In Kuala Lumpur, as of June 2025, the drumbeat of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) accountability is growing louder than ever. Companies across Malaysia and beyond are grappling with increasingly stringent reporting standards, facing immense pressure to transparently disclose their impact on the planet and its people. This critical shift, however, often bumps up against a complex reality: fragmented data, manual processes, and a daunting lack of standardised solutions. But what if artificial intelligence could cut through this complexity, transforming ESG reporting from a compliance burden into a powerful strategic advantage?
This is precisely the vision driving Mandrill Tech, a Malaysian innovator, and its groundbreaking AI platform, Lestar. We sit down with CEO Davent Low, the visionary behind Lestar AI, to explore how his company is not just meeting the moment, but actively architecting a smarter, more sustainable future for businesses.
The Genesis of Lestar AI
“Mr. Low, the market is rapidly evolving towards greater ESG transparency. What was the driving force behind Mandrill Tech’s decision to focus on AI solutions for ESG reporting, and specifically, what problem did you set out to solve with the creation of Lestar AI?”
We saw a major gap between ESG reporting expectations and companies’ actual capabilities, especially in Southeast Asia. Many businesses were still relying on fragmented data sources, inconsistent formats, and manual processes that made ESG reporting both painful and unreliable. At Mandrill Tech, we knew that if AI is to truly support smarter and faster sustainability decisions, it must start with structured and dependable data. That is why we built Lestar, to tackle the data collection challenge first. But our vision goes further. With a solid data foundation in place, we are now moving toward AI capabilities that can detect anomalies, help users in real time, and eventually offer predictive insights to guide long-term ESG strategy. Lestar is designed to evolve with the needs of future-ready businesses.
Lestar AI’s Unique Value Proposition
“Lestar AI is positioned to simplify complex ESG reporting. Could you explain, in practical terms, how Lestar AI leverages artificial intelligence to streamline data collection, analysis, and reporting for companies? What makes Lestar AI stand out from other ESG solutions in the market?”
Lestar is designed to simplify ESG reporting by offering a structured, standards-aligned solution that scales with organizational complexity. One of our key differentiators is the platform’s flexibility in handling multi-entity reporting. Whether a company has 5 subsidiaries or 500, Lestar supports granular entity-level data management while enabling seamless group-level consolidation, ensuring traceability, consistency, and efficiency across diverse reporting units.
While we do not yet apply AI at the data ingestion stage, Lestar is built to integrate with existing business systems and includes observability capabilities that monitor data flow reliability and system performance. This forms a strong foundation for data quality across the ESG reporting lifecycle.
Where AI comes into play is in the reporting layer. Our generative narrative engine automates the production of disclosure-ready content tailored to key ESG frameworks, saving significant time for sustainability and compliance teams. We also offer an AI-powered assistant that provides users with real-time, context-aware support, whether they are drafting reports, navigating the platform, or interpreting ESG indicators. Together, these capabilities make Lestar an intelligent and adaptable platform for modern ESG reporting.
Beyond Compliance – Driving Value
“Many companies view ESG reporting as a compliance burden. How does Lestar AI help businesses move beyond mere compliance to actually derive strategic value and actionable insights from their ESG data? Can you share an example of how a client has used Lestar AI to improve their sustainability performance or business strategy?”
While ESG reporting is often viewed as a compliance exercise, Lestar is designed to help companies extract strategic value from their ESG data. By supporting granular reporting across complex organizational structures including subsidiaries, departments, and business units, Lestar enables more precise tracking of environmental and social performance at the operational level.
One of our clients in the Engineering and Construction Services sector uses Lestar to monitor emissions and resource consumption down to individual business units. By surfacing inconsistencies and benchmarking performance between sites, the company was able to identify underperforming locations, prioritize efficiency improvements, and quantify the ROI of their sustainability initiatives. What started as a reporting requirement turned into a business case for operational optimization.
As we expand Lestar’s AI capabilities, features such as anomaly detection and intelligent assistance will further support this shift from static reporting to dynamic, data-driven ESG strategy.
Addressing Data Challenges
“ESG data is often fragmented, disparate, and challenging to standardize. How does Lestar AI tackle these data heterogeneity challenges, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and a ‘single source of ESG truth’ for its users?”
Data fragmentation remains one of the biggest barriers to effective ESG reporting. Lestar addresses this by providing a flexible and scalable data architecture that supports input from a wide range of sources, including spreadsheets, ERP systems, web forms, and document uploads. Our platform supports both manual and system-integrated inputs, allowing for progressive automation depending on a company’s digital maturity.
To ensure consistency and traceability, Lestar applies structured templates, validation rules, and mapping logic across all inputs. Each data point is tagged at the entity and reporting period level, enabling auditability and alignment with ESG frameworks.
Additionally, our platform includes observability capabilities to monitor the health and reliability of data pipelines, especially when integrated with external systems. This combination of structured ingestion and oversight enables users to work from a centralized, trusted dataset that serves as a single source of ESG truth that underpins accurate reporting and meaningful insights.
The Role of Predictive Analytics in ESG
“Your website mentions ‘intelligent ESG forecasting.’ How does AI-powered predictive analytics within Lestar AI enable companies to anticipate future ESG trends, risks, and opportunities? What are the implications of this foresight for long-term business resilience and sustainability planning?”
Predictive analytics has the potential to transform ESG from a backward-looking reporting exercise into a forward-facing strategic tool. While Lestar does not currently offer full predictive ESG forecasting, it is a key area of development on our roadmap. We are laying the groundwork by structuring data in a way that supports trend identification, performance benchmarking, and eventually, automated risk flagging.
By building a consistent and traceable dataset across business units and time periods, Lestar is enabling the conditions necessary for meaningful forecasting. The next phase of our AI capabilities will include anomaly detection and contextual guidance, which will help companies detect early signals of ESG-related risks or performance shifts.
In the longer term, these predictive capabilities will support better scenario planning, resource prioritization, and proactive decision-making. Our goal is to help companies not only respond to ESG pressures but anticipate and lead through them with confidence.
User Experience and Accessibility
“For companies new to advanced tech solutions, adopting an AI platform can seem daunting. How has Mandrill Tech ensured that Lestar AI is user-friendly and accessible for a wide range of corporate users, from finance teams to sustainability officers and even board members?”
Adopting new technology can be challenging, especially when it involves data-heavy workflows like ESG reporting. From the start, we designed Lestar with usability in mind. The interface is intuitive, with guided workflows, contextual help, and structured templates that simplify each step of the reporting process. This ensures that users from various backgrounds, whether in finance, sustainability, compliance, or at the board level, can navigate the platform with minimal onboarding.
Our upcoming AI assistant will further enhance this experience by providing real-time support. It can answer questions, explain indicators, and help users locate relevant data or frameworks instantly. This makes ESG reporting not only more efficient but also more approachable, especially for teams that are new to the subject or to digital platforms.
Ultimately, our goal is to make Lestar a platform that supports the entire organisation, regardless of technical expertise or ESG maturity.
Impact on the Malaysian ESG Landscape
“With updated ESG reporting standards becoming mandatory for PLCs in Malaysia by 2025, how do you see Lestar AI playing a crucial role in enabling Malaysian businesses to meet these evolving regulatory requirements efficiently and effectively?”
Lestar supports Malaysia’s transition toward mandatory ESG disclosures by enabling public listed companies to align with Bursa Malaysia’s Sustainability Reporting Guide and the National Sustainability Reporting Framework (NSRF). The platform is designed to accommodate complex corporate structures, allowing consistent and traceable ESG data collection across multiple entities and business units.
Full support for ISSB-aligned standards, including IFRS S1 and S2, will be introduced in our product to meet NSRF timelines. In addition to compliance reporting, Lestar offers features such as AI-generated ESG narratives and a built-in assistant to help reduce manual effort and improve reporting clarity.
Lestar also complements national infrastructure efforts such as the Centralised Sustainability Intelligence (CSI) platform by offering enhanced capabilities for data management, analysis, and insight generation.
Regionally, Lestar is working toward alignment with the ASEAN Taxonomy as part of our roadmap to support broader cross-border objectives. For government stakeholders and investors, this ensures that Malaysian companies are not only compliant with national standards but also positioned to meet evolving regional expectations with a scalable, future-ready ESG platform that supports long-term resilience.
The Human Element in AI-driven ESG
“While AI automates much of the process, what is the continued importance of human expertise and oversight in utilising Lestar AI for ESG reporting? How do you balance the power of AI with the need for human judgment and ethical considerations?”
AI can streamline data processing, assist with narrative generation, improve the speed and consistency of ESG reporting, and soon, identify anomalies and forecast trends. These capabilities will significantly enhance how companies detect risks, respond to changes, and manage ESG performance over time. However, ESG is not just a data problem, it is a leadership and accountability issue, and this is where human oversight remains essential.
Lestar is designed to augment, not replace, human expertise. While AI handles the technical and time-consuming aspects of reporting, it is up to sustainability professionals, decision-makers, and boards to interpret what the data means, determine what is material, and ensure that the narratives align with organizational values and ethical responsibilities.
Ethical judgment, stakeholder engagement, and strategic trade-offs require a level of context and consideration that AI cannot replicate. We see Lestar’s role as a co-pilot providing clarity, consistency, and efficiency, while leaving critical thinking and accountability in the hands of those best positioned to lead responsibly.
Future of AI in ESG
“Looking ahead, what are the next frontiers for AI in the realm of ESG, and how is Mandrill Tech preparing Lestar AI to address these future developments? Are there new features or functionalities you envision for the platform?”
The next frontier for AI in ESG lies in enabling more intelligent, real-time decision support. We see AI playing a central role in helping companies move from reactive compliance to proactive sustainability management. At Mandrill Tech, we are preparing Lestar to evolve from a reporting solution into a strategic ESG intelligence platform.
In the near term, we are rolling out anomaly detection to help users flag inconsistencies or unexpected patterns in their ESG data. Following that, predictive analytics will allow organizations to model scenarios, forecast sustainability risks and opportunities, and align long-term targets with actual performance trajectories.
Looking further ahead, we envision features such as automated materiality assessments, sector benchmarking, disclosure gap analysis to identify risks and opportunities, and AI-assisted stakeholder engagement. Lestar will also support standardized ESG inputs that can flexibly adapt to new reporting standards and materiality topics without rework. This ensures that companies can maintain alignment with evolving frameworks while reducing administrative burden. Our goal is to equip users not just with tools for compliance, but with intelligent systems that surface what matters most and support timely, informed action. As ESG expectations grow more complex and data-driven, Lestar aims to be a trusted co-pilot in navigating this evolving landscape.
A Call to Action for Sustainable Tech Adoption
“For businesses that are still hesitant to fully embrace technology for their ESG journey, what is your message to them? How can adopting solutions like Lestar AI be a strategic imperative for long-term success in today’s increasingly sustainability-focused global economy?”
The cost of inaction is growing. ESG expectations are no longer just investor-driven. They are becoming embedded into regulations, procurement criteria, financing conditions, and consumer behavior. Relying on manual processes or fragmented systems puts companies at risk of falling behind, both in compliance and competitiveness.
Adopting technology like Lestar is not just about streamlining reporting. It is about building future-readiness. With evolving standards, increasing data complexity, and the shift toward real-time accountability, businesses need platforms that can scale, adapt, and provide meaningful insights. Lestar helps organisations move beyond check-the-box reporting toward data-driven sustainability management.
For companies still on the fence, the message is simple. Digital ESG infrastructure is no longer optional. It is a strategic imperative for long-term resilience, stakeholder trust, and sustainable growth. That is why we have made Lestar accessible through a flexible and competitively priced subscription model, bundled with ESG consultation services which are designed to support organisations of all sizes, whether they are just starting out or scaling a mature ESG strategy.
In a world increasingly defined by climate concerns, social equity demands, and robust governance expectations, Mandrill Tech’s Lestar AI stands as a beacon of innovation. It’s not just simplifying a complex process; it’s empowering businesses to not only meet their reporting obligations but to embrace ESG as a core driver of value. As Davent Low so eloquently put it, digital ESG infrastructure is no longer optional – it’s a strategic imperative for long-term resilience, stakeholder trust, and sustainable growth.
With Lestar AI as a trusted co-pilot, companies can navigate the evolving landscape of sustainability with confidence, fostering a truly sustainable future, one intelligently reported data point at a time.
