Best climate transition reports announced in CSRD Awards 2025

The results are in for the first category, and three companies have been recognised for their leadership efforts

Maersk has won the award for the best climate transition disclosures in REP’s CSRD Awards 2025, with commendations for Spie and Allianz too. 

The Danish shipping giant’s latest sustainability statement was described as “a really excellent example of a Wave One CSRD report” by a panel of judges, comprising: 

• Jean Boissinot, director of risk and research at the French Prudential Supervision & Resolution Authority. Jean was formerly deputy director of financial stability at the Banque de France, and former secretary general of the Central Banks’ and Supervisors’ Network for Greening the Financial System, better known as the NGFS.
• Ira Poensgen, policy fellow at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Transition Expertise and strategic advisor to the International Transition Plan Network. Ira was also the technical lead for the UK’s Transition Plan Taskforce.
• Luke Sussams, the head of ESG and sustainable finance strategy for Europe at investment bank Jefferies. He was previously a sustainable research analyst at Kepler Cheuvreux, and a senior researcher for Carbon Tracker.

As well as being some of the world’s most knowledgeable transition planning experts, the judges together represent the financial, supervisory and civil society stakeholders that CSRD reports are designed to inform.

Their comments have been anonymised, because some of the judges are not permitted to opine publicly on individual companies.  

Maersk

Maersk won the award for best climate transition disclosures for its “blend of strategic disclosure and anecdotal illustrations”.

It was described as having one of the “most mature” approaches in the market, and praised for focusing on assets with the greatest exposure to physical climate risk. 

One judge requested that, over time, Maersk should provide this level of transparency more widely. 

Elsewhere, a judge called for more clarity on whether the firm’s plan would enable it to deliver on its climate objectives, while another said it was already “easy to understand that they are taking actions, but that there is also a residual risk that targets may not be met”.

“As a reader, you don’t come away from this report with a false impression of ‘we are definitely going to reach the targets that we’ve set, and we don’t have any doubts about that journey’,” they said.  

“They are clear about what they control, where they rely on actions by others, and what steps they are taking to make these changes more likely.”

Spie 

Engineering services firm Spie was also shortlisted for its climate transition disclosures, which were particularly praised by the judges for their structure. 

“It strikes a good balance between providing tables and visuals that make it easy to digest complex information, whilst accompanying these with text that provides further detail and granularity,” said one. 

Whilst the report “lacked the illustrative approach of Maersk” in the eyes of one judge, it was praised for disclosing clear decarbonisation levers, along with specific measures, resource requirements and progress for each. 

Its transparency around its transition-related spending was also noted. 

The judges appreciated Spie’s “focus and detail” when disclosing physical climate risk information, although one suggested it would further benefit from explaining to stakeholders why it had decided not to introduce a group-wide policy on the topic after identifying such risks “even after control measures are implemented”.  

“Overall, I think this report allows readers to develop a good sense of Spie’s transition journey,” said a judge.   

Allianz 

Things were more divided when it came to Allianz’s climate transition disclosures, which also made it to the shortlist.

One of our judges selected the insurer as his top choice, because “its detail and transparency means I learnt a lot about the structure of its business, and so the CSRD disclosures were truly additive”. 

Another appreciated its efforts to break the transition plan down by business segment, and then describe the relevant actions it’s taking to decarbonise each one. 

“It’s a very granular and rich disclosure that gives users a lot of information about the steps that Allianz is taking.”

But, while it was “a solid report” in which “everything is covered”, one judge said it lacked insight, with another saying: “I felt they struggled a little bit more to tell a clear ‘bigger picture’”.

It was also hard to understand how much of Allianz’s business activities are covered by the targets and actions it described in the report, the judge continued, particularly on the insurance side. 

“Similarly, many of the summary tables where they summarize contributions of individual decarbonization levers to overall GHG emissions reduction formats were hard to follow intuitively. 

“Adding absolute values in that context could have made it much easier for readers to interpret.”

Real Economy Progress would like to congratulate all three companies for being shortlisted, and thank them for providing best practice examples for other firms around the world to follow. 

We would also like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to our judges for lending their expertise to this process, and truly engaging with the nuances and technical information included in the climate transition disclosures. 

And finally, thanks to all the regulators, consultants, lawyers, journalists, NGOs and companies who submitted nominations to this year’s CSRD Awards. 

Important notes 

The judges were chosen as topic experts, and their decisions do not represent the views of their employers. 

The awards are a celebration of best practice disclosure, not sustainability performance, and the outcome should not be seen as an endorsement of any company – either by the judges, their organisations, or Real Economy Progress.

The category shortlists were compiled by Real Economy Progress journalists, from public nominations. The judges were then asked to decide, individually, which ones were most effective in helping them understand the relevant risks, impacts and opportunities of the business.