Body
An industry-led task force established by the FSB.
TCFD · the meaning
What is TCFD
TCFD means the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures and is also used as shorthand for its reporting framework.
The acronym
TCFD meaning: two things, one name
TCFD means the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures and is also used as shorthand for its reporting framework.
Body and text
Framework
Climate disclosure recommendations published by that body.
Rules
Separate instruments that refer to those recommendations.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
TCFD stands for the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, which the Financial Stability Board established in December 2015.
Its Final Report of June 2017 set out four recommendations and eleven recommended disclosures that shaped climate reporting worldwide.
The Task Force disbanded on 12 October 2023, and its framework now lives on inside IFRS S2 and the UK’s own standards.
TCFD stands for the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.
The name is used in two senses, and most confusion about TCFD comes from mixing them.
In the first sense TCFD is a body: an industry-led task force that the Financial Stability Board set up in December 2015 and that ceased to exist in October 2023.
In the second sense TCFD is what that body published: the recommendations of June 2017, which people mean when they call a report “TCFD-aligned”.
The body is gone and the recommendations remain, frozen in the form the Task Force left them.
So “TCFD reporting” means reporting that follows the 2017 recommendations, and in the UK it also means the rules that ask for it, which are set out on TCFD reporting requirements.
The “financial” in the name matters: the Task Force asked what climate change means for an organisation’s finances, not what the organisation does to the climate.
| Letter | Stands for |
|---|---|
| T | Task Force |
| C | Climate-related |
| F | Financial |
| D | Disclosures |
Where it came from
Who created the TCFD, and why
The FSB established TCFD in December 2015, while its final recommendations were published in June 2017.
- 201501
The Task Force was established.
- 201702
The Final Report was published.
- 202303
The Task Force completed its remit and disbanded.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
The Financial Stability Board created the Task Force at the G20’s request in 2015.
Its press release of 29 June 2017 records that the Task Force was established in December 2015 and chaired by Michael R. Bloomberg.
The aim was climate disclosure that lenders, insurers and investors could compare from one company to the next.
The Task Force was drawn from industry rather than from regulators, which is why its output was a set of voluntary recommendations rather than a standard with the force of law.
It published a consultation draft on 14 December 2016 and its final recommendations in June 2017.
The two differ: the draft’s scenario disclosure had no “resilience” and no “or lower” in it, so a quotation missing those words comes from the draft.
In the Task Force’s own words
The FSB established the Task Force “to develop a set of voluntary, consistent disclosure recommendations”.
Its October 2021 Annex describes it as the “industry-led” Task Force the FSB established in December 2015.
What it published
The TCFD framework: four pillars, eleven disclosures
Governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets organise the TCFD recommendations.
Four recommendations, eleven disclosuresRequirements and evidence
Module 01 / 03
Governance
Board and management responsibilities.
Module 02 / 03
Strategy and risk
Exposures, resilience and risk processes.
Module 03 / 03
Metrics and targets
Measures, emissions and progress.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
The Final Report organised climate disclosure into four thematic areas: governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets.
Each area is one recommendation, and beneath the four recommendations sit eleven recommended disclosures: two under governance and three under each of the others.
Strategy and metrics and targets apply “where such information is material”; governance and risk management carry no such qualifier.
Strategy c) is the scenario disclosure: describe the resilience of the strategy under different climate-related scenarios, including a 2°C or lower scenario.
Metrics and targets b) asks for Scope 1, Scope 2 and, if appropriate, Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions.
The Task Force added seven principles for effective disclosure: relevant; specific and complete; clear, balanced and understandable; consistent over time; comparable; reliable, verifiable and objective; and timely.
The explorer beside this text shows each pillar as the TCFD, IFRS S2, UK SRS and the Companies Act word it; the architecture is set out in full on what are the 4 pillars of sustainability reporting.
The four pillars · pick a pillar, then a framework
Disclose the organization’s governance around climate-related risks and opportunities.
- a) Describe the board’s oversight of climate-related risks and opportunities.
- b) Describe management’s role in assessing and managing climate-related risks and opportunities.
No materiality qualifier: governance is disclosed whatever the assessment says.
TCFD Final Report, Figure 4, p.
14
TCFD text verbatim from the Final Report; IFRS S2, UK SRS S1 and S2 and the Companies Act summarised at the paragraphs named.
Read the instrument before relying on a summary.
Worked example
What does the financial part of TCFD mean in practice?
TCFD connects a climate exposure to its possible effect on the business and its financial planning.
| Step | Fictional warehouse example | What the reader learns |
|---|---|---|
| Climate exposure | A fictional warehouse is exposed to flood disruption. | A physical exposure alone does not explain the financial consequence. |
| Business and finances | The company considers closures, repair spending and interrupted deliveries. | Explain the possible effect on operations and financial planning rather than listing weather hazards. |
| Response and measurement | Management considers adaptation options and a measure of the exposure. | Connect the response, responsibility and metric to the same risk. |
This is an explanatory example, not a complete TCFD report or a conclusion that the exposure is material for a real company.
TCFD history
From task force to framework
TCFD expanded its implementation support while retaining its four recommendations and eleven disclosures.
- 201701
Final recommendations issued.
- 202102
Updated implementation and metrics guidance.
- 202303
Final status report and disbanding.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
- December 201501
The FSB establishes the Task Force
Industry-led, chaired by Michael R. Bloomberg, to develop voluntary, consistent climate-related financial disclosures.
- 14 December 201602
Consultation draft
Published for comment; its scenario and materiality wording changed before the final version.
- 29 June 201703
Final Report
Four recommendations and eleven recommended disclosures, the text quoted ever since.
- 1 January 202104
First UK listing rule
Premium-listed commercial companies state whether their disclosures are consistent with the recommendations, periods beginning on or after this date.
- October 202105
Guidance updated
A new implementation Annex and guidance on metrics, targets and transition plans; the recommendations and the eleven disclosures unchanged.
- 3 November 202106
The ISSB is formed
Announced by the IFRS Foundation Trustees at COP26 in Glasgow.
- June 202307
IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 issued
IFRS S2 is consistent with the four recommendations and eleven disclosures, and asks for more.
- 13 July 202308
Monitoring handed on
The FSB asks the ISSB to take over monitoring of climate-related disclosure by firms from 2024.
- 12 October 202309
The Task Force disbands
Concurrent with its 2023 status report, its final task.
- November 202310
The website is frozen
fsb-tcfd.org stays up as a resource but is no longer updated or monitored.
- 30 September 202611
The UK listing rule gets an end date
The FCA’s final rules replace the TCFD-aligned disclosures with UK SRS for periods beginning on or after 1 January 2027.
The October 2021 Annex says the Task Force “has not modified its four overarching recommendations … or the 11 associated recommended disclosures”.
Its companion guidance on metrics, targets and transition plans was the last substantive guidance it issued.
How it ended
The TCFD disbanded, it was not absorbed
Disbanding ended the Task Force's work rather than repealing every rule or standard that uses its framework.
A completed remitRequirements and evidence
Module 01 / 03
Task Force
The body ceased operating.
Module 02 / 03
Archive
Its recommendations remain accessible.
Module 03 / 03
Monitoring
The IFRS Foundation took on monitoring responsibility.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
The Task Force’s own website still opens with the notice of its disbanding.
It says the Task Force fulfilled its remit and disbanded on 12 October 2023, alongside its final status report.
What moved on was a duty to monitor how companies were adopting climate disclosure, not the Task Force and not its authorship of the recommendations.
The FSB’s statement of 13 July 2023 asked the ISSB to take over that monitoring; the IFRS Foundation’s release names the ISSB in its title and the Foundation in its text.
So “monitoring moved to the ISSB from 2024” and “monitoring moved to the IFRS Foundation” are both how the owners put it.
“The ISSB absorbed the TCFD” is not: no body merged into another.
Because the website is frozen, every TCFD document available today is the last version there will ever be, and nobody will issue a correction.
A report described as “TCFD-aligned” in 2026 is therefore following the shape of a framework that has no one maintaining it, which is one reason regulators are moving to UK SRS S2.
The notice, verbatim
“Concurrent with the release of its 2023 status report on October 12, 2023, the TCFD has fulfilled its remit and disbanded.”
“As of November 2023, this website will no longer be updated or monitored.”
The successor
What replaced the TCFD: IFRS S2 and UK SRS S2
The ISSB incorporated the TCFD architecture into IFRS S2, with jurisdictions determining its reporting application.
- 1
Architecture
TCFD's four thematic areas.
- 2
Standard
IFRS S2's detailed requirements.
- 3
UK route
UK SRS endorsement and FCA application rules.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
| TCFD recommendations | IFRS S2 | UK SRS S2 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Published by | The Task Force (FSB), June 2017 | The ISSB, June 2023 | Department for Business and Trade, 25 February 2026 |
| Nature | Voluntary recommendations | A standard, for jurisdictions to adopt | The UK-endorsed IFRS S2, voluntary unless a rule requires it |
| Structure | Four pillars, eleven disclosures | The same four pillars, ¶¶5–37 | The same four pillars |
| Beyond the eleven | — | Industry-based metrics, planned use of carbon credits, financed emissions | As IFRS S2, with UK amendments listed in Annex A |
| Maintained? | No — frozen since November 2023 | Yes, amended December 2025 | Yes, by the UK endorsement process |
The IFRS Foundation says the requirements in IFRS S2 are “consistent with” the four core recommendations and eleven recommended disclosures.
In the UK, the Department for Business and Trade endorsed IFRS S2 as UK SRS S2, published on 25 February 2026.
The FCA’s PS26/19 puts the change in two sentences: “These rules will replace the existing TCFD aligned disclosures.
TCFD was set up in 2015 but disbanded in 2023.”
That consultation began as CP26/5, and what UK SRS S2 adds pillar by pillar is on UK SRS vs TCFD; how the UK standards use the four pillars is on the UK SRS four pillars.
TCFD in the UK
How the UK made voluntary recommendations binding
The UK adopted TCFD-shaped reporting through listing, company, financial-sector and pension requirements.
Requirements arrived through separate routesRequirements and evidence
Module 01 / 03
Issuer
Check the company's listing category and period.
Module 02 / 03
Company law
Check the statutory climate disclosure population.
Module 03 / 03
Other routes
Check the firm, pension or public-body instrument.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
The recommendations were voluntary, and the UK turned them into obligations one rulebook at a time.
The FCA wrote them into the listing rules for premium-listed commercial companies from 2021, and PS21/23 extended that to standard listed issuers from 2022.
The FCA’s ESG sourcebook did the same for large asset managers and asset owners, and occupational pension schemes got a regime of their own in 2021.
The Companies Act took a different path: its eight climate disclosures, in force since April 2022, follow the pillars in the government’s own words and never mention the Task Force, as the government’s guidance explains.
The Companies Act limbs are compared with the eleven on TCFD UK requirements, and every route with its test on TCFD reporting requirements.
Beyond the UK
The TCFD’s legacy in other jurisdictions
International use of the ISSB baseline does not mean every jurisdiction has the same scope, dates or reliefs.
Local adoption controls reportingRequirements and evidence
Module 01 / 03
Baseline
Identify the international standard.
Module 02 / 03
Adoption
Read the jurisdiction's endorsed text.
Module 03 / 03
Application
Check entities, dates and transition rules.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
| Jurisdiction | IFRS Foundation classification | Route |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | Partially incorporating ISSB Standards; target adopting the climate requirements | Climate reporting under AASB S2, in cohorts from 1 January 2025 |
| Japan | Adopting ISSB Standards with limited transition; target fully adopting | SSBJ Standards for Prime Market companies, phased by market capitalisation from periods ending March 2027 |
| Hong Kong SAR | Partially incorporating and permitting ISSB Standards; target fully adopting | IFRS S2-based climate requirements for listed issuers from 1 January 2025 |
| United Kingdom | Endorsed as UK SRS S1 and S2, 25 February 2026 | Listed companies on a comply-or-explain basis from periods beginning 1 January 2027 |
None of these regimes asks for “TCFD” by name any more: each requires disclosure against its own version of the ISSB baseline.
What they share is the TCFD’s architecture — governance, strategy, risk management, metrics and targets — which is why a company with a TCFD report has a starting point in any of them.
The ISSB standard itself is set out on IFRS S2.
Check yourself
Six questions on the TCFD
TCFD's establishment, recommendation count, disbanding and successor relationship are separate facts.
Keep the four distinctions clearRequirements and evidence
Module 01 / 03
Dates
Creation in 2015 differs from the 2017 report.
Module 02 / 03
Counts
Four recommendations contain eleven disclosures.
Module 03 / 03
Succession
Disbanding is not a corporate merger into the ISSB.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
The dates and numbers in this area are easy to recite and easy to get wrong.
The commonest slips are placing the Task Force’s creation in 2017, which is the year of its Final Report, and counting four disclosures, which is the number of recommendations.
Another is saying the TCFD merged into the ISSB, when it disbanded and a monitoring role moved on.
A fourth is treating the October 2021 update as a new version of the eleven, when only the guidance around them changed.
Each answer in the quiz names the document that settles it.
The section front for everything TCFD on this site is TCFD.
Test yourself · six questions
0 of 6 answered
Frequently asked
TCFD meaning: questions people ask
What does TCFD stand for?
TCFD stands for the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.
The Financial Stability Board established it in December 2015 to develop voluntary, consistent recommendations for disclosing climate-related financial risks.
What is the meaning of TCFD?
TCFD means two things.
Strictly, it is the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, a body that existed from December 2015 to October 2023.
In everyday use it means the framework that body published in June 2017: four recommendations, on governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets, with eleven recommended disclosures beneath them.
Who created the TCFD?
The Financial Stability Board established the Task Force in December 2015, at the request of the G20. It was industry-led and chaired by Michael R. Bloomberg.
Is TCFD still in use?
Yes, as a framework.
The Task Force disbanded on 12 October 2023, but its recommendations were not withdrawn.
UK listed companies report against them for accounting periods beginning before 1 January 2027, and IFRS S2 and UK SRS S2 are built on the same four pillars.
Why was the TCFD disbanded?
Because it had finished what it was set up to do.
Its own notice says that, concurrent with its 2023 status report on 12 October 2023, the TCFD fulfilled its remit and disbanded, and the FSB asked for monitoring of companies’ climate-related disclosures to be taken over from 2024.
What replaced the TCFD?
The ISSB’s IFRS S2, issued in June 2023, whose requirements the IFRS Foundation describes as consistent with the four recommendations and eleven disclosures, and which adds industry-based metrics, planned use of carbon credits and financed emissions.
In the UK, UK SRS S2 is IFRS S2 as endorsed on 25 February 2026, and the FCA’s final rules replace the TCFD listing rule with UK SRS from 2027.
Who took over from the TCFD?
A monitoring duty moved, not the Task Force.
The FSB’s 13 July 2023 statement asked the ISSB to take over monitoring of climate-related disclosure by firms; the IFRS Foundation’s own release names both the Foundation and the ISSB.
No body merged into another.
What are the four pillars of TCFD?
Governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets.
Each is one recommendation, with two recommended disclosures under governance and three under each of the others, eleven in all.
What does TCFD-aligned mean?
A report is TCFD-aligned when it is organised under the four recommendations and answers the eleven recommended disclosures.
Since the Task Force disbanded and its website was frozen in November 2023, the phrase describes the shape of a report rather than compliance with a maintained standard; in UK listing rules it meant a statement of consistency with the recommendations, with any gaps explained.
What is TCFD reporting?
TCFD reporting is climate reporting organised under the Task Force’s four pillars of governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets.
In the UK it is required, in different forms, of listed companies, larger companies and LLPs, FCA asset managers and asset owners, and large occupational pension schemes.
Is TCFD a law?
No. The recommendations were voluntary when published.
They became obligations only where a regulator or legislature wrote them into its own rules, as the FCA did for listed companies and asset managers, and as the Companies Act did in its own wording for larger companies.
Fictional example
A fictional inherited template
A fictional company checks a template labelled TCFD before using it for a UK SRS reporting period.
A fictional inherited templateRequirements and evidence
Module 01 / 03
Template
Identify which framework and edition it follows.
Module 02 / 03
Requirement
Read the company's applicable reporting rule.
Module 03 / 03
Gap
Map the additional standard requirements.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
A fictional company checks a template labelled TCFD before using it for a UK SRS reporting period.
Editorial preparation
From acronym to evidence
An editorial reading sequence turns the acronym into a defined reporting task.
- 1
Meaning
Understand the body and recommendations.
- 2
Scope
Identify the entity's reporting route.
- 3
Evidence
Map the required disclosures to records.
Read the detailed guidance and evidence
An editorial reading sequence turns the acronym into a defined reporting task.
Prepare the evidence
What is TCFD: from a requirement to a reporting pack
Use this preparation sequence alongside the detailed requirements on this page.
An editorial workflow, not a statutory schedule.
- Stage 0101
Current route
Identify the current legal or voluntary route rather than assuming the TCFD still regulates it.
- Stage 0202
Governance
Document oversight of climate-related risks and opportunities.
- Stage 0303
Strategy
Connect climate issues and resilience analysis to the organisation’s strategy.
- Stage 0404
Risk management
Explain how climate risks enter the existing risk process.
- Stage 0505
Metrics and targets
Trace emissions, targets and performance measures to their methods.
- Stage 0606
Transition mapping
Compare the disclosure with the applicable successor requirements.
Read the applicable instrument: Press release, 29 June 2017 — the Task Force “established by the FSB in December 2015”
A practical brief
An evidence pack, with a clear review trail
Ask for a pack that lets the next reviewer retrace the scope decision, follow the evidence and understand the limitations.
This describes a useful handover; it does not certify compliance or establish that a vendor or adviser delivers it.
Trace the answerScope → evidence → review
Module 01 / 04
Applicability record
Write down the entity, reporting route and relevant period, including why the route applies.
Module 02 / 04
Evidence register
Attach each reported figure or statement to its source, method, version and limitations.
Module 03 / 04
Review trail
Name the preparer, reviewer, open questions and decisions taken before publication.
Module 04 / 04
Usable handover
Retain the working files and unresolved actions so the next reporting cycle can reuse the evidence.
View the preparation diagram
- Prepare01
Create the traceable pack
Keep the input records, calculation files and narrative together.
- Challenge02
Resolve questions before publication
Record the assumptions challenged and any limitations still unresolved.
- Retain03
Make the next cycle reproducible
Keep the approved version and the actions carried forward.
Continue your research
Related guides, one question at a time
Sources
Primary sources
Every figure, date and status on this page traces to the instrument’s owner.
Secondary commentary is never the source for a number.
Checked against 21 sources fromFinancial Stability BoardTask Force on Climate-related Financial DisclosuresIFRS FoundationFinancial Conduct AuthorityDepartment for Energy Security and Net Zero / BEISDepartment for Business and Trade
- Financial Stability BoardPress release, 29 June 2017 — the Task Force “established by the FSB in December 2015”
The establishment date, the chair and the purpose: voluntary, consistent disclosure recommendations.
- Financial Stability BoardRecommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (June 2017)
The FSB’s own page for the Final Report.
- Task Force on Climate-related Financial DisclosuresFinal Report, June 2017 — Figures 2 and 4
The four thematic areas and the eleven recommended disclosures, verbatim.
- Task Force on Climate-related Financial DisclosuresThe disbanding notice (fsb-tcfd.org)
Disbanded 12 October 2023; the website not updated from November 2023.
- Task Force on Climate-related Financial DisclosuresAbout the Task Force
The Task Force’s own account of its remit.
- Task Force on Climate-related Financial DisclosuresRecommendations
The eleven in full, and the seven principles for effective disclosure.
- Task Force on Climate-related Financial DisclosuresImplementing the Recommendations — October 2021 Annex, §A.1
The guidance changed in 2021; the recommendations and disclosures did not.
- Task Force on Climate-related Financial DisclosuresGuidance on Metrics, Targets, and Transition Plans (October 2021)
The last substantive guidance the Task Force issued.
- Financial Stability BoardFSB outlines next steps on climate roadmap, 13 July 2023
The FSB asks the ISSB to take over monitoring of climate-related disclosure by firms.
- IFRS FoundationIFRS Foundation welcomes TCFD responsibilities from 2024 (July 2023)
The monitoring role, as the Foundation described taking it on.
- IFRS FoundationISSB and TCFD
IFRS S2 is “consistent with” the four recommendations and eleven disclosures, and adds more.
- IFRS FoundationIFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures
The standard that carries the TCFD structure forward.
- IFRS FoundationInternational Sustainability Standards Board
Formed on 3 November 2021.
- IFRS FoundationJurisdictional profile: Australia (updated 12 June 2025)
Classed as partially incorporating ISSB Standards; climate reporting under AASB S2.
- IFRS FoundationJurisdictional profile: Japan (updated 16 July 2026)
Classed as adopting ISSB Standards with limited transition, through the SSBJ Standards.
- IFRS FoundationJurisdictional profile: Hong Kong SAR (updated 12 June 2025)
Classed as partially incorporating and permitting ISSB Standards; target fully adopting.
- Financial Conduct AuthorityPS26/19 (PDF), ¶1.10
“These rules will replace the existing TCFD aligned disclosures.”
- Financial Conduct AuthorityPS21/23 — Enhancing climate-related disclosures by standard listed companies
The FCA’s extension of the TCFD listing rule in December 2021.
- Financial Conduct AuthorityCP26/5 — Sustainability disclosures (consultation page)
The consultation on moving the listing rules from TCFD to UK SRS.
- Department for Energy Security and Net Zero / BEISClimate-related financial disclosures for companies and LLPs
The government’s guidance on the Companies Act route.
- Department for Business and TradeUK Sustainability Reporting Standards: UK SRS S1 and UK SRS S2
Published 25 February 2026.
Continue reading
Read next
The framework
The four pillars of sustainability reporting
Governance, strategy, risk management, metrics and targets, across TCFD, IFRS S2 and UK SRS.
Who reports
TCFD reporting requirements
Every UK route that asks for TCFD-shaped reporting, with its test and its dates.
Successor
UK SRS vs TCFD
What the UK climate standard asks for that the TCFD did not.