From Disclosure to Delivery: What the Latest World Benchmark Alliance Research Means for Digital Sustainability in Australia
This blog post draws on findings presented at a World Benchmarking Alliance side session held during Climate Action Week Sydney, where over 10,000 business leaders and sustainability practitioners gathered to unpack what the latest WBA research means for companies operating in Australia.
About the World Benchmarking Alliance
The World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) is a non-profit organisation founded in 2018 with a clear purpose: to measure how businesses impact people and planet, so that together we can hold companies accountable for contributing to sustainable development.
WBA assesses and ranks the world's most influential companies on their contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), publishing free and publicly available benchmarks that empower all stakeholders — from investors and governments to civil society and consumers — to hold the private sector accountable for its role in building a more sustainable world.
At the heart of WBA's work are seven transformations identified as essential to putting society and the global economy on a more sustainable path. Including; Social, Climate, Nature, Digital, Food & Agriculture and Urban goals. To drive these transformations into action, WBA develops — in close collaboration with its Alliance — a series of benchmarks assessing 2,000 of the world's most influential companies, ranking and holding them accountable on their contributions to a sustainable future for people and planet. By making this information freely available, WBA equips investors to influence the companies they support, helps governments develop more effective policies, and gives civil society clearer direction for advocacy and partnership.
Setting the Scene: Climate Action Week Sydney
Against the backdrop of Climate Action Week Sydney, the World Benchmarking Alliance convened a number of side sessions bringing together a diverse group of business leaders, sustainability practitioners, investors, and Indigenous rights advocates. The conversation was timely: Australia is at a critical juncture in its transition to a low-carbon, nature-positive economy, and the room reflected the breadth of voices needed to navigate it.
The discussion explored how global sustainability expectations intersect with Australia's unique economic realities — a country whose economy is deeply connected to nature-dependent sectors such as mining, energy, food and agriculture, while simultaneously being increasingly exposed to escalating climate and nature risks.
Their collective insights — grounded in the 2026 Australia Insights Report and the Greening Digital Companies 2025 report — paint a clear picture:
While corporate governance around sustainability is strengthening, the leap from ambition to measurable delivery remains a significant hurdle. Companies such as Fortescue, AGL Energy and Coles were highlighted as examples of organisations beginning to demonstrate how transition strategies can take shape in practice, offering a blueprint for others to follow.
A key takeaway from the session was that every sustainability risk also creates an opportunity — and that integrated transition planning, bringing together climate, nature, and social considerations, is essential to turning that potential into reality.
The Escalating Digital Footprint
The urgency of this conversation is amplified by the accelerating environmental impact of the digital sector globally. The 200* leading digital companies assessed by the WBA consumed an estimated 581 Terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in 2023, representing 2.1% of global electricity demand. Artificial intelligence is a primary driver of this surge, with AI-focused data centres consuming massive amounts of energy and water.
Without robust intervention, the combined carbon footprint of these digital giants — which already exceeds the national emissions of countries like Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile combined — will continue to rise. For Australian IT and sustainability leaders, this global trajectory is not a distant abstraction; it is a material risk landing on balance sheets and in regulatory frameworks right now.
Governance Is Strong, But Delivery Is Lagging
A central theme that emerged both in the WBA research and in the room during Climate Action Week was the persistent gap between recognising sustainability risks and actually funding their mitigation.
All assessed Australian companies in the Nature Benchmark assign sustainability oversight to their highest governance bodies — a sign that the conversation has reached the boardroom. However, only one Australian company — Inghams — publicly discloses the financial resources allocated to implement its sustainability strategy. As session participants emphasised, without the right incentives, finance, and accountability mechanisms, sustainability commitments risk remaining aspirational.
Recognising nature-related risks is an important first step. Failing to quantify and resource those risks, however, leaves organisations exposed to poorly understood — and poorly managed — disruptions.
Climate Transition Plans and the Scope 3 Blind Spot
When evaluating climate readiness, the research shows that 42% of assessed Australian companies have a standalone climate transition plan — a meaningful but still insufficient proportion. More critically, deep value-chain accountability is frequently missing.
Out of the 21# Australian real economy companies evaluated, only Telstra and Woolworths Group demonstrate comprehensive near- and long-term targets across Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions.
For the digital sector, where Scope 3 emissions — embodied carbon from hardware manufacturing, supply chains, and end-user device use — often constitute the vast majority of total emissions, this lack of upstream and downstream target-setting is a critical vulnerability. Integrated transition planning, as advocated during the Climate Action Week session, must close this gap if corporate climate commitments are to translate into real-world outcomes.
Water Stress: A Hidden Digital Risk
The environmental footprint of IT extends far beyond carbon. Large data centres require millions of gallons of water for cooling — a significant concern in drought-prone regions across Australia. The WBA found that while 55% of Australian companies recognise they operate in water-stressed areas, only one company (BHP) currently meets the expectations for setting location-specific, site-level water targets.
For IT leaders, this is not a peripheral ESG concern. Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) and local water stress must become core inputs into cloud hosting and data center placement decisions. Failing to account for this compounding environmental risk today will create operational and reputational liabilities tomorrow.
The Social Pillar: A Crucial Missing Link
One of the most powerful moments of the Climate Action Week session came in the discussion of the social dimension of transition — the "Heartprint." The room heard directly from voices representing Indigenous communities and workers, underscoring that digital sustainability cannot be achieved without addressing the human impacts of technology-driven transformation.
The WBA's Just Transition Benchmark highlights a severe gap in Australia regarding social dialogue: only AGL Energy demonstrates a clear commitment to structured engagement with workers regarding the climate transition. And despite widespread corporate statements supporting Indigenous rights, no Australian company fully commits to the globally recognised standard of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).
As IT transforms workforces through automation and AI, and as organisations rely on land-intensive renewable energy or data centre projects, integrating social impacts, community consent, and workforce reskilling into transition plans is non-negotiable.
The Path Forward
The era of relying on high-level commitments and broad, spend-based estimates is over. With mandatory climate disclosures rolling out in Australia, differences in plan depth, capital alignment, and actual implementation will become highly visible to regulators and investors alike. The participants at Climate Action Week were clear: the accountability moment has arrived.
To build true enterprise resilience, Australian tech and sustainability leaders must bridge the gap between governance and delivery. That means:
Quantifying material climate and nature risks — and resourcing their mitigation
Setting comprehensive Scope 3 targets that capture the full digital value chain
Proactively managing water risk in data centre and cloud strategy
Embedding social and Indigenous rights considerations into all transition planning
By doing so, organisations can transform their digital infrastructure from a growing carbon liability into a genuine driver of a sustainable, equitable economy.
The WBA extends its gratitude to all speakers, panellists, and participants who brought their expertise and lived experience to the Climate Action Week Sydney session. The richness of that conversation is reflected in the recommendations above.
#The 21 companies assessed in the 2026 Australia Insights Report include;
AGL Energy, AMP, Ampol, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, Australian Retirement Trust, Australian Super, Aware Super Pty Ltd, BHP, Boral, Coles Group, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, CSL, Fortescue, Future Fund, GrainCorp, Harvey Norman Holdings, IFM Investors, Inghams, Lendlease Corporation, Macquarie Group Ltd, National Australia Bank, Nufarm, Origin Energy, Santos Ltd, South32, Stockland, Telstra, Viva Energy Group, Wesfarmers, Westpac Group, Woodside Petroleum and Woolworths.
*The 200 companies assessed in the Greening Digital Companies 2025 report include;
Information Technology (IT) Software and services; Accenture, Adobe, Airbnb, Alibaba, Alphabet, Amazon, American Tower, Ant, Atos, Baidu, Block, Booking Holdings, Bytedance, Capgemini, Citrix, Cognizant, Coupang, Delivery Hero, DiDi Chuxing, Digital Realty Trust, eBay, Equinix, Fiserv, GoTo, Grab, HCL, HPE, IBM, Infosys, JD.com, JOYY, Jumia, Kakao, Kuaishou, Lyft, Meituan, MercadoLibre, Meta, Microsoft, Naspers, Naver, NetEase, Netflix, Oracle, Palantir, PayPal, Pinduoduo, Rakuten, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, Shopify, Snap, Spotify, Stripe, TCS, Tencent, Twilio, Uber, VK, Weibo, Wipro, X, Yandex, Yunji, Zoom
Telecommunications; AIS, Akama, Altice, América Móvil, AT&T, Axiata, BCE, Bezeq, Bharti Airtel, BT Group, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom, Cloudflare, Cogent Communications, Comcast, Deutsche Telekom, Digicel, e&, Elisa, Ethio Telecom, Eutelsat, Far EasTone, Globe Telecom, GTT, Iliad, Iridium Communications, Jio, KDDI, KPN, KT, Liberty Global, Liquid Telecom, Lumen, MegaFon, Millicom, MTN, MTS, Nepal Telecom, NTT, Omantel, Ooredoo, Orange, PalTel, PCCW, PLDT, Proximus, Rostelecom, Safaricom, SES, Singtel, SK Telecom, SoftBank, SpaceX, Spark New Zealand, STC, Sudatel, Swisscom, Tata Communications, Tele2, Telecom Egypt, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telenor, Telia, Telkom Indonesia, Telstra, Türk Telekom, Veon, Verizon, Viasat, Viettel, Vodafone, Zain
Electronics; Acer, AMD, Amphenol, Analog Devices, Apple, Applied Materials, ASML, Asus, BOE Technology Group, Broadcom, Canon, Cisco, Corning, Dell, Ericsson, Foxconn, GlobalFoundries, HP, Huawei. Infineon, Intel, Juniper Networks, Keyence Corporation, Kyocera, Lam Research, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Logitech International, MediaTek, Microchip Technology, Micron Technology, Murata Manufacturing, NEC, NetApp, Nintendo, Nokia, Nvidia, NXP Semiconductors, Oppo, Panasonic Group, Qualcomm, Quanta Computer, Samsung Electronics, Seagate, SK Hynix, Skyworks, SONY, STMicroelectronics, TCL, TE Connectivity, Texas Instruments, Tokyo Electron, Toshiba TEC, Transsion, TSMC, Vivo, Western Digital, Xiaomi, ZTE
References
Greening Digital Companies 2025report [WBA & ITU]
Climate Action Week Sydney [CAWSYD26]