This is why the UAE reporting conversation has moved from “what should we say about sustainability” to “how do we present a comparable, governed ESG dataset alongside our financials, in the languages our stakeholders read.” The rest of this guide works through both parts of that question.
The DFM ESG Reporting Guide as a metric set
The most useful way to understand the Dubai end of the regime is to treat the Dubai Financial Market Guide to ESG Reporting as a benchmark metric set rather than a style guide. The current guide sets out a defined list of 32 ESG metrics across the three pillars, environmental, social, and governance, intended to make disclosure consistent within a company over time and comparable between companies. The guide also points listed companies toward industry-specific reporting frameworks for sector-relevant detail. The metric count and the content are revised periodically, so confirm the current version and the exact metric set on the DFM website before you structure your disclosure.
For the team building the report, a metric set has practical design implications that a narrative does not.
Each metric needs a stable home. A reader, or an analyst running a screen, should be able to find the same metric in the same place each year. That argues for a dedicated ESG performance section or data index, structured around the pillars, rather than ESG figures scattered through the chairman’s statement and the operating review.
Each metric needs its basis stated. A figure without its unit, boundary, and method is not comparable, even to the same company’s figure from last year. Stating the basis once, clearly, at the head of a table is part of the design job, not an afterthought.
Each metric benefits from a multi-year view. A single year’s number tells a reader very little. The same metric shown across several years, with a short line of commentary on any inflection, is what turns a data point into a disclosure an investor can use.
The discipline the DFM guide imposes is, in effect, the discipline of a recurring dataset. The companies that handle it well build a repeatable ESG data architecture in year one and refine it each cycle, rather than redesigning the section every year.
The ADX ESG Disclosure Guidance and materiality
Abu Dhabi approaches the same goal from a slightly different starting point. The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange issued its ESG Disclosure Guidance for listed companies, first published in 2019 and updated since, setting out a set of ESG indicators and framing disclosure against internationally recognized standards. The guidance was developed in line with the work of the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges initiative and references established frameworks, which is why ADX disclosure tends to map cleanly onto the global standards discussed below. Confirm the current version and indicator set on the ADX website.
The element of the ADX guidance worth dwelling on, because it shapes the whole report, is materiality. The guidance asks companies to run a materiality assessment: to identify the ESG topics that matter most to their operations and their stakeholders, and to prioritize disclosure accordingly. Materiality is not a formality. It is the editorial spine of a credible sustainability report.
A materiality assessment does three things for the document.
It sets the agenda. The topics a company identifies as material decide which metrics get the prominence of a full spread and which sit in the data index. A report that gives equal weight to every topic, material or not, reads as undifferentiated and signals that the company has not done the prioritization work.
It explains the choices. Disclosing the assessment, who was consulted, what topics emerged, and how they were ranked, tells the reader why the report focuses where it does. That short methodological passage is one of the most read parts of a mature sustainability report, because it is where an analyst checks whether the company is reporting on what actually matters.
It connects to governance. A material topic that the report never ties back to board oversight reads as a metric in search of an owner. The strongest disclosures show the line from a material risk, to the metric that tracks it, to the committee that governs it.
For an issuer that reports against both exchanges’ expectations, the practical reading is that DFM gives you a comparable metric set to populate and ADX foregrounds the materiality logic that decides how you weight and present them. The two are complementary, and a well-built report serves both.
CMA oversight and the reporting window
Oversight of the UAE’s listed-company reporting framework sits with the federal capital markets regulator. The regulator long known as the Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) was reconstituted as the Capital Market Authority (CMA) under federal decree-laws issued in 2025, with the change taking effect from the start of 2026. References to the SCA in existing rules are generally treated as references to the CMA, and the transition is being implemented in stages. Because the institutional framework is changing, confirm the current name, remit, and rule text directly with the Capital Market Authority when you plan your cycle.
On timing, annual ESG or sustainability reporting by listed companies is generally expected to be filed within 90 days of the financial year-end, or before the annual general meeting, whichever is earlier. That window is the single most important date for anyone planning the production calendar, because it sets the outer edge of the schedule and, working backward, every translation and proofing round has to fit inside it. Treat the 90-day expectation as a planning assumption to confirm, not a fixed rule, and verify the current requirement and any exchange-specific timing for your filing.
Frameworks and rules set what to disclose. This guide is about communicating it clearly.
The DFM and ADX guides, the CMA framework, the GRI Standards, and the ISSB’s IFRS S1 and S2 shape what a company reports. They are referenced here as context for presenting information clearly and bilingually, not as compliance or legal advice. The regulatory landscape is being updated, so verify the applicable requirements and the current text with your advisers and the official sources.
Aligning to GRI and the ISSB standards
UAE exchange guidance does not sit in isolation. It points toward the global frameworks that investors and raters already use to read ESG disclosure, and naming the framework a report is built on signals that the disclosure rests on a recognized basis rather than being assembled ad hoc. Two frameworks are worth knowing by name.
The GRI Standards are the most widely adopted basis for comprehensive sustainability reporting, organized around an organization’s impacts across economic, environmental, and social topics. Both the DFM and ADX guides reference GRI, which creates a natural alignment between what the exchanges expect and a framework many UAE issuers already use. For the report team, GRI tends to shape the breadth of the sustainability narrative and the topic structure.
The IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards from the International Sustainability Standards Board, IFRS S1 and S2, take an investor-focused angle. IFRS S1 sets general requirements for disclosing sustainability-related risks and opportunities that could affect a company’s prospects. IFRS S2 sets out climate-related disclosures, building on the four pillars established by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures: governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets. The standards were issued in 2023 and are being adopted by jurisdictions on their own timelines. Whether and when any UAE issuer applies them is a matter to confirm with the company’s advisers and the regulator, so the safe approach in the report is to reference the framework you have actually used and state the basis plainly.
Two points follow for the drafting team. First, consistency matters more than coverage: naming a framework and reporting against it on the same basis year to year is worth more than referencing several frameworks loosely. Second, climate and governance content has to connect. Reporting a climate metric without showing how the board oversees the risk behind it leaves the most scrutinized part of the disclosure incomplete.
Mapping DFM and ADX metrics to GRI and ISSB
Once a report references a metric set and a global framework, a practical problem surfaces. The same underlying figure, an emissions number, a workforce ratio, a board independence measure, is called for by more than one of these references, and each may phrase the request a little differently. The temptation is to answer each one on its own, which means reporting the same data point several times over and risking small inconsistencies between the versions. There is a cleaner way to organize the work.
The DFM metric set, the ADX indicator set, the GRI Standards, and the ISSB’s IFRS S1 and S2 overlap a good deal in what they ask a company to disclose. Different labels frequently sit over the same underlying data point, and that overlap is the opening. Rather than reporting four times, a report team can map each underlying figure once and tag it to whichever references call for it. This mapping, usually called a crosswalk, is the move that keeps the document consistent and the production manageable.
Build one governed dataset, not four reports. The principle is to gather and govern each data point a single time, in one place, on one stated basis, and then point the various frameworks at it. A company maintains a master list of the figures it discloses, each with its own definition, unit, boundary, and method, and against each figure sits a note of which references it answers. The figure itself is captured once; the frameworks become tags on it rather than separate sources of truth. This is data architecture before it is design, and it is the work that repays itself every subsequent cycle.
Map once, reuse everywhere. When a figure appears in the chairman’s narrative, again in a sustainability spread, and again in the back-of-report index, all three should draw from the same source entry rather than being keyed in independently. A single source figure, reused, is how you stop the same metric being reported on different bases in different places. The alternative, where the narrative team rounds one way and the data team rounds another, is exactly the kind of reconciliation gap that undermines an otherwise credible report.
Tell the reader which basis a disclosure is built against. A crosswalk earns its keep on the page as well as behind it. A mapping table, or an index column that names the framework a given disclosure aligns to, lets an analyst trace a figure from the page back to the standard it answers. None of this has to be elaborate. A short reference against each metric, or a compact mapping index near the data section, is enough to signal that the disclosure rests on a recognized basis rather than being assembled ad hoc. It also helps the reader who is working through a specific framework find what they need without hunting through prose.
In the finished document this is straightforward to see. There is a single performance index where each metric lives once. There is a short note, per metric or per section, of the framework it is built against. And where a figure recurs in the narrative, it carries the same value, the same unit, and the same rounding as the index, because it was drawn from the index rather than retyped. The reader sees a report that holds together; the team sees a dataset it can extend next year instead of rebuilding.
The gains run two ways. A figure stays consistent everywhere it appears, which protects credibility, and the production effort scales with the number of distinct data points rather than the number of frameworks, which keeps the workload from multiplying every time another reference joins the mix. The exact metrics, indicators, and any applicable requirement change over time and are not all interchangeable, so confirm the current DFM metric set, the current ADX indicator set, and what applies to your filing with DFM, ADX, the CMA, and your advisers before you fix the mapping. The architecture stays durable even as the specifics are revised, and that is the reason to build it once.
What goes into a UAE annual report
The ESG developments above sit on top of the established annual report, which remains a regulated document. The exact contents follow the requirements of the relevant exchange, the CMA governance rules, and the company’s own constitutional documents. The list below is the narrative and disclosure backbone most UAE annual reports share. The authoritative requirements always sit with the current rules, so confirm the mandatory contents for your company.
- Audited financial statements: the statement of financial position, the profit or loss statement, the statement of changes in equity, and the cash flow statement, with their notes and the external auditor’s report.
- Chairman’s statement: the board’s reading of the year and the direction it has set for the business.
- CEO or managing director’s review: how that direction was delivered in practice, across business segments, operating conditions, and the priorities for the year ahead.
- Operating and financial review: the link between strategy and the figures, explaining what moved revenue, margins, capital allocation, and the outlook.
- Corporate governance report: board composition, committee structure, and how the company applies the applicable governance requirements.
- Sustainability content: an integrated ESG section, or a clear link to a standalone sustainability report.
The mandatory floor is the baseline. The difference between a strong report and a merely compliant one is the writing: a chairman’s statement that sounds like this chairman describing this particular year, and a financial review that links the board’s strategy to the results the company actually posted. The same is now true of the ESG content, which is held to the comparability standard described earlier.
Integrated or standalone: the structural choice
A frequent question from companies preparing their first ESG-heavy cycle: should the sustainability content sit inside the annual report, or as a separate document? Each route carries a different reader and a different production rhythm.
| Integrated annual report | Standalone sustainability report | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary reader | Shareholders, regulators, analysts | ESG analysts, raters, regulators, broader stakeholders |
| Core content | Financials, governance, strategy, ESG in one volume | Material ESG topics, climate disclosure, targets, metric set |
| Basis | Exchange rules and governance requirements, with ESG aligned | DFM and ADX ESG guidance, materiality, chosen framework |
| Strength | One coherent story, single read | Room for full ESG depth and a dedicated data index |
| Production cost | One sign-off cycle, tighter cross-team coordination | Second sign-off and a second production run |
For many UAE issuers the practical choice is between a single integrated annual report and a traditional annual report plus a standalone sustainability report. The integrated route gives the reader one document but asks the editorial team to keep the financial and ESG narratives in step throughout the cycle. The standalone route gives ESG specialists a fuller canvas, including space for a complete metric index, at the cost of a second approval and a second production run. Neither is inherently better; the right choice depends on the size of the ESG dataset, the stakeholder base, and the team’s capacity to run one or two production tracks. Confirm any presentation requirements with the exchanges before deciding.
Arabic and English as a production discipline
Many UAE reports are produced in English, and Arabic and English bilingual reporting is common, particularly for companies with significant domestic or government stakeholder bases. Producing a bilingual report well is not translation added at the end. It is a design and editorial discipline that shapes the document from the first page, and it deserves the same planning as the financial close. The language requirements for any specific filing sit with the exchanges and the CMA, so confirm the current obligation; the production guidance below applies wherever a report is bilingual by choice or by requirement.
Right-to-left layout is a structural decision, not a setting. Arabic reads right-to-left, which inverts the natural reading order of a spread. The eye enters from the opposite side, so the placement of headlines, pull quotes, charts, and page furniture has to be rethought for the Arabic version rather than mirrored mechanically. Binding direction, the position of the cover, and the flow from page to page all change. A layout planned only for left-to-right English and then flipped tends to produce an Arabic version where the visual emphasis lands in the wrong place.
Arabic text expansion changes the grid. The same content runs to a different length in Arabic than in English, and the difference is not uniform: headings, body copy, and captions expand or contract by different amounts. That affects column widths, line counts, page breaks, and the overall extent of the document. If the grid is built around English copy fit and the Arabic is poured in afterward, the result is overset text, broken spreads, and a page count that no longer matches across the two versions. The grid has to be planned to hold both languages from the start.
Typography is a craft choice in each script. Arabic and Latin type have different vertical proportions, different baseline behavior, and different demands on line spacing. A heading size that sits well in English can feel cramped or oversized in Arabic. Pairing an Arabic typeface with the Latin one so that the two feel like one design system, rather than two fonts sharing a page, is one of the clearest signals of a report that was produced bilingually rather than translated.
Numerals and figures need a deliberate rule. Arabic-language reports may use Western Arabic numerals or Eastern Arabic-Indic numerals, and financial tables, dates, and units have to follow one consistent rule across the document. In ESG and financial data, where the same figure may appear in both the Arabic and English versions, the numeral treatment, decimal and thousands separators, and unit labels have to be reconciled so a reader comparing the two versions sees the same number, presented consistently.
Parallel and sequential layouts serve different content. A parallel layout places both languages on the same spread, which suits shorter, high-visibility sections such as the chairman’s statement, the CEO review, and the governance summary, where seeing both languages together carries weight. A sequential layout presents the full report in one language and then the other, which suits longer technical material such as financial notes and dense ESG data tables, where running two languages on one spread would crowd the page. Many reports mix the two: parallel for the front narrative, sequential for the back data. Deciding which sections use which approach is part of structuring the document, not a late formatting call.
Equal-treatment proofing keeps both versions honest. The risk in any bilingual report is that one language becomes the source and the other a derivative that drifts. Equal-treatment proofing means each version is read and proofed in its own right, by a reader fluent in that language, against the same data, so that neither reads as an afterthought. It also means checking that figures, dates, names, and ESG metrics match exactly between the versions, because a reconciliation gap between the Arabic and English numbers is both an editorial failure and a credibility problem.
Our team produces bilingual reports in Bahasa Malaysia and English, and the same discipline transfers directly to Arabic and English work. The principle is identical: plan the bilingual structure before design begins, treat both languages as equal from page one, and build the proofing rounds for both into the schedule rather than the deadline. The scripts differ, but the production rigor that keeps two languages in step is the same. You can see how that rigor shows up in our publication design and report copywriting.
Managing Arabic and English terminology
Layout, typography, and proofing keep a bilingual report looking like one design. Terminology is what keeps it reading like one document. Across a report of any length, the same concept will appear dozens of times: in the narrative, in the notes, in the governance report, and in the data labels. If that concept is rendered one way on page ten and another way on page sixty, a careful reader notices, and in a financial or governance context the inconsistency reads as imprecision. Managing terminology is a discipline of its own, separate from how the page looks.
Build a termbase before drafting begins, not after. The single most effective step is to agree, in advance, how each recurring term will be rendered in both Arabic and English, and to record those decisions in a glossary or termbase that every writer, translator, and proofreader works from. This covers financial terms, governance terms, and the ESG vocabulary that now runs through the report. Agreed early, the termbase is what stops the two versions drifting apart as board edits accumulate over the cycle. Agreed late, or never, it leaves each translator to make their own choices, and those choices diverge.
Settle a house style for terms with no single Arabic equivalent. Many technical and ESG terms, and the acronyms that come with them, have no one settled Arabic rendering. There is often a choice between translating the term, transliterating it, or carrying the English across with an Arabic gloss on first use. None of these is universally correct, but the report has to pick one approach per term and hold to it. A house style that records the decision, and the reason behind it, means the same term is handled the same way every time it appears, and that a contributor joining mid-cycle follows the established choice rather than inventing a new one.
Keep defined terms and proper names locked across both versions. Defined terms, the ones a report capitalizes and uses with a fixed meaning, have to map cleanly between Arabic and English so the defined sense survives in each language. Company names, subsidiary names, product and brand names, and the names of board committees should be rendered consistently and checked against the company’s own usage, because these are the items a reader cross-references most often. A committee named one way in the governance narrative and another way in the ESG section looks like two different bodies.
Treat ESG metric labels as terminology, not free text. The label on a metric, in a chart, a table header, or a sentence, is part of the termbase. The same metric should carry the same name and the same unit description wherever it appears, in both languages, so a reader comparing the Arabic and English versions sees the same figure under the same label. Inconsistent metric labels are a quiet but real source of confusion in an otherwise well-built data section, and they are easy to prevent once the labels are fixed in the termbase alongside everything else.
A termbase is also what makes the inevitable late edits survivable. When the board revises a passage in the English close to the deadline, the writer and translator both reach for the same agreed renderings rather than improvising, which is the difference between a clean change and a fresh inconsistency. The termbase turns terminology from a series of individual judgment calls into a shared reference that holds the document together under pressure.
Our team produces bilingual reports in Bahasa Malaysia and English, and terminology management is a core part of how we keep two versions in step. The same discipline transfers directly to Arabic and English work: agree the recurring terms up front, record the house style for the hard cases, and hold every contributor to the same glossary so the concept a report names on its first page is named the same way on its last. The languages differ; the rigor that keeps defined terms consistent across them is the same.
The ESG data table across two languages
The data index is where a bilingual report is most exposed, because a table leaves nowhere for an inconsistency to hide. The numeral and separator rules and the unit labels covered earlier carry into the index unchanged; what a table adds is structure, and that structure has to work in both reading directions at once. Getting it right is mostly a matter of planning for that before the figures arrive.
Order the columns for the reader, not the mirror. Because Arabic reads right-to-left, the point where the eye enters a table shifts to the opposite side, so the Arabic version needs the leading column and the row labels placed where an Arabic reader starts rather than the English table flipped wholesale. Header rows, subtotals, totals and footnote markers all have to sit where each language expects them. A table reversed pixel for pixel tends to strand the totals where they are hardest to find and throw the emphasis onto the wrong column.
Hold the precision identical, figure for figure. Each value has to carry the same number of decimal places in both versions. It is easy for a number rounded to one decimal in English to surface with two in Arabic, or for a percentage to be shown to a different precision in each. In a financial or emissions table that a reader may set side by side, a precision mismatch reads as an error even when the underlying value is the same.
Take row labels and units straight from the agreed terms. Whatever name a metric is given in the Arabic narrative is the name its row should carry in the Arabic index, and likewise in English, so a reader crossing between the table and the text is never left wondering whether two names point to one metric. State the unit explicitly in each language, or in a form that reads without ambiguity in both.
Feed both versions from one source figure. Where every metric in the index draws on a single governed source value, the Arabic and English tables are filled from that one entry rather than typed in twice. This is what makes the two agree by construction instead of by luck, and it is the practical reason to fix the index structure before bilingual production begins rather than reconciling two separately keyed tables at the end.
Proof the table as its own pass. Checking a bilingual data table is specific enough to earn a dedicated round: a reader fluent in each language confirms that every figure matches across the two versions, in the same unit and precision, under the same label, in a table ordered correctly for its language. This is narrower than proofing the prose, and it catches what general proofreading misses, because a transposed digit or a shifted decimal is invisible in a table unless someone is checking the numbers on purpose.
Our team produces bilingual reports in Bahasa Malaysia and English, and the discipline carries directly into Arabic and English work. The scripts and the reading direction differ; the goal does not. A data section is built so the numbers are governed once and read identically in either language, which is exactly what the comparability expectation behind the whole ESG regime asks the table to deliver.
Presenting ESG data so it can be compared
Both halves of the report are dense with data, and once ESG disclosure carries a comparability expectation, the readability of that data is part of the disclosure, not a cosmetic layer. A few principles travel well across financial and ESG content.
Lead with the headline, then the detail. A financial highlights spread or an ESG performance dashboard should give the reader the takeaway before the full table. The summary view earns the reader’s attention; the detailed index rewards it.
Design the charts, do not just generate them. A multi-year emissions trend or a workforce-composition chart is read in seconds, and the design of those few elements decides whether the surrounding section gets read at all. A well-designed chart also makes a metric comparable at a glance, which is exactly what the ESG regime now asks for. See our infographic design for how data visualization carries this load.
Keep one visual language across financial and ESG content. Consistent typography, color, and chart styling signal that the report is one document telling one story, not a financial report with a sustainability report stapled to it. This matters even more in a bilingual report, where the visual system has to hold across two scripts.
Make tables scannable and self-explaining. Clear column headers, aligned figures, units stated once at the top, and the reporting basis noted where it matters beat dense, undifferentiated grids. An ESG data index that a non-specialist shareholder can navigate, and that an analyst can lift figures from cleanly, is the practical test of a well-built sustainability section.
This is the part of reporting where design and editorial craft does the heavy lifting, turning audited numbers and a defined ESG metric set into a document that both a retail shareholder and an institutional analyst can use, in either language. In our sustainability and impact reporting across Malaysia and Singapore, that is the approach we took on the Touch ‘n Go Group sustainability report, structured around four ESG pillars.
The bilingual reporting calendar and assurance
A listed-company report typically runs on a production calendar of several months from kickoff to a board-approved, filed document, and the filing window discussed earlier sets the outer edge. Working backward from the AGM date, and then from the filing deadline, is the practical way to set the schedule. The table below is an illustrative sequence; confirm your own milestones and deadlines against the exchange and CMA requirements.
| Stage | Critical tasks |
|---|---|
| Concept and structure | Theme, content architecture, design direction, materiality refresh, bilingual structure decided |
| Content drafting | Chairman’s statement, CEO review, financial review, ESG narrative, English copy finalized for translation |
| Translation round one | First Arabic translation; parallel and sequential layouts populated in both scripts |
| Data integration | Financials and the ESG metric set drop into layout; first design rounds; board and adviser feedback |
| Sign-off and proofing | Audit sign-off, assurance where obtained, board approval, equal-treatment proofs in both languages |
| Production and release | Print, AGM packs, filing within the applicable window, digital and interactive release |
Two habits separate the calendars that hold from the ones that slip.
The first is compiling ESG data alongside the financial close, not after it. When the metric set is gathered on the same timeline as the financials, the two narratives are drafted together and reconciled once, rather than being patched against each other at the final proof, where inconsistent figures are most likely to surface and least likely to be caught.
The second is building the bilingual rounds into the schedule from day one. Translation and equal-treatment proofing are not a single step at the end; they are rounds that recur as copy changes, and every late edit to the English has to flow through to the Arabic and be proofed again. A calendar that allows for only one translation pass will not survive the normal volume of board edits.
On assurance: some companies obtain external assurance over selected ESG metrics, in addition to the statutory audit of the financial statements. Whether assurance is obtained, and over what, is a decision for the company and its advisers, and the level and scope vary. From a production standpoint, the relevant point is that any assured metric must read identically wherever it appears, including across both language versions, so the assurance scope and the published figures stay aligned. Confirm any assurance expectations with your advisers and the regulator.
How Walk Production can help
Walk Production is an integrated creative agency producing annual reports, sustainability reports, and integrated reports for listed companies and organizations, with a track record across Malaysia and Singapore, now serving the UAE market. Our in-house team handles concept development, report copywriting, layout and infographic design, data visualization, bilingual production, and print and digital delivery under one account team. We design and write the report; we do not provide audit, assurance, ESG advisory, or legal services, and we point you to the official sources for your obligations.
If your next reporting cycle is open, the two most useful things to settle early are the same two themes of this guide. Build a repeatable ESG data architecture so your metric set is comparable year to year, and plan the Arabic and English structure before design begins so both languages are built as equals from page one. Doing both early is what lets the report be produced as one coherent, bilingual document rather than assembled under deadline.
See our annual report design and sustainability report design services, or browse our work across Malaysia and Singapore, including the Avaland Berhad annual report built around sustainability, financial, and community pillars. Or talk to our editorial team about the cycle ahead.
Alissa Nazeri is the Account Director for Corporate Reporting at Walk Production, where she leads the team producing annual, sustainability, and integrated reports for listed companies and organizations across Malaysia and Singapore.