Climate reporting in public sector organisations: identity construction and changes

Purpose The purpose of this article is to explore climate change reporting by public sector organisations. In particular, the analysis draws attention to how public sector organisations represent themselves through climate reporting practice to construct and reproduce their identities over time. Design/methodology/approach A comprehensive content analysis of 164 annual and stand-alone sustainability reports produced by 15 public sector organisations listed on the Australian National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting register over an 11-year period from 2014 to 2024 was used for this study. The analysis is informed by Tregidga et al.'s (2014) identity framework of sustainable organisations. Findings The analysis reveals an unbalanced pattern of identity construction in public sector climate reporting, characterised by a strong focus on compliance-oriented reporting, followed by reporting on climate leadership and limited engagement with strategically “good” practices associated with legitimacy seeking. Despite evidence of more substantive climate reporting, disclosures continue to focus predominantly on metrics and statistics reflecting regulatory and policy expectations. The longitudinal analysis reinforces this identity structure, although their climate reporting has developed into a more complex communicative space through which public sector organisations simultaneously construct multiple identities over time, implying that public sector climate reporting serves as a dynamic and ongoing process of identity construction rather than a linear transition from one identity to another. The analysis across organisational types also reveals that a compliance-oriented identity is most pronounced among local governments and moderately prominent in public service organisations, whereas a leadership-oriented identity emphasising community impact and knowledge sharing is most strongly developed in public universities. Originality/value Despite the rapid development of climate reporting in corporate contexts, research on sustainability and climate reporting in the public sector is still underdeveloped, even as these organisations increasingly recognise the importance of disclosing, governing and managing climate-related impacts. This article fills the gap by exploring how disclosures on climate change have evolved over time within public sector organisations to contribute to accountability and effective policy implementation. It extends Tregidga et al.'s (2014) organisational identity framework to a public sector context, where climate reporting is characterised by the coexistence of regulatory, public value and legitimacy considerations.