Is Australia Lagging with ESG and Carbon Reporting?

I’ve been interested to see news that indicates a larger proportion of businesses in the UK are already doing ESG and carbon reporting compared to Australia. As might be expected, I believe this is due to reporting requirements already in place in the UK and EU indicating that Australia is lagging in this area.

Companies in Australia that export or provide products and services to International brands are already being asked to report on their sustainability initiatives with the expectation of full ESG reporting for the 2023-2024 financial year. One client recently was visited by an advisor to their International clients to check out their business premises and to discuss sustainability. The client was advised to undertake ESG reporting immediately to maintain their contracts.

Economically it feels like Australia is doing it tough, farmers are struggling to make ends meet with pricing for their products being squeezed below their cost of production, other businesses are dealing with higher interest rates, wage increases, another 0.5% superannuation guarantee increase from 1 July and the generally higher cost of everything.

Adding ESG reporting to provide carbon footprint data and sustainability information is another burden being imposed on those businesses. What has not been made clear to businesses is that many sustainability initiatives save costs making the business more profitable.

Some years ago at one of the farms I worked with, the staff would identify that they needed to go into town for a screw, or a bolt or some small piece of hardware. The drive to town was 30 minutes. Whilst their intent was both to get off an hours’ work and also buy a coffee and lunch, more than one staff member would do the trip every day. By building up a supply of hardware in the shed, and insisting that the staff could not just go into town on a whim, not only was the team more productive, but they saved a significant amount of fuel and carbon emissions.

What could you do differently with your business processes to save fuel?

We are proud to advise that this article was written by the team and not produced by AI.