IFRS S2 working templates
Scope of this page
What this is. Five working templates for the records behind an IFRS S2 disclosure: GHG
data collection, a climate risk and opportunity register, a disclosure sign-off record, a board
oversight log, and a materiality worksheet. Each is provided as both a formatted
.xlsx with a How-to-use sheet, and a plain .csv if you would rather start
from the column headers alone.
What this is not. IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 do not prescribe this structure, or any structure, for working records. They set out what must be disclosed, not the format of the papers behind it. This template is one workable layout, not a compliance requirement, and you should change it to fit how your organisation actually works.
No signup, no email address, no gate. The files download directly. You may use, modify and redistribute them, including commercially, with no attribution required. We do not know or record who downloads them.
The templates
IFRS S2 GHG data collection workbook#
One row per activity data point, carrying the emission factor, its source and the two people who touched it.
Assurance findings in a first cycle concentrate on whether a number can be reproduced from its inputs. This layout keeps the input, the factor, the factor source and the review in the same row, so reproducing a figure does not mean reconstructing a chain of emails.
Climate risk and opportunity register#
The register behind the Strategy and Risk Management disclosures, with horizon and value-chain location on the same row as the financial effect.
Most registers record the risk and stop. The columns that matter for IFRS S2 are the ones that usually get left out: which horizon, where in the value chain, and which disclosure the row eventually supports.
Disclosure sign-off record#
Who prepared, who reviewed, who approved, against which version, with the evidence location.
IFRS S2 does not prescribe the fields of a sign-off record, and this template is not a requirement. It exists because the question an assurance practitioner asks first is who approved this figure and when, and a spreadsheet with no version column cannot answer it.
Board and committee climate oversight log#
The evidence behind the Governance disclosures: what was put in front of which body, and what they decided.
Governance is the pillar most often disclosed in narrative and evidenced in nothing. A dated log of items, papers and decisions is usually the difference between a governance statement a practitioner can corroborate and one they cannot.
Materiality assessment worksheet#
One row per matter, recording the judgement and the reason, against the IFRS S1 materiality test.
The matters you rule out are the ones you will be asked about. Keeping them in the same sheet, with a reason, is what makes the assessment reviewable rather than an assertion.
Why these columns and not others
Every one of these templates exists because of the same underlying problem: the disclosure is the easy part, and the records behind it are what an assurance practitioner actually tests.
The columns that tend to be missing from a home-made version are the boring ones. Which factor set, and from which year. Which version of the number was approved, and by whom. Whether a figure was measured or estimated. Where in the value chain a risk sits. None of those change what you disclose; all of them change whether you can support it a year later when someone asks.
Two design choices worth stating. First, each template keeps preparer and reviewer as separate columns, because the question is not only who produced a number but who checked it. Second, each one carries a column linking the row to the disclosure it eventually supports, which is what turns a working file into an audit trail rather than a pile of workings.
The honest limits of a spreadsheet
These templates will take you a long way, and you should understand where they stop.
A spreadsheet cannot tell you whether a row was changed after it was approved. The Locked column in the sign-off record is a convention, not a control: anyone with the file can edit a locked row and nothing records that it happened. Version history in a shared drive helps, but it records the file, not the individual figure, and it is usually deletable by the same people who can edit it.
That is the gap between a good working record and an evidential one, and it is the problem this company exists to solve. If you want to see what an append-only record behaves like when someone tries to alter it, the public tamper demo is open and needs no account. The wider case, and the argument against spreadsheets holding controls, is in spreadsheets and IFRS S2 controls.
Use these templates regardless. A well-structured spreadsheet beats an unstructured system, and starting from the right columns is most of the benefit.
Related references
For the requirements these records support, see the IFRS S2, ESRS and TCFD crosswalk. For the terms used in the column notes, see the IFRS S2 terminology reference. For what a practitioner will ask for, see what auditors check in a first cycle and the assurance standards reference.
How to cite this page
Auditably Research. "IFRS S2 working templates." Auditably.
https://auditably.co/blog/ifrs-s2-templates (accessed [date]).
If a column is missing or an explanation is wrong, email [email protected]. These get revised.