In September 2020, the NZ Government announced its intention to implement mandatory reporting on climate risks, tasked the XRB with developing reporting standards to support the new reporting regime and noted that it had "a strong appetite to move fast". Therefore, the reporting standards have been developed through three consultative iterations over just 18 months with the final standards having been published today and New Zealand’s most economically significant entities to start reporting against the standards from 1 January 2023.

The following standards are now available:

• NZ CS 1 Climate-related Disclosures provides a framework for entities to consider climate-related risks and opportunities
• NZ CS 2 Adoption of Aotearoa New Zealand Climate Standards outlines a limited number of adoption provisions
• NZ CS 3 General Requirements for Climate-related Disclosures establishes principles and general requirements

Although the first standards focus on climate, the XRB approach is "climate first, but not climate only".

Please click to access the final standards on the XRB website.