The World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) released a framework and guidance for companies on Assessing the 'Just' in Corporate Transition Plans: Framework and Guidance (April 2025). The report is the outcome of the Just Transition Working Group launched in November 2023 by the WBA with 50 experts from 27 organisations globally. The working group is tracking just transition progress, with the aim of developing clear guidance on how to assess the robustness of the ‘just’ aspects of corporate transition plans.
Human Level’s Take:
- To achieve a just transition, companies must make structural changes toward a net-zero economy while addressing the social impacts on workers, communities, and other stakeholders.
- The practice of climate transition planning is developing at pace, but the authors points out that there is not yet a clear mandate for human rights to be layered into transition planning. Many companies still struggle with just transition planning, especially in areas like stakeholder engagement, social protection and workforce inclusion. As just transition frameworks and indicators proliferate, there is a need to assess the robustness of the ‘just’ aspects of the plan.
- The report suggests that human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD)—driven by mandatory HREDD legislation—provides a valuable framework for integrating social and environmental considerations into transition plans and for assessing what strong practice looks like. Pinning just transition planning to the stages of HREDD can help companies take an integrated, systematic approach to managing their negative impacts, while supporting assessors and governments to measure the robustness of just transition plans.
- The report offers key recommendations for different stakeholders. For companies, the expectation is to take a “bottom-up” approach to a just transition, grounded in social dialogue, meaningful stakeholder engagement, respect for labor rights, decent work, and strong HREDD and transition planning.
- To support company just transition planning, other stakeholders like assessors (i.e., internal or external auditors, investors, ESG analysts and other consultants) and governments must play a part. Assessors should tailor evaluations to the context, sector and country; use a typology of transitions to better identify social impacts, risks and opportunities; and use just transition indicators at the national, company and project levels to assess alignment with local and sectoral contexts. For their part, governments and the UN should clarify business responsibilities in advancing just transitions and should invest in the just transition.
Some key takeaways:
- What does a just transition mean for companies?: The report clarifies that a just transition requires structural changes in our production and consumption systems as we move toward a net-zero economy, with careful attention to the social impacts on people. For companies, ensuring a just transition requires consideration of several key aspects: just transition planning, social dialogue, stakeholder engagement and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), decent green job creation and skills development opportunities, social protection, impact assessments along the value chain and policy advocacy. This applies to all companies—whether they are leading the shift, supporting clean energy industries or needing to transition away from high-emission activities. The report also points out that just transition-focused corporate plans help protect jobs, ensure job quality and prevent growing inequalities. They also empower affected groups to achieve better social outcomes and attract investment for fair climate solutions. By doing so, they encourage stronger collaboration between public and private sectors to speed up the energy transition. However, many companies still face challenges in planning for a just transition, with most showing limited progress across key areas such as stakeholder engagement, social protection and inclusive workforce development. At the same time, while corporate climate transition planning is progressing as a practice, it is not clear that the practice or the frameworks that guide it reflect a strong focus on fairness and inclusion for affected stakeholders.
- Convergence of just transition and HREDD: The report underscores that human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD) is the “connective tissue” to help companies systematically integrate just transition into their climate strategies. This aligns with the growing number of HREDD laws globally, which require companies to address potential negative impacts on people and the planet. Understanding the impacts of climate transition plans on stakeholders—like workers, communities, suppliers and consumers—is essential for creating fair and effective climate transition strategies. HREDD helps companies take an integrated approach to managing both social and environmental risks, guiding them to address key challenges and make their transition plans more inclusive. It also offers a framework for what a robust just transition plan can look like. For HREDD to be effective, it requires board oversight, company-wide integration and an ongoing, iterative nature.
- Five recommendations: The report outlines five recommendations for companies, assessors (including a wide range of stakeholders such as internal or external auditors, investors, ESG analysts and other verifiers and consultants), and governments: (1) Companies should use a bottom-up approach to just transition, rooted in social dialogue, meaningful stakeholder engagement, labour rights, decent work, and robust HREDD and transition planning; (2) Assessors should tailor their evaluations to the company’s local context, sector, and internal and external implementation factors; (3) Assessors can use a typology of transitions to better identify social impacts, risks and opportunities linked to companies’ transition plans; (4) Assessors should use just transition indicators at the national, company and project levels to assess alignment with local and sectoral contexts. Just transition observatories can help connect insights across these levels; and (5) Governments and the UN should clarify business responsibilities in advancing just transitions and invest in the transition itself. Integrating just transition principles into sustainability reporting standards, HREDD and transition planning policy and taxonomies is one way forward.
