Debate: From financials to societal wellbeing —expanding the scope of public sector climate reporting to advance the SDGs’ agenda

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have underscored the need for the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) to act on climate change reporting (Cappellieri et al., 2025). In October 2024, the IPSASB, with the backing of the World Bank, published the Climate-related Disclosure standard for public sector entities (IPSASB, 2024). The exposure draft aims to set guidelines for disclosing climate-related risks, opportunities and public policy outcomes. Disclosure has to be provided within the general-purpose financial statement of the entity. The exposure draft advances public sector sustainability reporting (Brusca et al., 2024) influenced by private sector benchmarks (such as IFRS S1 and S2). Nevertheless, the process presents issues needing resolution to improve public sector contributions to the SDGs.