Climate-Related Risk Reporting and the Role of Management Accountants

The aim of this study is to provide evidence of how Australian companies prepared themselves for climate-related risk reporting in its early voluntary stages, with a particular focus on the role of management accountants and whether the approach adopted by management was likely to equip these companies well for the disclosure requirements of the standards that followed. The Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Framework, issued in 2017, signalled to companies the importance of preparing for change in climate-related risk reporting. The subsequent International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) Standard IFRS S2 Climate-Related Disclosure requirements issued in 2023 and its (phased) mandated Australian Sustainability Reporting Standard counterpart AASB S2 of the same name rely heavily on the concepts embedded in the TCFD Framework. In 2021, we interviewed 18 senior managers involved in climate-related risk reporting as well as two managers from consultancy firms providing advisory services on this topic. The interview data revealed that management encountered both internal and external challenges in implementing climate-related risk reporting and increasingly engaged external consulting firms to develop scenario analyses and enhance their climate resilience reporting. The findings reveal a significant lack of involvement from management accountants in companies' climate change risk management activities, indicating a more symbolic than substantive approach to addressing climate risks. The interviews provide insights into how the role of management accountants in climate-change risk management can be enhanced to promote more significant and substantive climate actions within their companies.