Australian sustainability and technology industry groups have called for a national plan for collecting trustworthy data to support climate related accounting disclosures.
The group – which includes IoT Alliance Australia (IoTAA), the Carbon Market Institute (CMI), Australian Industry Group (Ai Group), Climateworks Centre and the Tech Council of Australia – have released a statement calling for all levels of government to coordinate support and funding for an industry-led “Trusted Climate and Nature Data Plan”.
Australia is “lagging in its collection and sharing of trusted data, industry capacity to deliver, and its ambition to overcome these challenges,” according to the group.
“This will seriously impede our ability to achieve net zero and nature positive goals,” including supporting investment confidence in these efforts, they stated.
A “Trusted Data Plan” would make it easier and cheaper navigate for business to comply and government to administer reporting initiatives, they claimed. They called for a plan that:
- Sets internationally aligned national data standards
- Lowers the cost of data collection and management by setting principles for data practices and tools
- Streamlines and supports interoperability and data sharing between existing platforms and tools in Australia
- Raises business awareness and capability through education and training and building capacity to digitally collect and manage sustainability data.
- Supports supply chain SMEs to uplift their data capabilities with technology that streamlines reporting processes and standardises the collection, management and reporting of sustainability data to meet the needs of large organisations' Scope 3 reporting obligations
- Creates trusted data-sharing models to support data transparency and Scope 3 emissions data sharing, handle sensitive information appropriately, drive sectoral transition, and address greenwashing.
They acknowledged this would need to consider and complement existing government initiatives for improved data, such as Environment Information Australia.
Growing number of frameworks, policies and programs
The Trusted Data Plan group noted a “growing number of inter-related, data-dependent reporting frameworks that are arising under policies and programs related to Australia’s decarbonisation, net zero, clean tech and nature-positive plans”.
This includes the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) recently published voluntary AASB S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information and mandatory AASB S2 Climate-related Disclosures. Certain entities are required to apply AASB S2 for annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2025.
It also includes climate-related financial disclosure and the Sustainable Finance Strategy, and existing regulations such as the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) Scheme. The group also pointed to possible future reporting requirements that may arise from incoming sectoral decarbonisation plans, the economy-wide Net Zero Plan, and the potential development of an Australian carbon border adjustment mechanism.
The Trusted Data Plan group argued that “trusted, reliable quantitative data” is needed for timely, shared, granular information about how Australian organisations are progressing in terms of meeting decarbonisation and other nature-related targets.
This could inform businesses, government, investors and users' decisions about where to focus investment and guide decision-making, they claimed.
"Industry is ready to step up and plug the net zero information and data gap articulated by the Climate Change Authority. Let's not fail Australia’s net zero ambition because there’s no data to support it," said Frank Zeichner, CEO, IoT Alliance Australia.
Zeichner will join industry in Sydney tomorrow at the IoTAA State of the Nation event, where panelists will discuss the Trusted Data Plan and related issues.
"I'm looking forward to hearing from some of the people at the forefront of these issues, and present our latest research findings benchmarking IoT adoption and its influence on Australia's economic and climate targets," Zeichner said.
Learn more at the IoTAA State of the Nation event from 3.30pm on November 14 at the Sydney CIC Centre, Telstra, at 400 George Street Sydney. Final seats available here.
IoT Hub is the media partner of IoT Alliance Australia.
