How directors can stay on top of increasing geopolitical change and red tape

Climate governance, productivity and the ASIC review of the Australian Stock Exchange are in the spotlight this month.

Climate governance will be a key consideration for Australian directors, with the start of mandatory reporting domestically, and global and local regulatory shifts and initiatives.

AICD’s Climate Governance Forum on 8 August will bring together leading directors, experts and key regulators to discuss the “need to know” for boards on these key issues.

For many large Australian entities and heavy emitters, 1 July marked the start of their first reporting period under the new mandatory climate reporting regime. It is important for boards and directors to be across the new requirements and materiality considerations, to have comfort that relevant data and decisions from 1 July are being considered and recorded by management.

Reporting includes a directors’ declaration on compliance with the sustainability standards and required disclosures, with a transition period until 2028 allowing directors to declare that reasonable steps have been taken to ensure compliance. Professor Pamela Hanrahan MAICD discussed key sign-off issues in the July edition of Company Director.

The AICD has practical resources to support directors, including the Climate Governance Initiative resource: A director’s guide to mandatory climate reporting.

Climate reporting and insights from early movers will be a major theme for the 2025 Climate Governance Forum, with key insights from leading experts, directors and regulators.

Productivity in focus

As outlined in Mark Rigotti’s CEO column, the AICD is endorsing the welcome national focus on productivity. To support this reform priority we are drawing on insights from our director advisory committees, AICD Division Councils, economic reform director roundtables and Director Sentiment Index, as well as business and community groups.

In last month’s column, I discussed the AICD’s submission to the Productivity Commission’s “Five pillars of productivity growth”, including our push on cumulative, complex regulation and administration as a productivity blocker.

In advance of this month’s national economic reform roundtable in Canberra, we expect to see more from the Productivity Commission on the pillars of business dynamism, skills, digital regulation, the care economy and net zero transition to support this critical national discussion.

In remarks to the Australian Conference of Economists last month, Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood presented a call to action for governments to embrace a growth mindset that encourages new business and innovation.

Australia makes it harder than it should be to build things, to innovate and to make major investments. Simplifying regulation and red tape is a vital part of lifting business dynamism, a key productivity driver. Wood’s advocacy for a growth mindset is broader than red tape — with a call to embed growth as a “North Star” across government, business and community sectors to unleash investment and dynamism. This is not a small challenge. AICD Chief Economist Mark Thirlwell unpacks the headwinds for private sector investment in his column this month.

Boards have a key role to play in driving focus on productivity growth. The AICD’s contemporary practice priorities for the year ahead include supporting boards in governing for performance (by lifting focus on skills, innovation and growth)  and governing for the digital age, including uplifting cyber and data governance capabilities.

ASIC expert panel review of ASX

The corporate regulator has launched an inquiry into the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) group, establishing an expert panel to review operational and governance issues.

Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) chair Joe Longo has flagged the regulator’s intervention as a “CBA-like” inquiry reflecting the scope and impact of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) 2017–18 review. The inquiry is taking place under Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) powers related to the ASX’s market and settlement functions.

An expert panel — Christine Holman GAICD, Rob Whitfield AM FAICD and Dr Guy Debelle — will review governance, capability and risk management frameworks in light of what ASIC alleges are “repeated and serious failures” relating to the CHESS replacement program and system hardware failures and outages.

The panel is due to report in March 2026 and is supported by an ASIC secretariat expected to include secondees from APRA, the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

APRA’s CBA review was a seminal report with far-reaching implications and lessons for corporate governance and CBA’s response is a key case study in the Company Directors Course. The AICD will be closely following the review for relevant governance implications and insights.

This article first appeared under the headline 'Weather reports' in the August 2025 issue of Company Director magazine.