Glossary›Assurance, audit evidence and working papers›Significant judgement register
Glossary term
Cluster A · A32
Tier 1 · differentiator
Significant judgement register
Definition
A significant judgement register is a single document listing every material judgement made in preparing the climate disclosure, the alternatives considered, the basis for the choice, the person who approved it, and the date. Examples include boundary decisions, estimation methods and Scope 3 category exclusions. It answers the assurer’s question of why each choice was made.
AASB S2 requires disclosure of judgements and measurement uncertainty
· the register itself is practice ·
Practice
On this page
In practice
The register is the cheapest high-value document in the whole file, and almost nobody builds one. Judgements in a first climate report are numerous and are made across months by different people. Without a register they are reconstructed under time pressure at the point the assurer asks, which is exactly when memory is worst and the answer matters most.
What belongs in it: the organisational boundary and consolidation approach; the treatment of leased and jointly controlled assets; which Scope 3 categories were assessed as material and which were not, with the screening basis; every estimation and proxy method; the emission factor set chosen where more than one was available; the materiality judgement about which climate risks were disclosed; and the scenario selection.
What the assurer does with it
The assurer works through the register, tests whether each judgement is reasonable and consistently applied, and checks that the person recorded as approving it was in a position to. The register also does independence work: it evidences that management, not an adviser, made the decisions. Where no register exists, the assurer raises the same questions one at a time over weeks, which is the slowest possible way to answer them.
Sources
1
2
ASSA 5000 General Requirements for Sustainability Assurance Engagements
AUASB
Review status
Review required
Last reviewed
15 September 2026
Editorial pass, unsigned
Reviewer required
Registered company auditor
Next scheduled review
1 July 2027
Part of
Cluster A, Assurance, audit evidence and working papers
47 terms on what an assurance provider tests, what they accept as evidence, and what a preparer has to be able to produce.
Related terms
The document that states the rules the judgements sit under
The judgements most often challenged
Where a missing register is usually first flagged
Related questions
What will our auditor actually ask for?
−
In year one they ask for evidence behind the disclosures that are actually assured: Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, your governance disclosures, and the specified strategy paragraphs on climate risks and opportunities. In practice that means source documents, a calculation they can rebuild from those documents, and minutes showing the governance you described actually happened.
Does our preparer need to be independent of our auditor?
+
No rule requires your preparer to be independent. The rule runs the other way: your assurance provider must be independent of what they assure. In practice that means the preparer and the assurer cannot be the same firm or network, so the preparer must sit outside your assurance provider.
What is our organisational boundary and who decides it?
+
Your organisational boundary is the set of entities and facilities whose emissions you report, and the basis on which you include them. Management decides it, the board or audit committee approves it, and it should reconcile to the consolidated entity in your financial report. Operational control is the common Australian starting point, and the friction sits in joint ventures, leased sites, franchises and recent acquisitions.
Where this sits commercially
Carbonhalo builds the register so management’s decisions are on the record, not the adviser’s.
Other terms in this cluster
Significant judgement register