On Wednesday 25 April 2026, the Local Authority Pension Funds Forum (LAPFF) and CCLA joint hosted The 2026 Reset: Raising the bar on plan quality and investor voting, at the Local Government Association building in London. The seminar focussed on how climate transition plans can provide a mechanism to test corporate ambition against real-world action, and brought together representatives from investors, companies, think tanks, and civil society organisations. The event was conducted under Chatham house rules.
Are markets delivering what the transition requires?
Attendees proposed that current market structures are not aligned with the conditions needed for a sustainable global economy and noted that warming trajectories remain well above safe limits. A combination of sector-specific national policy measures and investor engagement can provide both incentive and accountability for companies to transition in line with the Paris Agreement.
It was clear that transition plans must connect company-level action to national policy frameworks, with governments needing to align policy to make decarbonisation commercially viable. This prevents companies facing a financial disadvantage from acting responsibly. Yet participants also noted that international financial architecture and sovereign debt engagement are lagging behind what the transition requires.
What makes a good climate transition plan?
Discussion in the room established that good transition plans should include clear implementation strategies; capital expenditure and revenue linked to transition goals; and transparent identification of dependencies such as policy changes, new technologies and workforce needs.
The use of carbon capture and storage (CCUS) should be genuinely justified, rather than used as a substitute for deeper decarbonisation. In some hard-to-abate sectors, reliance on CCUS may be justified where no clear alternative can be identified to fully decarbonise. But over-reliance on CCUS as a ‘magic bullet’ should be discouraged.
Participants also heard the view that many company boards lack the expertise needed to oversee transition plans effectively; but audit and risk committees are beginning to engage with climate as a financially material issue.
Investors don’t need a perfect transition plan, but they do need an honest one. That means being open about the barriers a company faces and about what needs to happen for the plan to deliver real progress. Board involvement and oversight is critical if climate strategy is to be fully embedded in business strategy. When investors engage with boards, voting on climate concerns and on transition plans should form part of that stewardship approach, rather than relying on dialogue alone.
Tessa Younger, Better Environment Lead at CCLA
How can companies, investors, and policymakers work in lockstep to make the transition financially feasible?
Delegates proposed that a disconnect exists between companies, investors and policymakers. Companies may be pressed by investors to decarbonise, but face a policy environment in which to do so would mean facing a competitive disadvantage. They may also not know what policy support is feasible, as government policymaking decisions can be opaque. Investors in turn struggle to communicate industry needs upstream to policymakers.
Suggestions for better practice included industry bodies and investor coalitions collaborating with government bodies and the civil service to lower economic and non-economic barriers to company decarbonisation. But participants heard that membership of coalitions was no total substitute for continuous engagement and accountability at each organisation. Investor coalitions can lose effectiveness when membership becomes a box-ticking exercise rather than a driver of genuine pressure.
Attendees discussed how multi-polar geopolitical pressures are creating conflicting demands on global companies, making public climate commitments increasingly complicated. Where climate action has become highly politicised in certain geographies, companies may face litigation for making the kind of commitments that investors in other geographies clamour for.
Finally, end-customer preference and public sentiment emerged as another important factor for companies and investors alike to remain attentive to. Consumer behaviour remains a significant variable. Marketing and education around lower-carbon products are underweighted in many transition plans, which participants heard could be an effective measure for supporting change from consumer groups themselves.