Use Case
A data foundation for mandatory climate reporting
Mandatory climate reporting has changed the expectations placed on Australian organisations.
Climate-related disclosure is no longer a voluntary sustainability exercise or an annual narrative statement. For many entities, it is becoming a formal reporting requirement that must be supported by clear evidence, repeatable methodology and a defensible understanding of climate-related financial risk.
AASB S2 requires disclosures that help users understand an entity's climate-related risks and opportunities, including how those risks affect strategy, decision-making, current and anticipated financial effects, and progress against plans over time.
This creates a practical challenge: organisations must move from broad ESG commentary to structured, data-led reporting.
The Reporting Challenge
Most organisations do not lack intent. They lack the data infrastructure required to report properly. Climate reporting requires organisations to understand risk across multiple dimensions:
For many organisations, these inputs sit in different systems, owned by different teams, with different levels of completeness and assurance. Without a structured data layer, climate reporting becomes slow, manual and difficult to defend.
Why Current Approaches Fall Short
Many organisations currently rely on a combination of:
- supplier questionnaires
- internal spreadsheets
- static industry codes
- location lists
- consulting-led assessments
- self-reported emissions data
- manual data collection cycles
Each of these inputs may be useful, but none provides a complete operating model.
Common limitations:
- Supplier questionnaires are often incomplete and difficult to refresh.
- Static industry classifications may not reflect what a business actually does today.
- Location data may not be connected to environmental hazard exposure.
- Consulting outputs may provide a point-in-time view, but not a repeatable dataset.
- Manual reporting processes create inconsistency between reporting periods.
The result is a gap between the reporting obligation and the organisation's ability to evidence its position.
How the NCED Helps
The NCED provides an entity-level data foundation that helps organisations identify, assess and explain climate-related exposure across business populations. It connects:
This enables organisations to build a more consistent view of climate exposure across customers, suppliers, assets and counterparties.
Supporting AASB S2 Workflows
The NCED can support several important reporting workflows:
Governance
Boards and executive teams need a clear view of where climate risk sits and how it is being assessed. The NCED helps create a consistent evidence base that can be used to inform governance discussions, risk committees and reporting preparation.
Strategy
AASB S2 expects entities to explain how climate-related risks and opportunities affect strategy and decision-making. The NCED supports this by helping organisations identify which sectors, regions, suppliers or customer groups may be most exposed to physical or transition risk.
Risk Management
Climate risk must be identified, assessed, prioritised and monitored. The NCED helps organisations move beyond general risk statements by providing structured indicators across populations of entities.
Metrics and Targets
Climate reporting requires consistent measures over time. The NCED supports repeatable analysis by creating a standardised data foundation that can be refreshed, compared and tracked across reporting periods.
Practical Outputs
Using the NCED, organisations can produce:
The Strategic Value
The value of the NCED is not simply that it helps organisations complete a report. It helps them build the capability behind the report.
That means:
- less reliance on manual collection
- greater consistency across teams
- stronger evidence for disclosures
- better visibility across Scope 3 and supply chains
- improved ability to monitor changes over time
- clearer connection between climate risk and business decision-making
The NCED helps organisations move from climate reporting as a compliance exercise to climate reporting as a structured, data-led risk capability.