Climate change has long been the domain of scientists, engineers and policymakers, but two chartered accountants on either side of the Tasman are putting their expertise to work on what they see as the defining challenge of our time.

Heather Fisher CA is COO at the Climate Council in Australia, an independent, non-profit organisation that provides evidence-based information on climate-change impacts and solutions to policymakers and the public.

In New Zealand, Julia Fink FCA is CFO of the country’s Climate Change Commission, an independent Crown entity tasked with providing independent expert advice to government on mitigating and adapting to climate change, and monitoring and reviewing government’s progress towards its emissions reduction and adaptation goals.

Both leaders believe that finance professionals play a vital role in turning ambition into climate action.

“When I joined the Climate Change Commission in 2024, I saw a direct opportunity to contribute to such an important issue using my accounting skills,” says Fink, who is also vice-president of CA ANZ and a board member of the Planetary Accounting Network, which supports a framework for environmental reporting based on the nine planetary boundaries.

“I’m not a climate scientist, but accounting gives me a way to contribute to solving a problem that affects everyone.”

Counting the costs

Climate change is leaving a devastating mark across the globe. The cost is being counted through shifting rainfall cycles, rising temperatures and sea levels, and extreme weather events that are becoming more devastating and harder to predict.

Over the 15 years to 2026, natural hazards have cost New Zealand at least NZ$64 billion in direct losses, according to data from Insurance Australia Group New Zealand. This equates to an average of more than NZ$4.2 billion per year, with around 95% of the expenditure directed toward response and recovery.

The 2023 Auckland floods and Cyclone Gabrielle resulted in 19 deaths and asset damage was estimated at between NZ$9 billion and NZ$14.5 billion. Treasury expects the costs of more frequent and severe extreme weather events driven by climate change to rise over time, adding to New Zealand’s already significant exposure to natural hazards.

Natural disasters currently cost the Australian economy A$38 billion a year and the figure is forecast to rise to at least A$73 billion by 2060. During the Black Summer bushfires in 2019–2020, 33 people lost their lives, more than 3000 homes were destroyed and more than 17 million hectares of land were burned, devastating communities and regional economies. More recently, the catastrophic floods in NSW and south-east Queensland in February 2022 resulted in 24 deaths. It is considered the costliest flood event in Australia, with a total insurance claim estimated at more than A$6 billion.

Fisher notes the economic impact of climate change rarely includes the price of delayed action.

“As accountants, we’re always thinking about cost but we also need to think about the opportunity cost of inaction,” she says. “If we don’t reduce emissions, somebody will pay. We’re already seeing it through higher insurance premiums, disaster recovery costs, healthcare expenses and food prices. The next generation will bear the cost of today’s decisions.”

Two paths, one goal

Fisher and Fink have followed different career paths, but both paths led to their shared focus on climate solutions.

Fisher’s father was an accountant and company secretary at an international technology company, and she recalls that he “seemed to be involved in every important conversation across the organisation”.

“When it came time to choose my own career, dad told me that being a chartered accountant was more about a skill set and a way of thinking, than a single job,” she explains. “He said it would allow me to make a difference in any organisation and give me a career that could evolve over time. That really appealed to me, because I didn’t want to spend decades doing exactly the same thing.”

After starting her career as a graduate accountant at EY, Fisher moved to an advocacy role at Taxpayers Australia – now known as Institute of Financial Professionals Australia – before joining youth homelessness not-for-profit Kids Under Cover, as deputy CEO.

“While I was working at EY, I felt a connection to my pro bono clients that were solving real-world problems and creating tangible impact, and I loved applying commercial skills to organisations that were directly improving people’s lives,” she says. “At Taxpayers Australia, I saw how good policy can create large-scale change and I feel like those two experiences have really aligned in the work that I do at the Climate Council. Moving to the Climate Council didn't feel like moving to another cause. It felt like a multiplier for every cause I’d cared about throughout my career.”

Like Fisher, Fink sees her role in climate change as the culmination of a career built across various finance roles. However, her path to accounting was not so linear. After completing high school, she moved to the UK for a gap year that stretched to six years.

“One of my first jobs was as a receptionist, which involved answering phone calls and making coffee, but what I really enjoyed was the invoicing and billing part of the role – the logical nature of it appealed to me,” she says.

Fink later worked as an accounts assistant with a travel agency in England, which paid for her bookkeeping course at night school. She returned to New Zealand to begin an accounting degree, where she learned about the chartered accounting pathway.

After working at Deloitte in audit and advisory, she joined New Zealand's charity regulator, Charities Services, where she helped to educate charities about their financial reporting obligations. That role led to an appointment with the country’s accounting and audit standards setter, the External Reporting Board (XRB).

“While I was there, we signed off on the country’s first climate-related disclosure standard and at around the same time I became CFO at Upper Hutt City Council, where I was exposed to issues like waste minimisation and climate adaptation,” she says. “Between the standards work and local government, I became increasingly interested in climate-related issues.”

Beyond finance

As CFO of the Climate Change Commission, Fink oversees the finance, people and culture, risk, procurement and legal functions. She describes her role as “making things work”.

“I use my chartered accounting skills every day, but I’m focused on making the organisation run smoothly and ensuring people who are tackling the really complex climate issues have the information they need to make decisions and to simply get on with their jobs to provide advice to government,” she says. “I make sure the systems behind the scenes support their work.”

Fisher’s role at the Climate Council also extends beyond finance. She oversees operations, governance, fundraising, people and culture, technology, risk and legal.

“My technical accounting skills are still important, but it’s really those broader professional skills that enable you to lead across all those different functions,” she says. “While I was at EY, I learned skills like building relationships, communicating complex issues simply, earning trust, making good decisions and bringing people with you, and I still rely on those skills every day.”

Climate change is a complex challenge for business, influencing everything from strategy and investment to risk management, governance and supply chains. However, Fink says the challenges of her role are similar to any senior finance position.

“As CFO, you’re constantly making recommendations about where limited resources should be invested,” she says. “There are never enough resources to do everything and, with climate change, how long is a piece of string? You could devote endless effort and funding to solving the problem but, as an organisation, we have finite resources. So, it’s about helping the organisation decide where those resources will have the greatest impact.

"We’re fundamentally a people business,” adds Fink. “Most of our investment goes into employing highly skilled people who can provide quality advice to government. That’s where the greatest value sits."

As the Climate Council is resourced through fundraising, Fisher says a key challenge is “creating organisational stability” in an environment where funding is uncertain.

“Often, you're choosing between two very good options, rather than between a good option and a bad one,” she says. “Sometimes you know exactly what impact you could have, if only you had the resources to do it."

Another challenge is communicating climate facts to the broader community.

"There's so much misinformation about climate that many Australians simply don’t know what to rely on,” says Fisher. "A huge part of our role is taking incredibly complex science and communicating it in language that everyday Australians can understand. But that’s actually something accountants are very good at – taking complex issues and explaining them simply.”

“People generally don’t make poor decisions deliberately – they respond to the incentives around them and climate is no different. If we want different outcomes, we need to change the systems and incentives that shape people’s decisions.”

From ambition to action

Countries like Australia and New Zealand have many of the building blocks in place to achieve long-term climate targets. For example, Australia has seen rapid growth in renewable electricity generation, with renewables supplying a record 47% of the national electricity market in the first quarter of 2026. In New Zealand, renewables supplied 94.5% of electricity during the same period.

However, Fisher believes the key climate change challenge is no longer the technical aspect of reducing emissions, but rather the need for broad systems change.

“We know how renewable energy works,” she says. “We know electrification works. We know batteries work. We know energy efficiency works. Countries like Australia have extraordinary renewable resources, a highly skilled workforce and incredible technological capability. We have everything we need to become a global clean energy leader. The challenge now is systems change.

“People generally don’t make poor decisions deliberately – they respond to the incentives around them and climate is no different. If we want different outcomes, we need to change the systems and incentives that shape people’s decisions.”

Fisher says decisions are influenced by factors such as economics, investment, legislation, trade, politics and community expectations.

“They’re all interconnected, so solving climate change requires changing the system, rather than relying on one policy or one decision."

“The more you read and engage with the topic, the more you’ll learn. That’s certainly how I became interested.”

Accounting for climate change

Fisher and Fink believe accountants have an important role to play in measuring, reporting on and countering climate risk.

“Accountants are often the people who connect the dots across an organisation,” says Fisher. “We understand finance, governance, risk, operations and strategy, and climate risk doesn’t sit neatly in one department. It’s no longer something that sits off to the side under sustainability and it’s not just about compliance reporting – it affects every part of a business.

"We don’t all need to become climate experts but we do need to listen to the science, ask good questions and challenge misinformation,” adds Fisher.

“We have a responsibility to help organisations make better decisions. Accountants are trained to think about consequences, assumptions and risk. That’s exactly the mindset organisations need – accountants who can apply their professional skill set to one of the biggest strategic risks they face.”

Fisher believes tackling climate change presents an “enormous opportunity” for chartered accountants.

“We have the skills to lead organisations through this transition, whether that’s in governance, strategy, reporting, risk management or investment,” she says. “If more accountants embrace that opportunity, our profession can become a real leader in shaping a more sustainable future.”

Fink says accountants in public practice also have an important role in the climate conversation.

“If your clients’ own assets are exposed to physical climate risks and you’re not helping them think about those risks, then eventually that becomes your problem too, because your clients are the ones who’ll suffer financially,” she says. “Climate risk really needs to be viewed as part of business performance and resilience.”

“I think every chartered accountant should be interested in this area, whether you want to build a career in sustainability, or simply because it’s becoming an increasingly important risk management issue.”

Fink says there are many ways to build climate-change knowledge.

“CA ANZ offers climate-related disclosure micro-credentials and there’s also a huge amount of informal learning available. The more you read and engage with the topic, the more you’ll learn. That’s certainly how I became interested.

“If accountants invest a little time in building their knowledge, they can become genuine leaders in this space.”

Take aways

CA ANZ offers a range of micro courses in sustainability-related topics to top up your knowledge, ranging from assessing climate-related risks, to sustainable supply-chain management and applying ISAE 3000. Visit: store.charteredaccountantsanz.com.

If you want more comprehensive training, the new CA ANZ Certificate in Climate-Related Disclosures combines on-demand learning with workshops across seven weeks. Visit: store.charteredaccountantsanz.com/sustainability.

Eric Archambeau’s ebook Costing The Earth: How to Fix Finance to Save the Planet argues that global financial action needs to align investments with the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Search the title here.