Three things changed at once. King V took effect for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2026. The Companies Amendment Acts brought the social and ethics committee provisions into force in December 2024. And carbon tax Phase 2 raised the headline rate to R308 a tonne. Very few companies have absorbed all three.
Customers, lenders and insurers are asking for climate evidence, and the questions have moved from goodwill to due diligence. They want documents, not intentions.
The obligations sit across finance, operations and the board, so nobody owns the whole picture — and the gaps are the parts nobody thought were theirs.
A credible climate governance framework takes twelve to twenty-four months. You cannot disclose what you never measured, and you cannot backfill a baseline.
Nobody sets out to get this wrong. The mistakes below are the ordinary result of a fast-moving regulatory cycle and a finite number of people — and every one of them is fixable once it has a name.
Open each one, read what it costs and how it is fixed, then say honestly whether it applies to you. Nothing is sent anywhere until you ask. Your answers stay in your browser.
Click a heading to open it. Answer both ways — what you have covered matters as much as what you have not.
The JSE's climate disclosure guidance was written for listed entities, but it travels down their supply chains. A private company selling into a listed group is already being asked to evidence its climate governance, and the ask is moving from informal to contractual. King V, effective for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2026, sets the benchmark boards are measured against whatever their listing status.
Run a climate materiality assessment against your own operations, whatever your listing status. A readiness baseline takes weeks rather than quarters, and it is the document your customers are actually asking for.
You cannot report how climate change affects your finances, or how your operations affect the environment, without a measured emissions inventory. Disclosure built on intent rather than data — committed to sustainability, no numbers — is the shape of a greenwashing claim, and it is the shape both regulators and litigators look for.
Commission a Scope 1 and Scope 2 inventory on the GHG Protocol. It is the baseline every other item on this list depends on, your carbon tax position included.
The headline carbon tax rate went from R236 to R308 a tonne on 1 January 2026 — the largest single increase since the tax began — and Phase 2 changed the allowance picture at the same time. The offset allowance rose from 10% to 15% on fuel combustion emissions, and from 5% to 10% on process and fugitive emissions. A budget built on last year's effective rate is short.
Model 2026 on the Phase 2 basis. SolveSA's free Carbon Tax Estimator gives you the ballpark in minutes; the allowance work is what turns it into a number you can file.
The Companies Amendment Acts of 2024 brought the social and ethics committee provisions into force on 27 December 2024. Public companies must table a social and ethics committee report at the AGM, and a subsidiary may rely on its holding company's committee where that committee genuinely performs the function. A committee that exists on paper, with no climate data reaching it and no reporting line, does not perform it.
Work out your public interest score, confirm which obligations it triggers, then give the committee a written climate mandate, a data feed and a reporting cycle.
The offset allowance is more generous in Phase 2 — up to 15% on fuel combustion emissions — but only credits that qualify under the Carbon Tax Act's offset regulations reduce what you owe. Voluntary-market credits bought in good faith, from the wrong methodology or the wrong vintage, reduce nothing.
Check eligibility before you buy rather than after. Match the credits to the allowance you are actually claiming and keep the evidence with your return.
Water security, grid instability, flooding and heat land on specific assets in specific places, and lenders and insurers increasingly expect you to show which. A company that treats climate as an emissions question alone has modelled half its exposure.
Run a scenario analysis on the TCFD structure as a floor. Naming your top three physical risks by asset and location answers most of what a lender or insurer asks.
A credible climate governance framework takes twelve to twenty-four months to build, and you cannot disclose what you never measured. Every year of waiting is a year of baseline you do not have — and when the requirement does land, the work gets done at whatever the market charges for urgency.
Start the baseline now, even a small one: an emissions inventory, a governance gap analysis and a regulatory map. Lead time is the one thing you cannot buy back.
Nothing answered yet — work through the seven above.
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This checklist is a free, high-level orientation tool. It describes SolveSA's reading of South African climate governance and disclosure requirements as at 2026 and does not constitute legal, tax, financial or compliance advice. It is not a compliance assessment: your actual obligations depend on your company's form, its public interest score, its listing status, its sector and its contracts. Regulation in this area is changing quickly. For a determination you can rely on, take independent professional advice or speak to a SolveSA advisor.
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SolveSA helps South African companies measure what they emit, build the governance that stands behind a disclosure, and close the gaps in the order that costs least.
Use this free checklist to see which of the seven apply to you, and which three to work first.
A Scope 1 and 2 inventory on the GHG Protocol, a governance gap analysis and a regulatory map — the three things everything else rests on.
We sequence the work so each step makes the next cheaper, and so you can show progress before the next reporting cycle.
Work the checklist in a few minutes, then book a no-obligation discovery session — we will sequence the work and tell you what each step actually involves.
Start the checklistProvided by SolveSA — Transformation Solutions, part of the Alternative Prosperity group. Tools, calculators and benchmarks published here are general, indicative overviews based on generally available information. They may not be accurate, complete or current, and they do not constitute advice — read the full disclaimer.