Australia's first assured climate reports are in

Australia's mandatory climate reporting regime has produced its first cohort of reports: 259 sustainability reports for year ends of 31 December 2025 had been lodged with the regulator by 6 May 2026, under AASB S2. June 2026 year ends follow this year, and Group 2 and Group 3 entities phase in from 1 July 2026 and 1 July 2027.

Source: PwC Australia — AASB S2 unpacked: how did Australia's Group 1 climate reporting fare?

Assurance is the part that changes behaviour

Limited assurance is required from the start over Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and the governance disclosures, moving toward reasonable assurance over all climate disclosures for years beginning on or after 1 July 2030. That is the difference between a sustainability report and a financial one: somebody independent has to be able to follow the number back to its source.

What an assurer actually asks for

Meter readings and invoices, not a spreadsheet total. The emission factors used, with their source and version. The organisational boundary, written down, and consistent between periods. Evidence that somebody checks the data before it is reported. Organisations discover in their first cycle that the hard part is not calculating emissions but being able to show where each figure came from.

ISO 14064-1 is the standard written for that problem, and ISO 50001 supplies most of the energy data underneath it. For a business that will enter Group 2 or Group 3, the cheapest time to build the data trail is before the first report is due, not during it.