Only a small percentage of sustainable loans today are Shariah-compliant, despite Islamic finance encompassing around US$2.8 trillion in assets globally. Yet for Maybank’s chief sustainability officer, Datuk Shahril Azuar Jimin, the gap between Islamic finance and sustainability should not be difficult to close.
He believes the foundations of both systems are already closely aligned.
“Islamic finance emphasises social justice, welfare, and harm avoidance, which align naturally with ESG and sustainability,” he said.
Financial institutions across Southeast Asia and the Middle East are steadily expanding their Islamic banking offerings to meet growing demand from Muslim consumers and businesses.
Maybank, which operates across markets including Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, London and the Middle East, offers services ranging from Islamic deposits to Wasiat (Islamic legacy planning), reflecting broader efforts to integrate faith-based financial solutions into mainstream banking.
Momentum is also building globally. According to a 2025 World Bank report, sustainable financing raised across the 57 countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation grew from US$17.8 billion in 2017 to US$82.3 billion in 2024.
A PERSISTENT GAP
Despite this progress, Islamic sustainable finance remains a small share of both global Islamic banking and wider green finance markets. The World Bank reported that only 8.2 per cent of sustainable loans issued between 2017 and 2021 were sharia-compliant, despite the scale of the Islamic finance industry.
The shortfall is particularly significant in Southeast Asia, one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions. The Asian Development Bank estimates that the region will need US$210 billion annually through 2030 to finance climate-resilient infrastructure.
Yet between 2018 and 2019, Southeast Asia received only US$27.8 billion in climate finance, representing just five per cent of total climate finance flows into the Asia-Pacific region.
Shahril believes Islamic finance could play a much larger role in addressing this imbalance and in supporting more inclusive growth across the region.
BLUE ECONOMY FOCUS
Against this backdrop, Malaysia is increasingly positioning the blue economy as a national priority by introducing a blueprint to align policies across aquaculture, renewable ocean energy, green shipping, and ecotourism.
Maybank has sought to support this direction through initiatives such as a proposed “blue sukuk” with the Sabah government, intended to finance marine conservation, sustainable fisheries, and coastal ecosystem restoration projects linked to blue carbon opportunities.
For Shahril, sustainable financing is closely linked to long-term regional resilience, particularly for ASEAN economies that are closely tied to coastal and marine ecosystems.
“Islamic finance is a major global market, projected to exceed US$3 trillion,” he said. “We believe Islamic finance can play a much larger role in financing ASEAN’s green transition and in creating more inclusive growth.
