Investors and savers expect businesses to build resilience in a rapidly changing world, says Tessa Younger, Better Environment Lead at CCLA.
Since the UK government committed to mandating transition plans for FTSE 100 companies in 2024, you might have expected to see more FTSE 100 companies offering their transition plans to vote at AGMs.
After all, investors look to investee companies to demonstrate strategic readiness for regulatory change, and shareholders can play a constructive role in reviewing the credibility and robustness of transition plans. But this is not what we have seen. In fact, in 2025, only five FTSE 100 companies (excluding investment trusts) put their transition plans to a vote.
Compare that with the 2022 AGM season, in which 14 FTSE 100 companies offered climate transition plan votes, and it would appear transparency and accountability to shareholders via the AGM on climate transition planning at the UK’s largest companies is decreasing, rather than increasing as we might hope.
Taken over a three-year period, the trend is similar. Indeed, guidance from the Transition Plan Taskforce (now under the International Sustainability Standards Board) recommends that companies update and disclose their plans on a three-year cycle. In the three-year period from 2022-2024, 17 FTSE 100 companies provided transition plan votes at AGMs; but in the period 2023-2025, only 14 companies offered such votes.
Collectively, these data points suggest the start of a worrying slide in transition planning accountability, at precisely the moment when many investors are looking for greater proactive and credible future planning from these companies.
Financial and strategic resilience
This is not just a responsible and moral proposition, though of course those considerations are important. It is a question of financial and strategic resilience. The government’s consultation made clear it “would want any requirement for an entity to implement their plan to have legal force and consequences if the entity did not take sufficient steps to meet such an obligation.” Investors are thus naturally interested in supporting businesses to prepare for the upcoming regulation.
But preparation for regulatory change and its attendant risk is only one half of the picture. The other half is the necessary systemic role businesses must play in building resilience in a rapidly changing world. Now, as the dust settles after COP30, we are reminded that the climate crisis itself presents risks on an unprecedented scale.
The human cost of climate breakdown is already emerging in the form of extreme weather events, destabilised food systems, and deepening inequality. The resulting emergent instability and unpredictability in areas like trade, insurance, and geopolitics must be baked into future planning at large companies.
Our financial system is one of the key levers that can play a role in either worsening or averting the impacts of man-made climate change. That is what has led CCLA, which has a long history in investing for non-profit and public sector clients, and the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF), who represent approximately 90% of local authority pension funds in the UK, to write to the chairs of FTSE 100 businesses asking them to present their climate transition plans to shareholders.
With this letter, the signatory investors are seeking accountability from the companies many of them invest in and are encouraging businesses to take a positive approach towards planning for and shaping the low-carbon future.
Although some companies may be stepping back, investor support for this initiative is not. Last year, investors support represented £1.6 trillion AUM with 39 other signatories. This year that number has risen to over 50 investors representing £3.1 trillion AUM.
Investor commitment to climate action
It should come as no surprise that investors remain committed to climate action in the face of company rollbacks. Their clients, savers, pension holders, are ultimately the shareholders who wish to see them engaging on this issue. CCLA’s own client base ranks climate change as the issue they care about most in client surveys.
And no wonder, in October, a report from 160 scientists from around the world suggested we had hit the first climate tipping point, with the widespread dieback of warm water coral reefs. The impact of this and other climate tipping points on human societies will be worsened by each increment of unchecked global warming.
Nor are we, in the UK, shielded from the effects of climate harms. The health and wellbeing of our woodland, farmland, air and waterways is reliant on the careful stewardship of our environment.
Investors like CCLA and LAPFF understand that successful companies rely on healthy communities to thrive. This letter, signed by over 50 other investors from Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, as well as the UK, is their clarion call to the UK’s largest companies to provide accountability on how they will play their part in reducing the enormous risks posed by climate change to our economy, our societies and the planet.
Tessa Younger leads CCLA’s ‘Better Environment’ work, managing all stewardship on environmental issues, including climate change and nature, with the aim of driving clear improvements at the companies in which CCLA invests. Younger joined CCLA in January 2023, having previously spent many years at PIRC – Europe’s largest independent corporate governance and shareholder advisory consultancy – where she was most recently head of engagement.
Investors and savers expect businesses to build resilience in a rapidly changing world, says Tessa Younger, Better Environment Lead at CCLA.
Since the UK government committed to mandating transition plans for FTSE 100 companies in 2024, you might have expected to see more FTSE 100 companies offering their transition plans to vote at AGMs.
After all, investors look to investee companies to demonstrate strategic readiness for regulatory change, and shareholders can play a constructive role in reviewing the credibility and robustness of transition plans. But this is not what we have seen. In fact, in 2025, only five FTSE 100 companies (excluding investment trusts) put their transition plans to a vote.
Compare that with the 2022 AGM season, in which 14 FTSE 100 companies offered climate transition plan votes, and it would appear transparency and accountability to shareholders via the AGM on climate transition planning at the UK’s largest companies is decreasing, rather than increasing as we might hope.
Taken over a three-year period, the trend is similar. Indeed, guidance from the Transition Plan Taskforce (now under the International Sustainability Standards Board) recommends that companies update and disclose their plans on a three-year cycle. In the three-year period from 2022-2024, 17 FTSE 100 companies provided transition plan votes at AGMs; but in the period 2023-2025, only 14 companies offered such votes.
Collectively, these data points suggest the start of a worrying slide in transition planning accountability, at precisely the moment when many investors are looking for greater proactive and credible future planning from these companies.
Financial and strategic resilience
This is not just a responsible and moral proposition, though of course those considerations are important. It is a question of financial and strategic resilience. The government’s consultation made clear it “would want any requirement for an entity to implement their plan to have legal force and consequences if the entity did not take sufficient steps to meet such an obligation.” Investors are thus naturally interested in supporting businesses to prepare for the upcoming regulation.
But preparation for regulatory change and its attendant risk is only one half of the picture. The other half is the necessary systemic role businesses must play in building resilience in a rapidly changing world. Now, as the dust settles after COP30, we are reminded that the climate crisis itself presents risks on an unprecedented scale.
The human cost of climate breakdown is already emerging in the form of extreme weather events, destabilised food systems, and deepening inequality. The resulting emergent instability and unpredictability in areas like trade, insurance, and geopolitics must be baked into future planning at large companies.
Our financial system is one of the key levers that can play a role in either worsening or averting the impacts of man-made climate change. That is what has led CCLA, which has a long history in investing for non-profit and public sector clients, and the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF), who represent approximately 90% of local authority pension funds in the UK, to write to the chairs of FTSE 100 businesses asking them to present their climate transition plans to shareholders.
With this letter, the signatory investors are seeking accountability from the companies many of them invest in and are encouraging businesses to take a positive approach towards planning for and shaping the low-carbon future.
Although some companies may be stepping back, investor support for this initiative is not. Last year, investors support represented £1.6 trillion AUM with 39 other signatories. This year that number has risen to over 50 investors representing £3.1 trillion AUM.
Investor commitment to climate action
It should come as no surprise that investors remain committed to climate action in the face of company rollbacks. Their clients, savers, pension holders, are ultimately the shareholders who wish to see them engaging on this issue. CCLA’s own client base ranks climate change as the issue they care about most in client surveys.
And no wonder, in October, a report from 160 scientists from around the world suggested we had hit the first climate tipping point, with the widespread dieback of warm water coral reefs. The impact of this and other climate tipping points on human societies will be worsened by each increment of unchecked global warming.
Nor are we, in the UK, shielded from the effects of climate harms. The health and wellbeing of our woodland, farmland, air and waterways is reliant on the careful stewardship of our environment.
Investors like CCLA and LAPFF understand that successful companies rely on healthy communities to thrive. This letter, signed by over 50 other investors from Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, as well as the UK, is their clarion call to the UK’s largest companies to provide accountability on how they will play their part in reducing the enormous risks posed by climate change to our economy, our societies and the planet.
Tessa Younger leads CCLA’s ‘Better Environment’ work, managing all stewardship on environmental issues, including climate change and nature, with the aim of driving clear improvements at the companies in which CCLA invests. Younger joined CCLA in January 2023, having previously spent many years at PIRC – Europe’s largest independent corporate governance and shareholder advisory consultancy – where she was most recently head of engagement.
Share via:
Recommended for you