The Task Force for Corporate Action Transparency (TCAT)

The Task Force for Corporate Action Transparency (TCAT) is a new initiative dedicated to strengthening the credibility of corporate climate action through transparent, verified, and third-party assurable accounting and reporting guidance. Until now, companies have been able to report numerical emissions data through frameworks like the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol or set reduction targets through initiatives like the Science Based Targets initiative. However, these frameworks lack standardised methods for companies to report the specific actions behind those reductions (e.g. transport companies replacing diesel trucks with electric vehicles, manufacturers capturing and storing carbon dioxide in underground reservoirs, etc). TCAT intends to develop, publish, and promote technical guidance and methodologies that help companies report emissions reduction and removal efforts transparently and clearly, and address gaps in financial and GHG accounting, reporting, and assurance by developing and aligning with best-in-class standards and practices

TCAT has launched two comprehensive GHG reporting frameworks. Developed through a collaboration among environmental groups, accounting experts, NGOs, business practitioners, and civil society members, the guides are designed to help companies explain exactly how they are lowering their emissions in real time, and in a way that is comparable across industries and verifiable by third parties. These guides are designed to fill an important gap in how companies measure, report on, and verify their corporate climate actions.

The first framework is Mitigation Action Accounting and Reporting Guidance (MAARG), which equips companies with tools to account transparently for the full spectrum of ton-denominated climate actions. Its multi-statement approach enables companies to report on climate actions without conflating different types of activities; MAARG’s framework allows each action to be clearly categorised and measured. Rather than consolidating all GHG-related activities into a single statement, which can obscure the distinction between actual emission reductions and accounting-only or business changes, MAARG introduces a five-statement reporting framework which supports both inventory and impact accounting: physical inventory statement, contractual inventory statement, inventory impact mitigation statement, sector impact mitigation statement, and global impact mitigation statement.

TCAT’s second new framework is the Target Accounting and Reporting Guidance (TARG), which provides structured guidance for setting voluntary climate targets, tracking progress, and communicating results. This standardised approach enables stakeholders to assess the credibility and ambition of corporate climate targets and evaluate actual performance against commitments. In the absence of a unified framework in the voluntary reporting space, TARG fills a critical gap by offering clear and consistent methods for companies to disclose climate targets and report progress in a transparent and assurable manner. The framework is built around five core reporting elements: a target commitment report, base year emissions report, mitigation action report, target accounting report, and target attainment report.