RMIT and Deloitte partner to meet ‘huge’ green skills challenge
From 1 January 2025, Australia’s largest companies will be required to produce quality sustainability reports. RMIT Online and Deloitte have launched an educational initiative to help finance professionals upskill ahead of the new requirements.
RMIT Online, in partnership with Deloitte, will offer a new educational course on sustainability and climate-related financial reporting.
Announced on Tuesday, the new course offering has been designed to equip finance professionals with the green skills they need to meet Australia’s new sustainability reporting rules which are soon to come into effect.
From 2025, Australia’s largest listed and unlisted companies and financial institutions will be required to report on their climate-related financial performance. The disclosure rules, contained within the Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Market Infrastructure and Other Measures) Bill 2024, are currently before Parliament.
The bill will require captured entities to prepare a “sustainability report” per the sustainability rules developed by the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB).
Reporting requirements will be rolled out across three phases from 1 January 2025 to 1 July 2027 and captured entities will have to disclose their climate-related risks, opportunities, governance, strategy, targets, emissions, and more.
Joanne Gorton, managing partner of audit and assurance at Deloitte, said the course will provide “financial, sustainability, and risk professionals with an understanding of how to integrate sustainability and climate-related assessments into the finance function.”
The course, which is now open for enrolment, is made up of weekly webinars and touchpoints with local and international industry experts.
It will also demonstrate the strategic opportunities presented by the new reporting requirements for businesses and financial professionals.
"We should see more of these programs being launched in the coming months from other institutions," said Richard Evans, chief executive at Talent Nation.
For years, EY has offered a sustainability training program which, Evans said, is "well regarded and attended, but focuses more on sustainability strategy."
"It makes sense for Deloitte to counter with something like this as it would be hard to compete with that [EY] program."
Gorton explained there is more to gain from the new reporting requirements than compliance: “Businesses that adhere to the standards will improve resilience to climate-related risks and quickly accumulate brand prestige by better aligning themselves to the expectations of customers, regulators, and investors."
“Financial professionals who have the skills to help businesses embed the robust corporate governance practices that these new standards require will find themselves in high demand.”
Nic Cola, chief executive at RMIT Online, said the new disclosure requirements encompass “governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets … Compliance relies on upskilling.”
Indeed, the demand for green skilled financial professionals has grown in recent years, driving up how much firms are willing to pay for skilled consultants.
“We’ve been recording the data for the last five years and [demand] has been trending upwards all that time … and so have salaries,” Evans recently told Accounting Times.
“There is a shortage [of green-skilled finance professionals] and it’s only going to get tighter from here,” he added.
By engaging with clients and the market more broadly, Gorton said it was evident that a “rapid capability uplift” is required to meet the new reporting standards. Getting there will be a “huge challenge,” she added.
Evans said the course is a "low cost" way for organisations to "familiarise" themselves with the reporting requirements, "but they would have to cover a lot in 25 hours to entrust your mandatory reporting obligations to someone with no prior experience."
"They will need to lean on external support for that," he added.
RMIT Online’s new course offering is an example of the kind of reform called for by Aletta Boshoff, advisory partner at BDO, who said the current demand for external consultants is unsustainable.
Education and training, she said, will be crucial in building the required in-house capabilities to meet the changing sustainability reporting landscape.
Evans said the challenge for educational course providers will be ensuring their offerings remain current.
“The space is moving so rapidly that it is quite challenging to build a course and make sure that it’s relevant by the time the first class of graduates come through,” he said.
"Overall, I think it is really positive that these programs are being developed as many organisations are unsure of their obligations under the proposed legislation and this will build their understanding."
