The Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT) Explained: The Disclosure Framework and What It Means Today

The Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT) was a UK body that set the benchmark for how businesses should disclose their climate transition plans. It ran from 2022 to October 2024, published a widely adopted Disclosure Framework, and then handed its work to the IFRS Foundation, which now maintains it.

If you have come across the TPT in a reporting requirement, a client request, or an investor question and want to understand what it was, what it produced, and whether it still matters, this guide covers it. It explains the TPT Disclosure Framework, what a transition plan needs to report, how it fits alongside other standards, and where things stand now.

What is the Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT)?

The Transition Plan Taskforce was an independent body launched by HM Treasury with a mandate to develop good practice for climate transition plan disclosures across finance and the wider economy. It brought together leaders from industry, academia, and regulators, and engaged more than 600 organisations globally over its lifetime.

Its central output was the TPT Disclosure Framework, published in October 2023. The Framework set out what a robust and credible transition plan should contain, and quickly became a reference point for companies, regulators, and investors well beyond the UK.

What is a climate transition plan?

A climate transition plan is the part of a company's overall strategy that sets out how it will move towards a lower-carbon business model, including how it plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. That definition comes from IFRS S2, the ISSB's climate disclosure standard, and the TPT built its Framework directly on it.

A transition plan is broader than a Net Zero target. A target states the destination. A transition plan explains the route: the actions, investment, governance, and dependencies involved in getting there. That distinction is what the TPT Framework was designed to make consistent and comparable across businesses.

Why was the Transition Plan Taskforce created? 

The TPT was set up to solve a specific problem. By the early 2020s, thousands of companies and financial institutions had made voluntary Net Zero commitments, but there was no shared standard for what a credible plan to deliver on them looked like. That made it hard for investors, customers, and regulators to tell a serious, well-resourced plan from a vague pledge, and it left companies with little guidance on how to build one.

The impetus came from UK climate policy. At COP26 in 2021, the UK committed to becoming the world's first Net Zero-aligned financial centre, and the government signalled that it would strengthen reporting requirements, including the publication of transition plans. HM Treasury launched the TPT in 2022 to turn that ambition into practical guidance, bringing together leaders from industry, academia, and regulators to define good practice for both financial institutions and the wider economy.

The aim was a consistent standard that investors could rely on, one that gave companies a clear structure to work from and reduced the risk of greenwashing, where claims outrun substance. The taskforce was also asked to work with governments beyond the UK, so the framework could support alignment internationally.

Key TPT dates

Transition Plan Taskforce timeline: key dates 

The Framework is organised around three guiding principles: Ambition, Action, and Accountability. These translate into five Elements, broken down further into 19 sub-elements, each supported by specific disclosure recommendations.

A recurring theme runs through all five: the TPT encourages a "strategic and rounded" approach, meaning a plan should consider a company's role in the wider economy rather than focusing narrowly on its own balance sheet. The Framework also recommends that companies publish a standalone transition plan and update it at least every three years. 

What does a transition plan need to report under the TPT? 

The Metrics & Targets element is where the emissions detail sits, and it is the part most businesses ask about. Under the Framework, a company should disclose its absolute gross greenhouse gas emissions across all three scopes:

• Scope 1: direct emissions from sources the company owns or controls, such as company vehicles or on-site fuel combustion.
• Scope 2: indirect emissions from the electricity, heat, or steam the company buys and uses.
• Scope 3: other value chain emissions, upstream and downstream, from purchased goods and services to product use and employee commuting. For most businesses this is the largest share.

For Scope 3, the Framework does not ask for all fifteen categories in every case. A company should report the categories it has measured, in line with the fifteen categories in the GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard, and explain any it has excluded along with the steps it is taking to close those gaps.

Emissions must be measured in line with the GHG Protocol, the global standard for carbon accounting. Alongside the raw emissions data, the Framework asks companies to disclose their reduction targets, whether those targets are absolute or intensity-based, the base year, how targets align with climate science, and whether they have been validated by a third party. Where a company uses carbon credits, it should report on those separately and transparently, rather than treating them as a substitute for cutting emissions.

The practical implication is that a credible transition plan starts with an accurate, full-scope carbon footprint. Without reliable Scope 1, 2, and 3 data underneath it, the targets and the narrative have nothing solid to stand on.

Why did the TPT end, and who maintains the framework now? 

The TPT did not fail or get cancelled. It closed because it had done what it set out to do. In October 2024 it published its final report, "Progress Achieved and the Path Ahead", marking the end of its mandate.

At that point, responsibility for the taskforce's 13 disclosure-specific documents passed to the IFRS Foundation, which now hosts them on its Sustainability Knowledge Hub. The TPT produced 22 documents in total across its life, including sector guidance and thematic papers on nature, adaptation, and just transition.

The handover matters because the IFRS Foundation is the body behind the ISSB and the global IFRS S1 and S2 standards. Bringing the TPT's work under that roof means transition plan guidance now sits alongside the international disclosure standards that a growing number of countries are adopting. In June 2025, the ISSB built on the TPT material to publish its own guidance for companies disclosing transition plan information under IFRS S2. In short, the framework lives on. Only the taskforce that created it has retired.

How does the TPT framework align with other reporting standards? 

The TPT was designed from the outset to complement rather than compete with existing standards. It draws on the same building blocks that most carbon reporting frameworks use.

The takeaway for any business is that the underlying work overlaps. A full-scope GHG inventory and a credible Net Zero plan built once can support a transition plan, IFRS S2 disclosure, CSRD reporting, and a CDP submission, rather than each being a separate exercise. 

Are SMEs and mid-market businesses affected by the TPT? 

Most are not directly affected, at least not yet. The emerging mandatory requirements are aimed at large organisations. In the UK, the government's June 2025 consultation on mandatory transition plans focused on UK-regulated financial institutions and FTSE 100 companies, with the possibility of extending to other economically significant firms. Small and medium-sized businesses are not expected to be in scope.

Indirectly, the picture is different, and this is the part worth paying attention to. Large companies that fall in scope will look to their suppliers for data. A FTSE 100 business cannot build a credible Scope 3 figure or transition plan without emissions information from the mid-market and smaller firms in its value chain. As these requirements firm up, carbon data requests are likely to flow further down supply chains.

For a mid-market business, that means the relevant question is less "does this regulation apply to me?" and more "will my customers and investors start asking me for this?". Increasingly, the answer is yes. Having an accurate footprint and a reduction plan ready, structured in line with the same framework larger companies use, turns those requests into a straightforward response rather than a scramble.

Are transition plans becoming mandatory? 

Transition plan disclosure is shifting from voluntary good practice towards regulation, though the exact shape is still being worked out and varies by region.

• United Kingdom: The UK finalised its own UK Sustainability Reporting Standards (UK SRS S1 and S2), based on the ISSB standards, in February 2026. They are available for voluntary use now, with mandatory climate reporting proposed for listed companies from 1 January 2027. Under the FCA's proposed approach, in-scope listed companies would state whether and where they have published a transition plan, or explain why not. This "disclose-or-explain" model requires disclosure of a plan where one exists, but does not force companies to produce one. A separate government consultation on whether to go further and mandate the production of plans is ongoing, with the government keeping its options open.
• European Union: The CSRD still requires in-scope companies to disclose a transition plan where they have one, or explain its absence, through the European Sustainability Reporting Standards. However, the EU's Omnibus simplification package, which became law in early 2026, significantly reduced the number of companies in scope and removed the separate requirement under the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive to adopt and put a climate transition plan into effect.
• Globally: Many jurisdictions are adopting the ISSB's IFRS standards, with Canada developing its own ISSB-aligned standards and other countries following. In the US, momentum is more state-led, through rules such as California's climate disclosure laws. The TPT Framework, now maintained by the IFRS Foundation, was built with exactly this kind of international applicability in mind.

Transition plan disclosure is becoming a mainstream expectation for larger businesses, but the pace and reach vary by jurisdiction, and recent EU changes show the path is not always a straight line.

How Seedling can help

The TPT Framework makes one thing clear: a credible transition plan rests on accurate, full-scope emissions data and a genuine plan to reduce it. We help you measure a full-scope, GHG Protocol-aligned carbon footprint across Scopes 1, 2, and 3, set science-based Net Zero targets, and build a data-backed plan to decarbonise, the same foundations the Framework's five elements are structured around.

Because that data is GHG Protocol-aligned, it does not just support a transition plan. The same footprint carries across CDP, B Corp, SECR, and IFRS-aligned reporting, so you build it once and reuse it. Our software plus one-to-one expert support means you can respond to a client or investor request with confidence, without needing to become a carbon expert yourself. Book a demo to see how it works.

Frequently asked questions

What was the Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT)?

The Transition Plan Taskforce was an independent body launched by the UK's HM Treasury in 2022 to develop good practice for climate transition plan disclosures. Its main output, the TPT Disclosure Framework, was published in October 2023 and became a widely used reference for what a credible transition plan should contain.

Is the Transition Plan Taskforce still active? 

No. The TPT concluded its work in October 2024 after publishing its final report. Its 13 disclosure-specific documents are now owned and hosted by the IFRS Foundation, and the ISSB has built on them to produce transition plan guidance under IFRS S2. The framework remains in active use even though the taskforce itself has closed.

What does the TPT Disclosure Framework require?

The Framework is structured around three principles (Ambition, Action, Accountability) and five Elements: Foundations, Implementation Strategy, Engagement Strategy, Metrics & Targets, and Governance. It asks companies to disclose their strategic ambition, the actions and engagement behind it, their governance arrangements, and their metrics and targets, including full-scope Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions measured in line with the GHG Protocol.

Are transition plans mandatory in the UK?

Not yet. Under the UK's proposed approach, companies that have a transition plan would need to disclose it, on a disclose-or-explain basis, but would not be required to produce one. The government is separately consulting on whether to mandate the production of plans for large companies and financial institutions, with decisions still pending as of 2026.

Do small and mid-market businesses need a transition plan?

Small and mid-market businesses are not expected to be directly in scope of mandatory UK requirements. However, they are increasingly asked for emissions data and reduction plans by larger customers and investors who are in scope, so having a full-scope footprint and a credible plan is becoming a practical commercial requirement rather than a regulatory one.

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