COP27 saw a number of high-profile announcements affecting the industrial manufacturing sector. From Transition Plans to the link between nature and climate, find out more about the most pertinent COP27 and ESG topics.
- Transition Plans are key to lowering emissions
The launch of the Transition Plan Taskforce’s (TPT) gold standard guidance for climate transition plans sees a progression from target setting to implementation. Aligned with wider business activities, transition plans seek to present an organisation’s strategy in the move towards a low-carbon economy.
Following the three principles of Ambition, Action, and Accountability, transition plans provide information regarding an organisation’s climate aligned commitments, impacts of the transition on business strategy, actionable steps to meet the commitments, performance disclosures about current and future achievements, and transition governance mechanisms. Delivering on this expectation will require a never-before-seen level of engagement across the value industry, to determine the supply chains, skills, financing and public sector support necessary to achieve transition. - ‘The Breakthrough Agenda’ is expanded
At COP27, the Breakthrough Agenda, aimed at ensuring affordability of low and zero-carbon technologies by 2030, was further developed to drive the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors.
Nations representing heavy industrial footprints pledged collaborative development of large-scale Net-Zero industrial plants, hydrogen valleys, and a standardized definition for ‘low-emission’ steel. Additionally, the First Movers Coalition announced ten additional corporate members, with collective cleantech investment commitments worth over USD 12bn. Alongside the Mission Possible Partnership, comprising more than 400 businesses in transport and industrial sectors, the Coalition released sector-specific workstreams and targets for decarbonisation.
At home, the UK is set to co-lead on the workstreams for power, hydrogen, agriculture, steel, and road transport, along with Morocco, US, Egypt, Germany, and India and US. This presents a fantastic opportunity for organisations in the UK industrials sector to take advantage of government incentives to support the sectoral transition. - Nature and climate are inextricably linked
The overlap between the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis was a key discussion point this year at COP27. Whilst previously the two have been treated separately, the cause and effect of nature degradation and carbon emission increase needs to be understood. The Task Force for Nature Related Disclosures (TNFD) released version 3 of its beta framework ahead of its final recommendations due in Sep 2023.
The Taskforce has developed a proposed approach to scenarios that is designed to build on an understanding of critical climate and nature-related uncertainties, while encouraging organisations to think through material risks and opportunities that are related to the use of natural capital in their business model.
Given the heavy physical footprint of the industrial manufacturing sector, nature & biodiversity impacts and opportunities will be critical to maximising value and protecting the social profile.
What next for Industrial Manufacturing?
Make sure to prepare for these key topics. For further insights, you can:
Visit our COP27 resource page
Read our introduction to transition plans
