The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) is developing voluntary, consistent climate-related financial risk disclosures for use by companies in providing information to investors, lenders, insurers, and other stakeholders. TCFD’s 32 members include both users and preparers of disclosures from across the G20’s constituency covering a broad range of economic sectors and financial markets.
These recommendations are sector-specific standard KPIs, e.g. requirements for Corporate Strategy and Risk Management in the area of Climate Change Mitigation / Adaptation. In this sense, they are somehow similar to GRI disclosures, or questions of CDP Climate Change, with the difference that they are specifically adapted to the financial sector. Learn more about this initiative at https://www.fsb-tcfd.org
The Task Force on Climate related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) has published now a report with recommendations on what and how organizations should disclose climate related risks and opportunities.
What are the challenges the TCDF addresses?
- Challenges for issuers: A lack of coherent framework to disclose material risks
- For lenders, insurers, investors: a lack of proper information to make financial decisions
- For regulators: lack of visibility on some risks facing the financial system
“The Task Force aims to provide the solution: a clear, efficient, and voluntary disclosure framework that improves the ease of both producing and using climate-related financial disclosures”
How did the Task Force proceed?
The TCFD was launched on December 2015 and gathers several members. The Task Force engaged external stakeholders through various mechanisms
- Industry reviews (128 interviews, 20 countries)
- Webinars (7 webinars, 23 countries, 538 attendees)
- Public consultation (203 responses, 24 countries)
- Outreach events (13 events, 12 countries, 1243 attendees)
What are the TCFD main recommendations?
The main recommendations to disclose climate-related are briefly summed up below:
- Governance: describe board oversight and management role in assessing and managing such topics
- Strategy: describe the climate-related risks and opportunities and their impacts on the organization; describe the impacts of some scientific scenario on the organization.
- Risk management: describe the process for assessing the risks, the process to manage them, and how they are integrated into the overall risk management of the organization
- Metrics and Targets: disclose the metrics to assess the risks; disclose scope 1, scope 2 and if appropriate scope 3 and related risks; describe targets linked to manage the climate-related risks and opportunities
The report also contains guidance:
- Recommendations (described above)
- Recommended disclosures
- Guidance for all
- Guidance for certain sectors
What are the next steps for the TCFD?
- February 12, 2017: the publication consultation ends
- Late February-early March 2017: Update and provide high level summary of public consultation
- March 2017 17/18: Meeting of the G20 ministers and governors
- Until June 2017: stakeholder outreach on the recommendations
- June 2017: final report release
- July 7-8, 2017: presentation at the G20 Summit
How to act
- Anyone can provide feedback until 12th of February. The recommendations are now undergoing a phase of public consultation. You can provide feedback here. The instructions are given in this pdf.
- Get external help. With more than 15 years of experience in carbon accounting, DFGE can help you assess and disclose any climate-related disclosure. Contact us for more information at or consult our dedicated offer
- Check out more resources: full report, presentation report
