Why Carbon Accounting Is Critical for ASRS Compliance

Carbon accounting is at the core of the Australian Sustainability Reporting Standards (ASRS), particularly ASRS S2. As climate change continues to reshape the regulatory and financial landscape, understanding and disclosing your carbon footprint is no longer optional. It is essential for risk management, investor confidence, and long-term business resilience.

ASRS requires companies to quantify their greenhouse gas emissions and disclose how climate risks and opportunities influence strategic and financial decisions. Without accurate carbon accounting, organisations cannot provide credible climate-related disclosures or meet the expectations of regulators, investors, and customers.

More importantly, carbon data is the starting point for meaningful climate action. It helps businesses identify emissions hotspots, set reduction targets, assess transition risks, and align with emerging sustainability standards globally. In short, if you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it—and that is why carbon accounting is critical to ASRS compliance and climate strategy overall.

Where to Start

The first step is to map your emissions across Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 categories.

Scope 1 covers direct emissions from owned or controlled sources, such as fuel combustion and industrial processes. Scope 2 captures indirect emissions from purchased electricity or heating. These are typically easier to measure using internal data sources like energy bills and asset registers.

Scope 3 encompasses all other indirect emissions across your value chain. This includes supplier emissions, distribution, product use, business travel, investments, and more. Although Scope 3 is more complex, it is often the largest part of a company’s footprint and is essential for a full picture of climate impact.

To begin, companies should engage internal stakeholders, identify relevant data sources, and evaluate existing sustainability or financial systems. Understanding how emissions data intersects with material risks and operational realities will also be important for integrating climate into your broader disclosures under ASRS.

Tools to Get It Right

Manually collecting and calculating emissions data can be overwhelming and prone to error. That is where technology becomes vital. Integrated ESG platforms like Speeki offer embedded carbon accounting tools designed for accuracy, efficiency, and regulatory alignment.

With Speeki, you can track Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, input emission factors, automate calculations, and generate reports that align with ASRS expectations. The platform also links carbon data with your overall ESG programme, making it easier to embed climate considerations into your strategy, risk assessments and disclosures.

Because Speeki brings together ESG reporting, risk management and stakeholder engagement in one place, you gain a connected view of your sustainability performance. The carbon accounting capability is not an add-on—it is integrated with the same system used to manage your policies, controls, and other disclosures.

Final Thoughts

Carbon accounting is not just a box to tick for ASRS. It is the foundation for credible climate disclosure, better business decisions and long-term sustainability performance. As climate expectations continue to evolve, companies that invest in accurate, auditable carbon data will be better positioned to respond.

Speeki can help you make carbon reporting easier, more reliable, and more strategic. Reach out today to see how our platform can support your carbon accounting and broader ASRS compliance journey.