Mandatory sustainability reporting lands in July. Can you explain it to your stakeholders?
From 1 July 2026, medium to large Australian entities are required to begin mandatory sustainability reporting under the Australian Sustainability Reporting Standards: AASB S1, covering general sustainability-related financial information, and AASB S2, addressing climate-related disclosures. The largest entities have been reporting since January 2025. For the second group, this is new territory, and the question arriving in my conversations as the deadline approaches is not "will we be compliant?" It is "how do we explain this to the people who matter to us?" Those are very different problems.
There is a version of sustainability reporting organisations produce because they must, and a version they produce because it builds trust. The compliance requirements, the disclosure frameworks, the audit trails: these are necessary, but they are not what your board members, your funders, your community partners, or your employees are reading for. They are reading for evidence that your organisation understands what it is doing and why. That requires a communications decision, not just a reporting one.
One of the risks I see consistently in annual reporting work is what I call the template trap. An organisation produces a sustainability section because the framework requires it. The following year, the same structure is reprinted with updated figures. By year three, nobody is asking whether there is actually something new and meaningful to report. The editor, under time pressure, fills the template.
The reader, over time, stops reading it.
Good reporting practice requires someone asking, before the writing begins: what has genuinely changed this year? Susan Blain asked this important question:
What do our stakeholders need to understand now that they did not understand last year? If the honest answer is "not much," that is worth saying briefly and clearly, rather than restating last year's section in different words.
For organisations entering mandatory reporting for the first time this July, the first year sets the tone. A stakeholder who reads your initial sustainability disclosure and comes away understanding your organisation better is a stakeholder who trusts you more. One who reads it and feels managed will notice the difference.
The communication is not an afterthought to the compliance work. It is the work that makes the compliance matter.
The numbers are the starting point. The communication is what turns them into trust.
For more information
Beyond the tick box: why social value reporting deserves to be told as a story
From 1 July 2026, medium to large Australian entities are required to begin mandatory sustainability reporting under the Australian Sustainability Reporting Standards: AASB S1, covering general sustainability-related financial information, and AASB S2, addressing climate-related disclosures. The largest entities have been reporting since January 2025. For the second group, this is new territory, and the question arriving in my conversations as the deadline approaches is not "will we be compliant?" It is "how do we explain this to the people who matter to us?" Those are very different problems.
There is a version of sustainability reporting organisations produce because they must, and a version they produce because it builds trust. The compliance requirements, the disclosure frameworks, the audit trails: these are necessary, but they are not what your board members, your funders, your community partners, or your employees are reading for. They are reading for evidence that your organisation understands what it is doing and why. That requires a communications decision, not just a reporting one.
One of the risks I see consistently in annual reporting work is what I call the template trap. An organisation produces a sustainability section because the framework requires it. The following year, the same structure is reprinted with updated figures. By year three, nobody is asking whether there is actually something new and meaningful to report. The editor, under time pressure, fills the template.
The reader, over time, stops reading it.
Good reporting practice requires someone asking, before the writing begins: what has genuinely changed this year? Susan Blain asked this important question:
What do our stakeholders need to understand now that they did not understand last year? If the honest answer is "not much," that is worth saying briefly and clearly, rather than restating last year's section in different words.
For organisations entering mandatory reporting for the first time this July, the first year sets the tone. A stakeholder who reads your initial sustainability disclosure and comes away understanding your organisation better is a stakeholder who trusts you more. One who reads it and feels managed will notice the difference.
The communication is not an afterthought to the compliance work. It is the work that makes the compliance matter.
The numbers are the starting point. The communication is what turns them into trust.
For more information
