27 April 2022

IPE: NEST, CEPB on board as UK transition plan taskforce launches

Formally launched today by HM Treasury with a two-year mandate, the Transition Plan Taskforce will aim to establish best practice for transition plans and develop templates that would be suitable for incorporation into UK regulatory frameworks, alongside guidance on metrics and targets.

The chief investment officer of auto-enrolment scheme NEST and the chief responsible investment officer of the Church of England Pensions Board (CEPB) are among members of a newly-launched UK taskforce that will “develop the gold standard” for climate transition plans to be disclosed by listed companies and certain financial organisations.

The group’s mandate is to be fulfilled by three workstreams creating:

• A sector-neutral framework for private sector transition plans;
• Sector-specific guidance for finance and real economy sectors; and
• Recommendations for companies preparing transition plans and stakeholders such as investors using them.

The Taskforce is led by a steering group, co-chaired by John Glen, economic secretary to the Treasury, and Amanda Blanc, chief executive officer of Aviva.

Mark Fawcett, CIO of fast-growing defined contribution scheme NEST, is on the steering committee alongside Sacha Sadan, ESG director at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Michelle Scrimgeour, CEO of Legal & General Investment Management, corporate leaders, and others.

The steering group is supported by a delivery group of experts from across industry, academic and civil society. Members of the steering group are invited to delegate staff onto the delivery group and to participate in the day-to-day work of the Taskforce.

Adam Matthews, chief responsible investment officer of CEPB, is one of 29 members of the delivery group, which also includes Faith Ward, chair of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change and chief responsible investment officer of the Brunel Pensions Partnership, a local authority pension pooling company. NEST’s Fawcett is also listed as participating in the delivery group.

John Glen, economic secretary to the Treasury, said the Taskforce brought together “an impressive range of forward-thinking stakeholders to ensure firms can put together plans to aid our transition to a low-carbon economy”.

The launch of the Taskforce is part of the UK’s approach to planned new Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR), an economy-wide climate impact-focussed reporting regime first referred to in a speech by Chancellor Rishi Sunak in July. This was elaborated on in a ‘Greening Finance’ roadmap in October.

In November, at the UN climate change conference the Chancellor clarified the government would move to make publication of transition plans mandatory for large companies and certain financial sector firms; this is due to be the case from 2023.

The same day, the FCA published a discussion paper on SDR requirements for asset managers and FCA-regulated asset owners, and investment labels.

IPE

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