A first AASB S2 reporting year feels unmanageable mainly because nobody shows you the order of operations. Here is one that works, built around the four pillars of the standard: governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets, in a sequence where nothing gets written twice.
The hours shown are what a reasonably resourced team can expect to spend in-house each month. Gold months are the heavier data months. Shift things to suit your financial year, but keep the order: every month builds on the one before it.
Kick-off & governance
Kick off and learn the AASB S2 standard. Draft your governance disclosure, identify the gaps in your supporting evidence, and set your timeline for the year, including when to engage your auditor and what data to prepare.
4 hoursValue chain impacts & dependencies
Draw your reporting boundary, covering both your disclosures and your emissions, then map where climate touches your operations, suppliers and customers. This is written straight into your value chain disclosure.
5 hoursClimate risk longlist
Identify your physical and transition risks across the value chain. This becomes the backbone of your risk disclosures.
6 hoursScenario analysis
Test your risks under two futures, including a 1.5°C scenario. The standard requires this analysis behind your disclosures.
7 hoursRisk assessment & prioritisation
Rate every risk on the longlist, with the scenario results built in. Your rated register supports the disclosures that follow.
6 hoursDetermine your material risks
Decide which risks are material, and get support integrating them into your risk register, including monitoring processes. This decides what your report must cover.
6 hoursGHG inventory: Scope 1 & 2
Build the basis of preparation for your Scope 1 and 2 emissions data. Map your emission sources and controls. This streamlines your year-end calculations and sets you up for assurance walkthroughs.
9 hoursScope 1 & 2 test, or Scope 3 boundary
Year 1 reporters trial their Scope 1 and 2 calculations ahead of year end. Year 2 reporters develop their Scope 3 boundary and emission factor sources.
9 hoursAnticipated financial effects & resilience
Put numbers on what your material risks could cost. This is the hardest disclosure in the standard, so we tackle it with everything else in place. Then build your resilience story and response.
6 hoursDraft your climate statement
Write the statement itself with your consultant reviewing as you go. Around 90% is drafted before year end.
9 hoursGHG calculations
Perform your GHG calculations at year end with your consultant's support, using the basis of preparation you built in month 7.
5 hoursSign-off & assurance readiness
Assemble the board pack and evidence file, get support answering auditor questions, and plan year two, including mandatory Scope 3, quarterly reviews and keeping your climate risk assessment current.
5 hoursDone this way, around 90% of the climate statement is drafted before year end, with the evidence file growing alongside the text instead of being assembled in a panic afterwards.
You don't have to run it alone. Our clients work through exactly this roadmap with their own ESG consultant beside them, or kick it off with the Climate Reporting Academy, our two-day intensive.
Want this mapped to your financial year?
Book a free discovery call and we'll walk the roadmap through with you, no charge.
Book a free discovery callGeneral information only. Regulatory settings as at October 2026; verify current thresholds at aasb.gov.au.