The XRB has published an independent evaluation of New Zealand's climate-related disclosure (CRD) framework, undertaken by the University of Otago. The evaluation began in April 2023 to establish a baseline for understanding the framework's effectiveness and provide evidence on its early impacts.
Initial evidence shows that the CRD framework is improving business decision making, disclosure quality and investor practices, and reshaping governance and internal processes. However, substantial hurdles remain in capability building, data quality, methodological consistency, and the translation of disclosed information into meaningful financial and strategic decisions.
The XRB commissioned the research to obtain early evidence of the effectiveness of a new reporting regime. Understanding whether a reporting regime is delivering its intended outcomes is an important part of the standard setters’ role and includes understanding how reporting standards operate within the wider system.
The findings will help to inform the XRB’s work. For example, the evaluation finds that climate reporting entities face significant challenges in meeting disclosure requirements, including capability gaps, methodological uncertainty, and data limitations. The XRB is working through the report’s insights to guide our standard setting and implementation priorities, including informing our work on the draft climate reporting roadmap.
The full report is available here.
