A blueprint for change: Transition plans for nature and climate

This article was jointly authored by Sarah Colbert , Barnabas Harrison , Bex Paffard , Ben Mayer , Lucy Hamnett and Luis Casa?as .

There are growing expectations that businesses transform their operations to be in harmony with global climate and?nature goals. Transition plans serve as the roadmaps for navigating this transformation, outlining the concrete steps businesses can take to achieve these goals.

Transition plans are still in their nascency, particularly for nature. However, as businesses continue to realise the inherent importance and interconnection of nature and biodiversity with climate, this is beginning to be reflected in transition plans. This article looks at the evolution of transition plans and how businesses should go about integrating climate and nature. Key insights include:

• The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) play a vital role in ensuring consistency in financial and sustainability reporting
• The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is guiding organisations to incorporate nature into their transition plans, with the long-term goal of each business fully integrating climate and nature considerations into a unified strategy
• Rather than viewing nature transition plans as a burden, businesses should see them as an opportunity to enrich their strategies, enhance operational resilience, and future-proof against increasing regulations
• A phased approach allows businesses to gradually incorporate nature into their transition plans, balancing caution with accountability, as they develop public positions

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Transition Plans: what are they and where did they come from?

Transition plans provide a blueprint for the strategic delivery of sustainability commitments, and their disclosure equips financial parties with the information necessary to finance that transition.

Transition plans gained significant recognition at COP26 in 2021, where the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) highlighted the need for robust transition plans. At the same conference, the UK took a leading role by announcing mandatory climate-related disclosures for large companies, emphasising the importance of transparency and accountability. Building on this momentum, the UK launched the Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT) in 2022, focusing on a growing gap: while governments and organisations were making ambitious commitments to limit global warming, many lacked structured frameworks to disclose how these goals would be achieved through business action. To address this, the TPT established a framework for developing and publishing robust and credible transition plans, specifically in the context of wider sustainability commitments and the global push for Net-Zero. Put succinctly, the TPT defines the structure and purpose of a credible transition plan, outlining what it should look like and what it should aim to achieve.

Since then, the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) have built on the work of the TPT, as part of their setting of globally recognised accounting standards, which aim to ensure consistency and comparability in financial reporting. Their Sustainability Disclosure Standards – IFRS S1 (General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information) and IFRS S2 (Climate-related Disclosures) – form the backbone of financial reporting for sustainability disclosures. These standards ensure that sustainability data a) aligns seamlessly with financial reporting requirements, and b) is captured, processed and reported on with similar rigor.

The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), created in November 2021, plays a key role in integrating IFRS standards into mainstream sustainability reporting. It exists to empower stakeholders “with the right information to support better economic and investment decision-making.” Some view the ISSB as ‘furnishing the house and bringing it to life’ – it bridges the gap between financial and sustainability reporting, and makes transition plans operational and actionable for stakeholders.

In October 2024, the Transition Plan Taskforce formally concluded its work in developing guidance and passed the mantle for maintaining all TPT materials to the IFRS. This is a huge boon for sustainability, as stated by the International Transition Plan Network (ITPN), “the IFRS ownership of TPT disclosure materials represents a significant milestone in global efforts to harmonise transition plan disclosures.”

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First climate, now nature

Since the introduction of transition plans, the focus has been on climate and decarbonisation. Indeed, the IFRS defines climate-related transition plans as “an aspect of an entity’s overall strategy that lays out the entity’s targets, actions or resources for its transition towards a lower-carbon economy, including actions such as reducing its greenhouse gas emissions”. Climate transition plans have been widely adopted, with Accenture research showing 46% of G2000 having transition plans in place as of November 2024. Reflecting this momentum, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero (GFANZ) has initiated a consultation that has been instrumental in advancing climate transition planning for financial institutions, reinforcing the link between decarbonisation of businesses and their value chains, and the investments which support their growth.

As the climate-nature nexus has become more widely acknowledged, transition plans have begun to evolve to address nature alongside climate. In October 2024, the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) released a discussion paper for consultation, with organisations invited to respond by February 1, 2025. The paper offers draft guidance on developing and disclosing nature transition plans for corporates and financial institutions. This evolution is supported by growing alignment across key frameworks, including the TNFD, TPT, and GFANZ, which collectively aim to ensure a unified and coherent approach to integrating climate and nature considerations into transition planning.

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Integrated transition plans – where should you start?

Given the challenge of integrating climate and nature, the TNFD have set out a phased approach to help guide organisations on become increasingly mature as they travel along their transition plan journey:

1. Climate transition plans: The guidance assumes that climate transition plans are the starting point for organisations
2. Climate plan with nature for Net-Zero: Within an organisation’s climate transition plan they should begin addressing their impacts and dependencies on nature. The synergies that exist between climate and nature should start to make an appearance within their strategy and commitments
3. Separate climate and nature plans: As organisations continue to bolster their nature strategies and related considerations, it is likely beneficial to produce two reports (one for climate, and one for nature). Managing nature and climate goals separately at this point, while still assessing their interactions, allows organisations to prioritise their actions and resources relating to each issue
4. Integrated planning: The ultimate goal is to have a fully integrated climate and nature transition plan that also further considers the social elements of a just transition (“a shift to a net zero and climate-resilient economy that delivers decent work, social inclusion and the eradication of poverty while simultaneously delivering biodiversity goals”)

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Addressing nature can help future-proof your business

Every business, to some extent, depends on nature within its value chain. While the connections between nature and a business’ supply chain, operations, and its products and services are more intuitive and apparent for industries like consumer goods or energy, even companies with seemingly minimal interaction with nature depend upon it in significant ways. For instance, professional services firms rely on nature for renewable energy to power their operations, to provide freshwater resources for their office facilities and personnel, and to provide essential metals and minerals used in their computers and other technology. Additionally, they will likely rely on nature for a proportion of their revenues, as their clients may operate in resource intensive industries which in-turn rely on nature. Given this, it is clear that by embedding nature into transition plans, businesses can robustly codify how they will protect, restore, and regenerate nature so as to ensure the longevity of the ecosystem services upon which they depend, whilst also moving towards a Net-Zero future.

Moreover, developing a robust transition plan which includes a focus on nature can equip businesses to meet future regulatory requirements. Recently, an array of nature-related regulations have emerged, such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), and the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), and we are likely to see more arise as time progresses. Developing a thorough nature strategy now, and disclosing the details of that within an integrated transition plan, will help businesses stay ahead of the regulatory curve, providing them with a lead time to experiment, upskill, socialise and refine what works for them and their leadership. Moreover, such strategies can help to identify and fill key nature-related data gaps across businesses’ value chains ahead of mandatory requirements to improve transparency on such data.

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Nature as a value creation driver

The evolution of transition plans to incorporate nature is not just about mitigating risks – it’s a chance to strengthen business resilience and unlock new opportunities. By proactively integrating nature into their strategies, companies can move beyond risk management and position themselves to capitalise on emerging market trends.

Applying a nature-focused lens to a business’ strategy can identify opportunities to unlock new markets and revenue streams. Transitioning to nature-positive practices allows businesses to innovate and offer nature-focussed products or services which can meet the growing demand for sustainable solutions which focus on nature (and within that, biodiversity). This approach not only taps into ever-evolving consumer preferences but can also provide a competitive edge through corporate, and product, brand differentiation. Additionally, by demonstrating a coalesced commitment to climate and nature, businesses can attract forward-looking investors and foster stronger employee loyalty, further enhancing their market position.

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Taking the first step

A phased approach to developing integrated transition plans helps organisations navigate nature and climate considerations effectively, balancing ambition with caution. These plans hold businesses accountable to their commitments, and thus starting with a clear assessment is critical. As highlighted in our article "No Net-Zero without nature”, addressing nature alongside climate is essential to achieving sustainability goals and building resilience.

The first step is assessing climate- and nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities (IDROs). A comprehensive, value-chain-wide assessment will provide clarity as to how your business interacts with the atmosphere, land, freshwater and the oceans, and will inform your decisions that can improve your impacts, enhance your resilience, and uncover new opportunities in nature-focused markets.

At Accenture, we help clients lead this shift. Our climate and nature specialists contributed to the TNFD and GFANZ consultations to help shape global best practice, our thoughts on TNFD were detailed in our recent article “The nature imperative and the importance of the TNFD framework.” By conducting pilot assessments, applying scenario analysis, and embedding insights into robust transition plans, we enable organisations to meet regulatory expectations while achieving their climate, nature, and broader sustainability goals.

If you are looking for support in evolving your business’s transition plan to include nature, please do get in touch. We’d love to work with you to make this happen!