Firms asked for feedback on ‘TCFD for people’

Draft framework for Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures released today

Companies are being asked to provide their feedback on a new ‘TCFD for people’. 

The Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD) has today launched an initial draft of its framework, which is intended to help firms evaluate and report on their people-related impacts, risks and opportunities. 

“We want to see what the market thinks of it,” executive director Simon Rawson told Real Economy Progress. 

The framework is designed to mirror the work of the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), with the same four underlying sections: governance, strategy, management, and metrics and targets. 

“Businesses and investors told us that one of the things that most appreciated from TNFD was the LEAP methodology, because it helps companies to understand their impacts and dependencies in a clearer way,” Rawson noted, referring to the ‘Locate, Evaluate, Assess and Prepare’ approach that underpins TNFD.

“We’re currently exploring what similar guidance could look like for TISFD,” he said, adding that such guidance would build on established practice for human rights due diligence. 

“We hope to identify a handful of key business activities that drive the most significant risks and opportunities for companies, such as pay, labour conditions, freedom of association and so on, and turn them into metrics.”

Rawson said the ultimate goal was to provide companies, investors and other stakeholders with a standardised, streamlined set of disclosures for social issues that can serve as the basis for standards and regulatory expectations. 

“We want feedback on the framework, to help shape the next iteration of it, which will come out later this year,” he explained. 

Companies are being invited to review the draft framework, and to join practice groups “to help build it from the inside”. 

While financial institutions are well-represented on TISFD’s steering committee, Natura & Co and Schneider Electric are currently the only non-financial firms participating. 

Other members include trade unions and NGOs. 

Its stewardship council includes departments of the Swiss and German governments. 

A final version of the framework, along with its early adopters, is expected to be announced in 2027.