Accounting bodies work to join Australia up to sustainability-disclosure standards

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Australia’s accounting and auditing standard setters have beefed up their sustainability expertise for setting standards of sustainability disclosures, according to an announcement issued by the Financial Reporting Council this week.

The Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) and the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board are working to implement in Australia sustainability disclosure standards that are based on London-based International Sustainability Standards Board documents.

Getting additional sustainability and climate reporting grunt on the two boards was essential for them to be able to deal with the new body of literature.

The FRC has announced five new standard-setting appointments drawn from the Big Four accounting firms.

KPMG partner Adrian King, PricewaterhouseCoopers managing partner Liza Maimone, and EY climate change and sustainability expert Matthew Nelson have joined the AASB.

The auditing and assurance standard setter has added Deloitte partner Chi Mun Woo and EY partner Terence Jeyaretnam to its batting order to deal with the assurance consequences of sustainability reporting.

Sustainability reporting standards have been added to the agenda of both bodies over the past couple of years as global regulators, various investor groups, and governments across the globe backed the creation of a single set of sustainability reporting standards.

The objective of the London-based standard setter is to create a single body of disclosure rules that can be adopted across the globe by companies that report in various markets.

Getting to a single set of sustainability standards, which will also include guidance on climate reporting, also means that other sources of guidance, such as the Global Reporting Initiative and the Integrating Reporting framework, can be phased out.

The new appointees join both boards at a time when Australia has been engaged with both the London-based ISSB and the New York-based International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board to work on guidance on private and public sector reporting frameworks.

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Submissions to IPSASB on governments’ reporting on sustainability end today