Climate Legislation
Elise Brocklehurst, Bridget Carson
The 2025 iteration of Bound aims to encourage the publishing industry to transition to a more environmentally conscious standard and to provide insight into the opportunities for positive change. Many of the findings of this research have pointed to government intervention as a paramount force to prompt this change and prevent inaction.
Where companies lack notable financial benefits from implementing sustainable practices, mandatory legislation could intervene. We expect that government initiatives will be the most effective way to disrupt the wasteful industry standard and demand transparency in reporting on industry practices.
While government initiatives targeted towards the publishing industry are modest, if non-existent, a broadly reaching bill passed by Parliament may contribute to enforcing industry action. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Market Infrastructure and Other Measures) Bill 2024 requires large national businesses to disclose climate-related financial information to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). The mandatory climate reporting measures will take effect over the next three years in a tiered group system, with the first annual reporting period starting from 1 January 2025.
This follows legislation in the European Union—the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) 2022—which similarly requires companies above a certain threshold (usually based on revenue, total assets, or employees) to publish reports on a certain set of sustainability metrics based on ‘the risks and opportunities arising from social and environmental issues, and on the impact of their activities on people and the environment’.
ASIC Commissioner Kate O’Rourke provided an encouraging inclusion at the bill's announcement; that in its enactment businesses would be made aware of both the risks and opportunities of climate-related financing. It is not just a necessity for future business endeavours, it is an opportunity. The regulatory resources provided by ASIC on sustainability reporting also note that while the Australian Parliament has ‘prioritised climate-related financial disclosures… over time [they] may introduce additional mandatory sustainability reporting requirements for subjects beyond climate.’
The criteria for mandatory reporting under the Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Market Infrastructure and Other Measures) Bill 2024 dictates that a business must meet at least two of the following criteria. They must have:
· a consolidated revenue of $50 million or more,
· end of financial year consolidated gross assets of $25 million or more,
· or end of financial year employees; 100 or more.
Australian publishing companies rarely meet these criteria. What is ‘large’ for the industry is not considered large in the broader scope of Australian business. Multinational organisations like Penguin Random House Australia and Hachette Australia will be mandated to report, with total revenues in 2024 in excess of $240 million and $115 million respectively. However, smaller presses like the University of Queensland Press, will not meet this criteria.
An additional collective required to report under this legislation are entities registered under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme (NGER). While government initiatives may not involve the majority of publishing companies in regulatory requirements, there remains the opportunity for businesses to opt in to these initiatives. Under the registration of NGER and the guidance supplied by ASIC, companies would gain access to a depth of resources and invite expectations on their climate-related standards.
As long as these government initiatives do not explicitly involve the publishing industry, it will be in the hands of individual businesses to hold themselves and their peers accountable for the harm Australia’s trade publishing industry causes to the environment.