This page is a work in progress as at 20231030.

This page is designed to support the ClimateChangeNZ research project through identifying and analysing the climate-related disclosures of NZSX-listed companies.

The External Reporting Board: Aotearoa New Zealand Climate Standards (NZ CS 1, 2 and 3)

In December 2022, in response to the Financial Sector (Climate-related Disclosures and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2021,  the External Reporting Board (XRB) issued its Aotearoa New Zealand Climate Standards (NZ CS 1, NZ CS 2 and NZ CS 3). Under these standards, climate reporting entities (CREs) are required to make climate-related disclosures in their annual reports, either through a copy of its climate statement, or a link to the website where a copy of the climate statement can be accessed, for accounting periods commencing on or after 1 January 2023.

The following entities are defined as CREs under the Act:

• Listed issuers with a total market value of equity securities or total face value of quoted debt securities exceeding $60 million
• Registered banks, credit unions and building societies with total assets exceeding $1 billion
• Licensed insurers with total assets exceeding $1 billion or annual gross premium revenue exceeding $250 million
• Managers of registered investment schemes with total assets under management exceeding $1 billion
• Specified Crown Financial Institutions by Enduring Letter of Expectations from the Minister of Finance and Minister of ACC with greater than $1 billion in total assets under management

The Institute in currently in the progress of publishing Working Paper 2023/07 – Analysing TCFD Information Disclosed in 2017–2022 Annual Reports of NZSX-listed Companies, extending on the previous iteration to consider disclosures made under NZ CS 1 alongside TCFD information. As part of this work, Table 1 below lists the FY23 annual reports (or external reports) of NZSX-listed companies (as at 31 March 2023) where either NZ CS 1 or TCFD information can be found. The third column below identifies whether the information is found within the annual report (internal) or in a standalone document (external) with the relevant page numbers included. Please note that as some companies have differing financial periods, not all FY23 annual reports were immediately available during this initial work.

The Financial Stability Board: Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD recommendations)

In 2017, the Recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures report was published ‘to develop voluntary, consistent climate-related financial disclosures that would be useful to investors, lenders, and insurance underwriters in understanding material risks.’ Tables 2 and 3 below list the FY22 and FY21 annual reports (or external reports) of NZSX-listed companies where TCFD information can be found. While some annual reports included mentions of NZ CS 1, the Institute has chosen to focus primarily on TCFD information for FY22 and FY21. For financial years prior to FY21, refer to Working Paper 2022/14 – Reviewing TCFD information in 2017–2021 reports of NZSX-listed companies.

Notes to Table 1

1. The list was generated from NZX who provided a list to the Insitute of NZSX-listed companies listed on 31 March 2023.
2. The Institute at this time, has only searched for Annual Reports up to 14 September 2023. We will endeavour to find all Annual Reports published that relate to the calendar year of 2023. This means we will continue to update this Table accordingly over the coming months. In practical terms, this means financial statements as at 31 December 2022 and published in 2023 relate to the FY22 year. If financial statements as at 31 January 2023 are published in 2023, they relate to the FY23 year. Hence the financial statements as at date determines the calendar year for seperating Tables 1, 2 and 3 below.
3. Annual Reports are searched for and found on the NZSX-listed company’s announcements page.
4. To be counted as a mention, either the entity (‘XRB’ or ‘Financial Stability Board’/’FSB’) or the specific standards or recommendations (‘NZ CS’ or ‘TCFD’) must be mentioned. For completeness we have also searched for ‘climate’ and ‘financial disclosures’. Please note these are the seven terms that were searched within the Annual Report.
5. The TCFD/Sustainability report are given as at the year of publication. For example, a report published in December 2022 is treated as the 2022 TCFD/Sustainability report.
6. An * refers to combining more than one company document into one searchable PDF. When the Institute has combined more than one company document, we have placed the Annual Report first, followed by the climate statement (such as a TCFD report or a sustainability report). This enables us to search across all documents for each term. In practice this means, a 150 page PDF that contains a TCFD mention in p. 26 of the climate statement may be described as PDF* (p. 140). In a few cases, company documents are locked and we have not been able to combine these documents. In this situation we have referenced page these seperately in the normal manner. For example, climate statement (p. 26).

Table 1: Climate-related disclosures in the Annual Reports of NZSX-listed companies that relate to FY23 [133]

[table id=143 /]

Table 2: Climate-related disclosures in the Annual Reports of NZSX-listed companies that relate to FY22 

[table id=138 /]

Table 3: Climate-related disclosures in the Annual Reports of NZSX-listed companies that relate to FY21

[table id=139 /]