The climate emergency demands results. Clear and consistent disclosure of plans, progress, risks and opportunities builds trust among stakeholders, directs capital, and informs strategy. It shows resilience and readiness for the net zero world.
Disclose your climate transition action plan (CTAP) for leadership and resilience in the net zero transition.
Climate leaders back up their claims and commitments with transparent information. They listen to critical voices. They learn from scrutiny of their ambition, the consistency of their activities, and feasibility of their action plans. With a clear understanding of risks and opportunities, they show stakeholders they’re ready to thrive — not just survive — in a net zero world.
Start by bringing your existing plan, strategy and goals into the framework of a ‘climate transition action plan’. This combines your core climate action plan with all other key information about your business’s preparedness to shape and succeed in a net zero world.
This will ensure your disclosure covers the core elements stakeholders want to see, to assess a company’s transition towards a 1.5°C world: targets, governance, scenario analysis, risks and opportunities, value chain engagement, emission reduction initiatives, financial planning, Scope 1, 2, and 3 accounting with verification, and policy engagement.
Share your climate transition action plan with employees, investors, shareholders, trustees and customers, and invite feedback. Include it in your CDP disclosure and share it on your own public channels so it can reach stakeholders, build trust, and influence your industry.
Listen and learn. Introduce formal mechanisms and procedures to engage a crosscutting range of stakeholders on the robustness of your plan. Ensure critics are listened to; start with employees, and develop a network of individuals and organizations to act as ‘critical friends’ to help raise your ambition.
We Mean Business Coalition, CDP, Ceres, and EDF worked with Ramboll Consulting to produce consolidated guidance on what a climate transition action plan (CTAP) should include, with actionable templates.
At National Grid, we’re clear organisations must take meaningful action now to tackle climate change. That’s why we’ve published our first Climate Transition Plan, setting out the concept of ‘real-zero’ – our aim to achieve zero emissions by 2050, or very close to this
John Pettigrew, CEO of National Grid plc.
Track and publicly disclose your emissions, clearly, consistently and transparently.
Companies must deliver on their targets and demonstrate rapid, sustained emissions reductions. Annual emissions disclosure is vital to tracking progress. The process of carbon accounting and reporting helps uncover risks and opportunities, to guide strategy. Transparency also highlights barriers that companies in certain markets or sectors are facing, which can spur policy, incentives and tools to help close the gap between corporate ambition and action.
Measure your emissions at least annually in line with the GHG Protocol Guidance, covering Scopes 1, 2 and 3. Ensure the information is itemized, categorized by scope, and verified by a credible third party.
Report your emissions: align with the recommendations of the Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). Fulfill any regional or global voluntary or mandatory reporting directives. Make your emissions easily and publicly accessible through your corporate communication channels (such as your website, annual report or sustainability report). For easy comparison with your peers, disclose also through CDP.
Explain any changes in annual emissions. Attribute them to your company’s own actions or to external developments. Put reductions or increases in the context of your ambition and ability to meet your targets. Share learnings, barriers to progress, and any planned changes to your strategy and action plan.
Any plan to meet net zero, indeed, any strategy to create value for SSE’s wider stakeholders, requires comprehensive transparency. It’s why SSE continues to quantify, annually, its overall socio-economic impact. It also means we must be honest about the challenges we face. Our commitment to stakeholders is to let them know when those challenges arise.
Alistair Phillips-Davies, Chief Executive of SSE
Climate leaders are fully transparent about their direct and indirect advocacy and lobbying.
Companies must disclose how their memberships, financial contributions and direct engagement on climate policy support their own climate ambition and action, while reporting misalignments and plans to address them. Investors expect corporate lobbying to be aligned with the three disclosure asks of the Global Standard on Responsible Corporate Climate Lobbying.
Publish a detailed annual review for investors of the 1.5°C alignment of your company’s direct and indirect lobbying.
Acknowledge and report on actions and plans to address misalignments.
Publicly disclose:
Access We Mean Business Coalition’s Framework for Responsible Policy Engagement (RPE) for more in-depth resources about aligning advocacy efforts with climate goals.
Disclose how your C-Suite and board are accountable for the company’s climate performance.
To fulfill their duties to shareholders, corporate climate leaders demonstrate how their most senior leaders and board members are taking responsibility for the company’s climate action, through strong and robust oversight.
Disclose the details on the board’s oversight of climate-related issues. Report the defined governance mechanisms you have in place to ensure delivery of the strategy and plan, and that climate ambition and action are frequent agenda items at board meetings.
Be transparent about any incentives provided for executives for managing and delivering on the climate strategy, from the quality of carbon accounting to company-wide progress.
Report your governance information to shareholders, and make it public and easily accessible in your CDP disclosure and annual reports.
Download an overview of the steps to Climate Leadership. Refer back to these pages for the latest updates and links to best-in-class resources.
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