The Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT) has published its final report before disbanding, summarising its key achievements as well as the next steps for advancing transition planning globally.
Before concluding its work today (31 October), the TPT’s report – Progress Achieved and the Path Ahead: The Final Report of the Transition Plan Taskforce – identified key opportunities and challenges for the global adoption of transition plans, including building market capabilities, sharing best practices, developing tools for decision-makers and fostering global consistency in transition planning norms.
The TPT was announced at COP26 in Glasgow and launched in April 2022, with a mandate to deliver the gold standard for transition plans. It’s draft disclosure framework and implementation guidance were launched for consultation at COP27, and published in final versions in October 2023.
In June 2024, the IFRS Foundation took over TPT’s disclosure materials to ensure the global adoption of robust climate transition plans under the IFRS S2 standard. Therefore, a new initiative – the International Transition Plan Network (ITPN) – has been launched by climate change think tank E3G to foster collaboration and global norms for private sector transition plans and their use at country level.
“The work of the Transition Plan Taskforce has helped companies around the world consider how to disclose decision-useful information about their transition plans to investors. The IFRS Foundation thanks the TPT for its leadership in developing these materials and for its commitment to supporting harmonisation in the disclosure landscape by handing responsibility for their disclosure-specific materials to the IFRS Foundation, as the TPT completes its work,” commented Mardi McBrien, director of strategic affairs at the IFRS Foundation.
“These materials are now available on the IFRS Sustainability Knowledge Hub and over coming months we will set out further details around our plans to utilise the materials in our work to deliver global comparability in disclosure around transition planning.”
‘More companies than ever’ disclosing transition plans
The TPT’s final report reveals that more companies than ever are disclosing their transition plans and aligning their business strategies with net-zero commitments.
According to the report, financial institutions increasingly leverage these transition plans to direct transition finance, driving investments toward sustainable solutions. The TPT’s work is seen as part of a larger movement towards integrating transition planning into the heart of financial and policy decision-making processes.
It also identified that, internationally, momentum continues to grow to establish consistent standards and regulations on transition planning. A growing number of jurisdictions are adopting the IFRS S1 and S2 Standards, and, with the IFRS assuming responsibility for the TPT’s disclosure materials, these will be utilised worldwide to support the emergence of a global norm on transition planning.
Furthermore, the recently published Transition Finance Market Review emphasised that, to scale transition finance, it is crucial to have “credible and consistent” transition plans. It urged the UK government to introduce mandatory disclosure requirements for large listed, private and financial institutions aligned with the TPT Disclosure Framework.
Commenting on the final TPT report, Sacha Sadan, director of ESG at the Financial Conduct Authority, said: “We welcome the high benchmark the TPT Framework has set for transition plans globally and their most recent report which provides a blueprint for future progress. With the importance of transition plans to investors’ decision-making and product construction, we are committed to consult on strengthening our disclosure expectations, drawing on the Framework.”
Tanya Steele, chief executive officer at WWF UK, added: “The Transition Plan Taskforce has given businesses a groundbreaking framework to develop climate transition plans that identify the critical role of nature. Businesses must now develop their own plans and embed transition planning in their decision-making. The government must also deliver on its manifesto commitment to mandatory 1.5°C-aligned business transition plans if we are to have hope of tackling the climate and nature crises that will affect all our futures.”
