Make the business case for the climate transition

Sustainability target setting has rapidly accelerated recently, but many businesses are struggling to build the internal momentum to hit these targets. Transition planning is how a business shifts from where it is today to where it needs to be to meet its sustainability goals—aligning strategy, business value, and operations along the way

This action will help you design and deliver a business case for a climate transition plan that secures buy-in from internal stakeholders. It shows how to identify the benefits and gather strong evidence, focussing on what matters to decision-makers. The guidance is high-level so you can adapt it to your context, with links to further reading for deeper exploration.

This action was written with the input of a cross-sectoral peer group of 21 large businesses who provided their insights and experience. Throughout the action, we include insights from a survey of 14 WBCSD members on the business case for their transition, allowing quantitative insight into how businesses are building their transition business case.

What is the business case for the transition?

A transition plan sets out the actions your business will take to move from where it is today to where it needs to be to meet its sustainability goals and manage transition risk.

The business case is the evidence you use to secure approval for that plan. It covers financial, operational and strategic considerations.

The business case must work at different levels:

• Leadership will be interested in the company transition plan – an overview of all transition activities and benefits.

• Business unit (BU) or regional heads may also have their own BU transition plan.

• At the most granular level, transition plans are made up of a portfolio of transition projects – individual projects led by people across the business.

Why the business case matters

Organization-wide investment, effort and buy-in is essential to move from targets and footprints to implementing transition projects. However, very few businesses will achieve this based on a sustainability argument alone. A strong business case builds the financial, operational and strategic rationale decision-makers need to commit.

Signs the business case is compelling:

• Leadership actively champions your transition plan

• Colleagues across functions support transition plan implementation

Signs the business case needs more work:

• Leadership commitment is weak and inconsistent

• Colleagues do not understand the case for transition projects, leading to delays

2. Prepare your business case architecture

Analyze your stakeholders

The purpose of your business case is to convince internal stakeholders to back your transition projects. There is no one way to do this – the benefits that transition projects will bring to your organization are diverse, as are the priorities of decision-makers.

Before gathering evidence, think about who you need to convince and what drives value for them. Considering all relevant decision-makers (both leadership and the wider set of colleagues), identify the key audience who must buy in, and tailor the evidence you gather to this audience.

We have identified three critical ‘lenses’ that businesses commonly use to approach the business case for transition:

• Finance

• Operations

• Growth

These each represent a specific mindset towards business success.

Figure 1: The three critical 'lenses' that businesses commonly use to approach the business case for transition

3. Build your evidence

The best evidence to get stakeholder buy-in will vary depending on the context and culture of your business and stakeholders. Use the options below with discretion – most businesses will not need to do all of these. For each, we have shown how to use it to construct a business case and tips for doing it effectively.

Financial Foundation

Will this deliver value? This is the fundamental question leadership asks about major investments. These tools will answer it, providing rigor that finance teams expect and supporting ongoing monitoring of KPIs when built with appropriate granularity.

Capital and Compliance

Beyond project-level ROI, investigate whether your transition delivers systemic financial benefits. You might consider capital access, regulatory risk, and costs reduction when you move ahead of compliance.

Demonstrating feasibility

Prove your plan works in practice. Demonstrating operational feasibility and addressing implementation risks convinces leadership and operational teams that your strategy is actionable, not theoretical.

Growth Opportunity

Position transition as competitive advantage. Early movers capture market share, strengthen customer relationships, and access new revenue streams while competitors manage compliance costs.

Financial Foundations

Climate risk assessment

What it is: A climate risk assessment indicates the impact of climate change on your business if you do nothing, from asset downtime to rising insurance costs.

Why it matters: Creates urgency for transition investment by establishing the cost of inaction.

What success looks like:

• Quantified understanding of financial risk across the business for different scenarios

• Rich explanations of impact – from supply chain impacts to consumer preference switching.

• The right level of granularity (See: Getting the right granularity in your climate risk and MACC)

Figure 2: An example output showing physical and transition quantified risk assessments by geography and BU

Scenario analysis

What it is: Scenarios are possible futures with different warming pathways and societal responses. They provide input data for transition planning, from energy prices to technology availability.

Why it matters: Scenarios show that you’ve considered uncertainty in your projections. Without robust scenarios, your financial analysis lacks credible foundations for long-term decisions.

What success looks like:

• Mapping key business risk drivers – for example, extreme weather effects, carbon taxes, or consumer demand shifts.

• Getting the level of granularity right. (See: Getting the right granularity in your climate risk and MACC)

Implementation tips

• Adopt at least three scenarios: e.g. business-as-usual for physical risk, 1.5°C pathway for transition risk, and current policies for baseline.

• The Network for Greening the Financial System and the International Energy Agency provide scenarios for most businesses.

Figure 3: An example output showing how carbon pricing changes affects a business across three scenarios

Figure 4: Example scenarios, supplemented with key qualitative data for the industry

Marginal Abatement Cost Curve (MACC) and prioritized investments

What it is: A quantitative visual tool mapping emissions reduction measures by cost and carbon abatement under different scenarios.

Why it matters: Shows which actions are most cost-effective and demonstrate a clear pathway to achieving target emissions. Powerful for highlighting win-wins that save money and abate carbon.

What success looks like:

• A variety of transition projects, organized by cost and abatement potential.

• Getting the level of granularity right – see box overleaf

• Remember the limitations of a MACC. They focus on incremental changes, not disruptive improvements. They are an excellent three-year plan tool but a poor long-term strategy tool.

Figure 4: Example scenarios, supplemented with key qualitative data for the industry

Getting the right granularity in your business case

You need to make the business case for sustainability at different levels in your organization – from senior leadership to site experts. Climate risk assessments and MACCs illustrate this problem – it can be difficult to know how much detail is enough. Sustainability teams face two challenges:

What’s the right level of granularity?

Match the granularity to the key stakeholders in the decision you’re trying to drive – e.g. if trying to get buy-in from regional heads, include a regional-specific breakdown. Match the segmentation within your climate risk and MACC to the structure and regions of the organization as far as possible.

How do I build a climate risk assessment and MACC for expansion?

Over time, these tools usually become more detailed. Some organizations have millions of individual entries in their MACC as transition projects become segmented by SKU and region. How do you plan for this?

• Build a consistent data structure early. As your MACCs and climate risk grow, they will outpace your team’s ability to manually cleanse data.

• As your granularity grows, build a portal. Most users need to see your climate risk and MACC – not edit it. A portal hosted in your enterprise's existing systems allows exploration and segmentation. This can be done for most software e.g. PowerBI for Excel.

Capital and compliance

Investor insights

What it is: Analysis of how transition planning improves access to capital across debt, equity, and bond markets.

Why it matters: Transition plans improve transparency for investors. This could justify improved terms for financial instruments, giving financial benefits that aren’t captured in project-level ROI.

What success looks like:

• Understanding target sources of capital – ideally current or target funders.

• Demonstrating either sustainability investment criteria or evidence that sustainability is high on funders' organizational agenda.

Implementation tips:

• Engage your investor relations team to understand what funders want.

• ESG investor events or virtual roadshows can connect you with relevant investors and give you an insight into the market.

Figure 5: Example output: potential investor sustainable fund and criteria mapped with next steps and size-of-prize

Regulatory landscape

What it is: Mapping of compliance requirements across your markets and regulatory direction of travel.

Why it matters: Anticipating regulations (CSRD, ISSB, local requirements) avoids compliance costs, fines, and operational disruption.

What success looks like:

• Demonstrating the range of regulations affecting your company, highlighting regional variations and nuances.

• Gaps in compliance approach identified and mapped to your transition plan

Figure 6: Example output: gap analysis against TCFD

Demonstrating feasibility

Technology readiness review

What it is: Initial evidence that transition plans rely on credible technologies with proven track records or clear development pathways.

Why it matters: Shows operationally-focused leadership and site teams that your plan is credible, and disruption and uncertainty are minimized.

What success looks like:

• Key technologies mapped by readiness level, cost, and abatement potential

• High-level plans for key technologies, showing immediate investment opportunities versus areas requiring further assessment.

Implementation tips:

• Collaborative programs can be a cost-effective route to track emerging technology and connect with start-ups.

• Full transparency of the plans – even with suppliers and service providers – can help calculate benefits and identify risks.

Figure 7: An example output showing an initial review of technologies needed for the transition and suggested approaches.

Supplier strategy initial review

What it is: Initial evidence that your transition plan aligns with and supports supplier relationships and procurement strategy.

Why it matters: Scope 3 reduction is a thorny challenge that requires changes from suppliers. Showing high-level consideration for the benefits – and minimizing the drawbacks – will help with buy-in from both the executive and procurement team.

What success looks like:

• Co-benefits of supplier transition identified and evidenced, including supply chain resilience; risk reduction and improved supplier relationships.

• Supplier transition linked to broader supplier strategy.

Implementation tip:

• Engage your procurement team to understand their strategy, identify opportunities, and minimize risks.

Figure 8: An example output showing how a supplier engagement programme can support existing supplier relationships and generate positive press coverage.

Growth Opportunity

Business Innovation Opportunities

What it is: Evidence that the transition will create opportunities for your business to expand into new markets or disrupt existing ones.

Why it matters: Appeals to growth-minded organizations planning for long-term competitive advantage.

What success looks like: Showing the probability of fundamental shifts in your business environment: whether in supply chain, technologies, or consumer demand.

Implementation tips:

• Bring together cross-functional teams (marketing, R&D, sales).

• Some organizations turn their climate scenarios into rich worlds with consumer personas – this can act as prompt material.

Transition plan or transition programme – updating the business case over time

A transition plan is only useful if it stays current. Regular updates keep it credible, practical, and aligned with business decisions.

• As needed data refreshes: Update critical inputs – such as energy prices or cost of goods – at least monthly to keep ROI calculations accurate.

• Annual assumption review: Check whether the assumptions driving your plan still hold. Keep a log of assumptions with milestones for review.

• Annual granularity check: Make sure the level of detail matches what decision-makers need for the year ahead.

Simple data updates should take minutes. Bigger changes, such as modelling a new type of project, will take longer – but the discipline of regular reviews ensures your plan remains a live, decision-ready tool useful for guiding complex work programme.

Competitor Benchmarking

What it is: Analysis of competitor transition progress and sustainability-based competitive positioning.

Why it matters: Demonstrates opportunities to be a leader in the field – and the risk of being a laggard.

What success looks like:

• A clear understanding of where you are outpacing, or falling behind, competitors

• Mapping the benefits competitors are getting from the transition – for example, media coverage, success stories or commercial wins

Figure 9: An example output from a competitor review, considering both sustainability progress and associated competitive advantage.

Customer insight (B2B)

What it is: Evidence that corporate customers' value sustainability performance.

Why it matters: Links your business case to your customer positioning, and ultimately growth potential.

What success looks like:

• Quantifying revenue-at-risk from sustainability procurement criteria

• Identifying market shift indicators toward sustainability requirements

• Linking your transition plan to your customer success strategy

Implementation tip: Gather data through direct customer engagement and sales/customer success team collaboration.

Figure 10: An example output from a customer insight review. Having analyzed procurement requests from clients, the sustainability team mapped their progress against asks to produce revenue at risk and prioritize next steps

Consumer Insight (B2C)

What it is: Evidence of sustainable buying habits and consumer demand for sustainable choices.

Why it matters:

• For B2C businesses, this ties sustainability directly to growth and brand.

• For B2B businesses, consumer insights enable better understanding of customer needs.

What success looks like:

• Quantitative understanding of sustainability as competitive advantage – e.g. sustainability as purchase decision factor, willingness to pay premiums, brand loyalty impacts – by customer segment.

• Qualitative understanding of how your consumers view sustainability – key priorities, behaviors and intentions.

Implementation tip: Collaborate with consumer insights teams or market research agencies for data gathering.

Figure 11: An example output giving insight into a consumer’s decision making in the fashion space

OVO: Cross-silo climate risk assessment fueling business innovation

Energy supplier OVO has a business built around the energy transition, but one that remains reliant on gas.

The sustainability team integrated the risk-management, product, and operations team closely into their climate risk assessment.

This cross-team collaboration guided senior management on where to invest: Ovo is now setting up franchises to scale the development of renewable energy products for homes.

Glanbia: Navigating the climate transition of food supply chains

Nutrition company Glanbia’s business case for the transition draws deeply on its climate risk assessment.

It identified a key vulnerability: its supply chain, responsible for 99% of its emissions. Quantifying this risk led to action: it partnered with suppliers to demonstrate financially sustainable risk management approaches and developed tailored decarbonization roadmaps for supplier farms.

This created financial value and improved disclosures to its board and investors.

Dr. Martens: Stepping into a more sustainable business model

Iconic footwear brand Dr. Martens wanted to capture growing interest in sustainability from consumers and investors.

It considered alternative business models across its operations, factoring in climate risk, carbon impact, and changing consumer desires.

It is now implementing a repair and resale model with a goal to significantly increase its share of sales over the coming decade.

You can find our detailed guidance on design thinking for circularity here.

Sustainability impact

Climate

Climate-based strategic planning establishes a proactive and viable path forward on climate action for organizations, minimizing risk while maximizing value. A clear and robust business case for climate transition is a critical enabler for companies seeking to reduce emissions and simultaneously strengthen business value.

Business Impact

Benefits

Building a strong business case for climate transition delivers value across multiple dimensions:

• Financial resilience: Demonstrates ROI on transition projects, strengthens investor relations, and improves access to capital through sustainability-linked loans, bonds, or subsidies. A robust case also reduces risk of stranded assets and creates long-term cost savings through efficiency gains.

• Operational stability: Integrates climate risk, technology readiness, and supplier strategies into planning, ensuring projects are feasible and deliverable. This strengthens supply chain resilience, improves energy efficiency, and reduces operational risk exposure.

• Growth and competitiveness: Positions transition as an engine for innovation, enabling the launch of new products and services, differentiation from competitors, and enhanced customer and consumer trust. Early movers capture market share while competitors remain focused on compliance.

• Strategic alignment: Ensures climate action is embedded in decision-making at all levels, from leadership to business units, reinforcing accountability and securing cross-functional buy-in.

Costs

Typical costs are associated with the investment in climate risk assessments, scenario modelling, and tools such as Marginal Abatement Cost Curves (MACCs). These require internal resources and cross-functional collaboration, with additional costs for external data, technology reviews, and supplier engagement. Costs vary depending on the granularity and scope of analysis, but subsidies, sustainability-linked finance, and blended capital can offset expenses. Over time, reduced regulatory exposure and improved operational resilience minimize these costs and deliver sustained returns.

From evidence to action

Advice on pitching the business case

Making the case to leadership and the board can be challenging – time may be short, prior understanding limited, and the ask large.

To maximize the chance of success:

• Invest in board- and leadership-level sustainability training. These are focused on giving business leaders the sustainability understanding they need to ask better questions and understand trade-offs. It will reduce the time spent on definitional debates and basic topics during decision meetings.

• Use their language. The stakeholder analysis and evidence gathering will have equipped you to talk about the benefits of your transition plan from many angles – tailor this to your audience.

• Consider taking key stakeholders to physically see transition projects in action – on your site or others – to make the issue real and grounded. Some people respond best to rigorous analysis, and some respond best to practical action.

• Focus your initial efforts on likely allies in the senior leadership team. Converting these people to champions of your cause is the most effective way to convince sceptics.

• Make time for small groups discussions with senior leaders before decision-making meetings. These give you an opportunity to highlight benefits and identify concerns and questions while you still have time to respond.

What success looks like:

• Leadership proactively ask about transition progress in regular business reviews

• Other BUs approach you for collaboration on transition projects

• Transition considerations become built in to regular processes including investment decisions

• Site managers and regional leaders reference transition benefits in their own presentations