How businesses can move climate ambition to action

Thomas Reuters Foundation released ‘Navigating the Just Transition: Context, Conflicts and Company Practice’ (November 2025). Using case studies from South Asia, the report highlights how businesses can move climate ambition to action through a people-centred just transition.

Human Level’s Take:

• There are persistent gaps between corporate climate ambitions and the realities faced by suppliers and workers, especially in regions such as India and Bangladesh, where supply chains are fragmented, informal workforces are present, and social protections are weak.
• The report explores how without shared understanding of just transition, adequate resources, or meaningful worker engagement, climate action risks deepening inequality, accelerating job loss, and exposing companies to serious operational and reputational risks. Further, top-down climate directives, unsupported supplier expectations, and siloed ESG strategies cannot deliver just outcomes.
• Several systemic tensions complicate implementation and lead to top floor worker outcomes, supply-chain instability, and ultimately stalled climate progress if companies fail to address them holistically:
  • Fragmented understanding across value chains leads to mismatched strategies and expectations between buyers and suppliers.
  • Cost pressures vs. decent work mean green investments may inadvertently suppress wages or increase job insecurity if safeguards are not in place.
  • Speed vs. inclusion arises as rapid decarbonisation timelines leave little space for social dialogue, reskilling, or building social protections.
  • Supplier pressure vs. shared responsibility shows that buyers’ expectations often lack financial or technical support, shifting burdens downstream.
  • AI-enabled efficiency vs. job displacement highlights the need for reskilling and worker-centred technology planning.
    

• The report highlights practices that help companies embed a human-centred transition:
  • Integrating worker rights into climate strategies, ensuring decarbonisation and human rights progress together.
  • Setting up cross-functional teams to ensure accountability and alignment across business functions.
  • Engaging in structured and ongoing dialogue with workers, suppliers, and affected communities.
  • Developing inclusive, accessible training programmes that reach informal, marginalised, and vulnerable groups.
  • Improving data collection and adopting standardised monitoring frameworks to capture both climate and social impacts.
  • Building long-term partnerships with suppliers, including financial and technical support for adaptation.
    

• When companies adopt these practices they not only protect workers but also strengthen supply-chain stability, investor confidence, and long-term competitiveness while delivering meaningful climate progress
  

Key takeaways:

Fragmented approaches and competing frameworks create delivery risks: Companies that split their strategies into climate impacts or human rights impacts, undermine both processes. Climate-only plans lack social foundations such as worker-transition budgets, wage guarantees, and supplier-support mechanisms. Human rights focused only plans can lack robust climate pathways. The coexistence of carbon-focused reporting frameworks (e.g., GHG Protocol) and social-governance frameworks (e.g., ILO Just Transition Guidelines) leads to inconsistent disclosures and ‘audit fatigue’ for suppliers. SMEs in particular struggle to meet buyer expectations without clear guidance, resources, or financial support. This fragmentation poses operational and compliance risks, especially as due-diligence regulations expand.

Costs are shifted to suppliers and ultimately onto workers: The report shows that understanding and uptake of the Just Transition vary widely by region and sector. EU-based buyers increasingly demand climate-aligned, socially responsible supply chains, while suppliers in countries like India and Bangladesh often lack the resources, training, and policy support required to meet these expectations. Without shared terminology, common standards, or aligned reporting frameworks, companies struggle to assess progress, compare data, or coordinate action. This mismatch creates costs and compliance burdens that cascade down to smaller suppliers, deepening vulnerabilities for workers. Additionally, procurement practices such as aggressive pricing, shortened lead times, and unilateral compliance demands transfer transition costs downstream. This can often result in wage suppression, longer working hours, and increased informal subcontracting with weaker oversight. Suppliers who may be already facing resource pressure, cannot invest in greener technologies or workforce development under these pressures. These dynamics heighten the risk of factory closures, layoffs, and worker exploitation, while also exposing buyers to reputational and regulatory risks.

Board-level integration is critical for real progress: The report stresses that a Just Transition strategy must be embedded within core governance, rather than treated as an add-on to ESG. Boards need to adopt an organisation-wide definition aligned with global frameworks, integrate Just Transition goals into major policies (supplier codes, human-rights policies, governance documents), and create cross-functional steering committees. Without integrated governance and shared language across departments, companies risk inconsistent implementation, lower ambition, or misapplication of the term as a form of climate delayism.

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