Ceres: ‘Climate justice’ missing from most transition plans
Green finance executives at a London conference identified public policy as a key gap in transition planning
Most transition plans are lacking attention to climate justice and public policy developments, an industry insider has claimed.
Laura Draucker, director for corporate greenhouse gas emissions at Ceres, found that “public policy and climate justice seem to both be underrepresented in existing guidance compared to the other elements."
She said: We also hypothesised that some of this lack of representation, particularly around public policy, may be due to the unique political landscape in the US."
Draucker made her remarks at a Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) event, on the topic of “driving finance towards transition: transition plans challenges and opportunities”.
Hallmarks
Also at the event, Matthew MacGeoch, transition analyst at the CBI, laid out five hallmarks of a credible company transition; performance targets, foundation and vision, implementation plans, internal monitoring, and external disclosure.
“Ultimately this transition will not be linear, but will take years to progress against. We want companies to be working the best they can against their targets but also it's a part of reality that sometimes they may miss the mark and what we want to do is keep a continued focus on how they can continue to do better”, he said.
On the idea of what constitutes a good transition plan, Dan Gardiner, climate transition plan specialist at the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), pointed to the organisation’s Net Zero Investment Framework.
The NZIF, published in March 2021, provides a common set of recommended actions, metrics and methodologies through which investors can maximise their contribution to achieving global net zero global emissions by 2050 or sooner.
However, Gardiner did also acknowledge that “there is a lot of consensus in general about what this definition should include.
"They're also slightly different in many aspects and there are continually emerging ideas. If you ask 10 people in the space what a good transition looks like, you will get like 10 different answers with each one adding a new idea to the list.”
Research from the CBI last year showed that China was now “the world’s second largest and fastest growing source of green bonds.”
