Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what progress his Department has made on encouraging companies to take up the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.

HM Treasury recognises the important role data and transparency play in ensuring the accurate pricing of climate-related financial risk. That is why the government has officially endorsed the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and encouraged publicly listed firms to implement them, in line with the TCFD’s voluntary approach.

To support this, the private sector Green Finance Taskforce, which was launched by HM Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, has also been asked to consider if government should and could play a role in enabling and facilitating the implementation of the TCFD recommendations. The implementation of the TCFD recommendations is a cross-cutting workstream of the Green Finance Taskforce, the Terms of Reference of which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/green-finance

Participants from across the financial services industry have given feedback on implementing the recommendations, including potential government action to encourage uptake. The Taskforce’s report is due to be published in spring 2018 and will include TCFD-related considerations.