Why ESG Consultants Must Start Thinking Like WHS Consultants in Australia’s Risk-Heavy Climate

ESG consultancy is one of Australia’s fastest growing sectors. With climate-related certifications and carbon neutrality plans no longer sufficient for consultancy clients, Australia’s ESG consultancy clients expect experts in climate governance, equity, ethics, and most importantly, workplace health and safety. Although ESG strategies and policies are primarily focused on health and safety issues at the frontline, they are the responsibility of workplace health and safety (WHS) consultants.

This dichotomy needs to change.

Australia’s regulatory and investment environment is tightening. ESG consultants who are blind to WHS risk—more than a line item, but which plays a central role in governance and the broader social implications of a company’s performance—are providing diminished value. There is a need for a different type of ESG consultant, one who understands WHS safety culture, risk registers, and incident data as fluently as they do climate change strategies and Scope 3 emissions.

A WHS metric is a mandatory requirement for an ESG portfolio.

In Australia, ESG reporting has traditionally focused on the environmental aspect—reporting on energy use, emissions, and waste management. Governance (the G) is easy, and for most organizations anti-bribery policies and the structure of the board suffice to cover governance. The social aspect (the S) is the hardest and in most organizations is a simple, token mention.  The social aspect of reporting is especially true with workers and in particular, with health and safety.  This has created an unbalanced view of organizational performance.

Sometimes a business can look good on ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) frameworks and still have contradictions in its values and operations. For example, if a business has high injury rates, high psychological stress claims, or many near-miss incidents, they can still have discrepancies between reporting and reality.

ESG consultants need to also look through a WHS (Workplace Health and Safety) consultant’s perspective. High “S” (Social) scores should not be given to businesses just because they sponsor community grants or have a weak or ineffective HR policy. Businesses need to be evaluated and have scores based on how secure, healthy, and sustainable working environments are for employees, contractors, and supply chain workers.

Psychosocial Risks and WHS

The introduction of mandatory psychosocial risk regulations in Australia has finally integrated mental health into the workplace safety governance framework. This also affects ESG consultants.

Burnout should no longer be considered a soft issue that HR can take care of. It has become a regulatory risk as well as a cultural and material risk that works under WHS and ESG. Now, Boards are accountable for mental health.

Business WHS consultants have already integrated psychosocial risk controls (like monitoring workload and creating reporting mechanisms) into WHS frameworks. Now ESG consultants need to take these frameworks and incorporate them into governance, investor info, and modern slavery statements.

It’s not about more work; it’s about providing the same risk frameworks.

Safety Data as ESG Assurance Evidence

Australian ESG reports are increasingly expected to withstand standalone external scrutiny and stakeholder pressure, but many ESG disclosures are still aspirational due to a lack of integrated, traceable, and audit-ready data.

WHS consultants possess a relative maturity advantage in this regard, having to deal with hard evidence like incident logs, lead indicators, near-miss analysis, risk registers, and audit trails.

If ESG consultants take WHS systems like Skytrust, Lahebo, Vault, and others, they will be able to add concrete metrics to ESG reporting, including:

Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR)

Return-to-work success rates

Compliance status of critical controls

Engagement in safety leadership programs

These metrics act as evidence for both WHS and ESG.

Sitting on Boards in Australia

Australian Boards are becoming liable for ESG performance, and with climate litigation, aggressive greenwashing policies, and mandatory disclosures, WHS risks are also governance risks.

Directors can be found personally liable for breaches of WHS law. Serious safety incidents will also draw the attention of the ASIC, risking reputation, workforce attrition, and governance concerns.

An ESG consultant will provide far greater strategic value if they can integrate WHS risk and governance, including safety culture and risk appetite, the potential for safety failures to impact board reporting, and environmental controls.

Concluding Notes: ESG without WHS is incomplete.

In Australia’s corporate landscape, ESG and WHS are intertwined fields. WHS is critical to the trust placed on an organisation and the continuity and confidence of stakeholders in the business.

For an ESG consultant, disengaged from any WHS application, there remains a critical, materiality layer unexplored. Conversely, a WHS consultant unengaged in any ESG frameworks runs the risk of being cut off from the larger business strategy to which the organisation operates.

Those who will have a competitive advantage are those who will integrate both fields and turn risk into business resilience.