Opinion
In Western Australia, the climate transition is not an abstract debate. It runs straight through the resources and energy industries the state’s prosperity is built on.
Next month Australia presides over the COP31 climate negotiations. Most of the talk will be about governments and boards. Far less will be about the people working inside the companies being asked to cut emissions, shift towards cleaner energy and change how they do business.
Ask those workers whether business should act on climate change and the answer is almost unanimously “yes”. Ask whether their own employer is delivering, and the mood changes.
Our new report, The Climate-Exposed Workforce, the first in the Curtin Centre for Applied Ethics’ Polycrisis Report Series, surveyed 2,048 working Australians. Almost all of them, 97 per cent, said large companies have at least some responsibility to act on climate change.
More than half said their own employer has made a public climate commitment. Yet only one in seven believe it is making good progress.
That is a trust gap employers cannot afford to ignore.
Workers are clear about who should carry the load. Asked which industries have a major responsibility to cut emissions, 59 per cent named energy and utilities companies and 53 per cent named mining and fossil fuel companies. Just 19 per cent said the same of banks and financial institutions.
In other words, the national workforce is looking squarely at the industries at the heart of WA’s economy.
But this is not a workforce demanding the shutters come down. On the future of mining and fossil fuels, 60 per cent favoured a gradual transition with strong support for affected workers and communities. Only one in 20 thought concerns about these industries are overstated.
That is a pragmatic position. Change is expected, but it should be orderly and fair.
The problem is that few workers believe what companies tell them about that change.
Almost four in five think greenwashing is at least somewhat common among Australian businesses. Fewer than one in ten take a company’s sustainability claims at face value.
What changes that is proof. When climate disclosure is required by law, with penalties for misleading claims, 85 per cent of employees would trust their employer’s climate claims. When claims are independently audited, 79 per cent would.
When companies simply report on themselves, trust falls to around 44 per cent.
There is a second problem: even genuine progress often goes unseen. Just 9 per cent of entry and mid-level staff believe their employer is making good progress on its climate commitments, compared with 31 per cent of senior managers and executives.
The people expected to carry out a transition are the least likely to see it happening.
And companies should not mistake quiet for agreement. If they learned their employer was performing poorly on climate, 71 per cent of workers would discuss it with colleagues, but only 49 per cent would raise it with management. Almost a quarter would do nothing at all.
The good news is how much goodwill is on offer. If their employer could show strong commitments and verified progress, 84 per cent of employees say they would accept changes at work to reduce emissions, 78 per cent would change their own habits and 68 per cent would contribute financially.
Workers are willing partners. But the partnership is conditional on proof.
There is a talent dividend, too. Nearly four in 10 employees say they would take a job paying $10,000 less at a company with strong, verified climate performance, as would 45 per cent of managers and above. For employers competing for skilled staff, credible climate action is part of the offer.
So what should businesses in WA and across the country do?
First, treat Australia’s new mandatory climate reporting as an opportunity, not a compliance exercise. The rules line up closely with the conditions under which workers say they would believe corporate climate claims.
Second, report progress to the whole workforce, not just the board and investors. Set concrete milestones, check them independently and tell staff in plain language how the company is tracking.
Third, bring workers into transition planning. Giving them a genuine say can help companies deliver the orderly, fair transition most want, and to hear concerns before they harden.
Finally, stop relying on messaging. On our evidence, communicating more without verifying anything is likely to deepen distrust, not reduce it.
We live in what we describe as a “polycrisis”, where the cost of living, technological change, geopolitical tension and a changing climate press on one another.
In that environment, trust is scarce and easily lost.
Australian workers are not asking companies to promise more. They are asking them to prove it.
In WA, where so much of the transition will play out on mine sites, in power stations and across the businesses that supply them, that test matters more than most.
The businesses that pass it will keep their people with them. Those that don’t may find their workforce has quietly stopped believing them.
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