Task force launched to ‘fill critical gaps’ in corporate climate reporting

The Task Force for Corporate Action Transparency (TCAT) was launched this week to help companies adjust to a fast-evolving climate reporting landscape – with two guidance documents already available.

TCAT’s Mitigation Action Accounting and Reporting Guidance (MAARG) and Target Accounting and Reporting Guidance (TARG) aim to fill some of the gaps left by existing frameworks, including the GHG Protocol and the Science Based Targets Initiative, around corporate climate action.

“Companies have been asked to act on climate change. Existing guidance helped companies get started, but as climate strategies have evolved, guidance hasn’t kept pace. That’s left ambition stalled, capital left on the sidelines, and public trust under strain. TCAT changes that,” said Alexia Kelly, Managing Director of the Carbon Policy and Markets Initiative at the High Tide Foundation and a member of the Task Force. She added that the documents were created with “input from the world’s leading GHG accounting experts and leaders from business and civil society”.

Third-party assurable guidance

The two documents, as well as future guidance provided by TCAT, offer clear guidelines for companies to produce climate action reports that are assurable by third parties and designed to meet investor and regulator expectations.

With it, TCAT hopes to help unlock additional climate capital by restoring trust in how impact is demonstrated and disclosed.

“Ongoing lack of clarity in the climate action and target accounting sector has slowed voluntary corporate action and investment. The Task Force for Corporate Action Transparency provides third party assurable guidance to help companies transparently and consistently report on the full range of climate actions they are implementing. We look forward to working with other standard setters to align on comprehensive and coherent reporting frameworks that recognise the full range of actions companies are undertaking,” said Chris Davis, interim head of the TCAT Executive Team.

13 companies piloting new guidance

According to the Wall Street Journal, 13 companies are already piloting the new frameworks, including Netflix, PepsiCo, BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group and Etsy.

“The reality is that we’ve outgrown the early guidance that first helped companies embark on their climate journeys,” Mark Wishnie, Chief Sustainability Officer at Timberland, told WSJ. “While those foundations were critically important, TCAT represents a significant step forward by providing businesses with tools to help measure and demonstrate real impact, report with clarity across complex value chains, and act with greater confidence.”