UK regulators have been forced to put a new transition finance body on ice because they can’t find an appropriate person to chair it.
The Climate Financial Risk Forum (CFRF), which is run by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority, was scheduled to launch a new working group that would “establish key transition finance metrics”.
The initiative was proposed last year by the Transition Finance Market Review (TFMR), set up to advise government on ways of unlocking climate finance in the UK.
But in an update published on Monday, the TFMR’s successor, the Transition Finance Council, said the creation of the working group had been “delayed due to challenges in appointing a suitably profiled chair”.
It did not provide any further details, but said “industry should engage to provide a chair and more generally on the ongoing development of transition finance metrics and the CFRF working group”.
The CFRF was set up in 2019, and already has technical working groups on climate disclosure, scenario analysis, risk management and innovation.
Each working group is chaired by a CFRF member and supported by an external secretariat.
The Transition Finance Council said 40 organisations had already expressed an interest in joining the new working group once it is ready to be launched.
Its progress report also noted that the UK government had shelved another of TFMR’s recommendations: to launch a Transition Finance Lab to develop and road test new ideas.
Some progress
More progress has been made on some of TFMR’s other recommendations.
Commenting on the publication of the progress report, Maria Nazarova-Doyle, the global head of sustainable investment at IFM Investors, said the Transition Finance Council had done “some heavy lifting” in order to deliver draft guidelines on transition finance and a playbook for considering finance in sectoral transition plans.
“These are key documents to support investors in their financing of an orderly transition to net zero,” she continued, adding that there was “still a lot of work to do to get to the final position”.
“I encourage investors to get involved in future consultations and roundtables, and help provide practical case studies to support successful outcomes for the work of the Council.”
The Council confirmed that it would consult for a second time on the proposed transition finance guidelines ahead of an update in March 2026.
Faith Ward, the chair of the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change, and chief responsible investment officer at Brunel Pension Partnership, said there had already been “overwhelming interest in, and support for, the Council’s work”.
Ward chairs the council’s working group on scaling transition finance, and said the appetite from stakeholders to participate directly or indirectly in the initiative “gives me real hope”.
The report comes the same week as the UK government’s consultation on the introduction of climate transition plan requirements for the private sector closes, on Wednesday.
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