What 20 Australian Finance Leaders Told Us About Mandatory Climate Reporting

5. Finance has a central role, even where ESG teams exist

Even in organisations with a dedicated ESG or sustainability function, finance was deeply involved in ASRS preparation. The standard requires integration with financial statements, assurance over disclosure, and governance sign-off at board level. None of those sit comfortably outside finance.

In organisations without an ESG team, finance was carrying the workload almost entirely. Either way, the learning curve is steep and the upskilling requirement is real. Several attendees described ASRS as the moment finance was being asked to take genuine ownership of something it had previously observed from a distance.

The opportunity in that is significant. Finance functions that navigate this well will have a more strategic role in their organisations than they did before. The ones that resist it will find it arrives on their desk anyway, but with less preparation time.

6. AI is widely accepted, but not without human judgement

There was strong openness in the room to using AI to streamline processes, reduce manual effort in data gathering, and improve the consistency of disclosure outputs. Nobody pushed back on the idea of AI playing a role.

The caveat that came up repeatedly was the need for experienced oversight. Climate disclosure is not a context where outputs can go unreviewed. The regulatory expectations, the assurance requirements, and the legal accountability mean that AI works best when it is paired with human judgement that can assess whether outputs are reasonable, defensible, and consistent with the organisation's actual position.

7. Automation creates value, but maturity will be incremental

Automating the processing of financial and operational data is already delivering real efficiency gains for organisations that have invested in it. Connecting data flows at source, so that emissions and climate-related financial data flows directly into reporting systems rather than being assembled manually each period, represents an even greater opportunity.

Most organisations in the room expected to build toward that level of maturity over multiple reporting cycles rather than achieve it in Year One. That is a realistic and sensible position. The key is building the foundations now, in a way that makes automation genuinely possible later rather than treating Year One as a standalone exercise.

Despite growing familiarity with the standard overall, Scope 3 remains the area where uncertainty is highest and anxiety is most visible. The core challenges are not changing: data availability from suppliers and value chain partners, methodological choices that affect comparability, and the tension between completeness and what is actually achievable in early years.

What the room surfaced was a specific pattern worth naming: many organisations are assuming a level of precision for Scope 3 that is not actually required in Year One. The standard requires disclosure of material Scope 3 categories with appropriate explanation of methodology and limitations. It does not require a complete, audited footprint from day one.

Understanding that proportionality is permissible, and is actually what the standard expects, can meaningfully reduce the perceived scale of Scope 3 work without reducing the credibility of the disclosure.

The organisations in the room were not struggling with awareness or intent. They were struggling with confidence: confidence in their scope, confidence in their board conversations, confidence that what they were building would be seen as credible by auditors and regulators.

That confidence does not come from spending more. It comes from starting with clarity about what is genuinely required and building from there with a structured, proportionate approach.

If your organisation is working through any of these challenges, we would be glad to help.

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