Australia’s accounting and auditing rulemakers are busy trying to push out guidance to entities and auditors on sustainability to enable the government’s vision of climate reporting to take hold.
The 2022-23 annual report for the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) and the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (AUASB) focuses heavily on both statutory authorities’ work on sustainability standards.
AASB chair Dr Keith Kendall said in his summary of the year’s activities that the standard setter has moved to proactively work towards the introduction of new sustainability standards that will ensure that there is global uniformity when entities disclose their climate impacts.
“The most significant single activity that the AASB has undertaken this year has been supporting the Government’s vision to implement mandatory climate-related financial disclosures,” Kendall said.
“This has been a truly paradigm-shifting project that is necessarily dominating our work program over several years, with the first year marked by the development of the international standards dealing with climate-related disclosures and Australia’s contribution to that development.”
Kendall also said that the board had to bring fresh talent with sustainability skills to cope with the new subject matter.
“The AASB’s involvement in developing climate-related financial disclosure standards has necessitated an expansion of the Board membership. This has resulted in an increased diversity in the range of skills and experience that individual Board members bring to the AASB’s inclusive decision-making process,” Kendall said.
“These efforts have improved the balance of an already well-functioning body, with a wide range of perspectives directly involved in the AASB’s activities.”
New AUASB chair Doug Niven highlighted the work done by the previous chairman, Bill Edge, on international committees that have developed a draft assurance standard on sustainability so that auditors across the world can have relevant guidance when entities begin to require assurance on reporting on climate indicators and similar non-financial disclosures.
“The demand for the reporting and assurance of climate and sustainability information has gained momentum in recent years,” Niven said.
“The AUASB welcomes the progress of the IAASB towards a global sustainability assurance standard based on pre-existing IAASB pronouncements and guidance.”
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