- In Asia, 86% of companies have shown evidence of board oversight on climate.
- Asian companies showed improvement in disclosing time-bound actions within their decarbonisation strategies (Indicator 5: Decarbonisation strategy) and linking executive remuneration to climate performance (Indicator 8: Climate Governance).
- Results from these metrics help to inform investors on engagement with portfolio companies to accelerate tangible action on the climate transition.
Climate Action 100+, the world’s largest investor engagement initiative focused on addressing climate change, has released the latest round of company assessments using the Net Zero Company Benchmark. This year, the Benchmark evaluated the performance of 164 Climate Action 100+ focus companies in line with the initiative’s three high-level goals: emissions reduction, climate governance, and climate-related disclosure.
The Benchmark serves as an independent assessment tool supporting investors and companies to better understand climate-related financial risks and opportunities.
Similar to last year, there has been encouraging progress on emissions reductions and disclosure of company decarbonisation strategies improving in line with increased investor engagement on this topic. Yet significant gaps and lack of details remain, particularly regarding capital allocation.
Several positive outcomes from this year’s Benchmark results align with themes prioritised by investors and against the backdrop of focused sector efforts, some industries are emerging as clear leaders.
Climate Action 100+ investors continue to engage with the world’s highest-emitting companies about climate-related financial risk and opportunities, each navigating a distinct transition pathway. Insights from the Climate Action 100+ Benchmark remain an important reference point for both companies and investors to assess progress.
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Key 2025 Net Zero Company Benchmark results
- Like in previous years, companies continue to progress on emissions reductions, both in terms of absolute emissions and emissions intensity. More companies than last year are reducing their emissions intensity in line with a credible 1.5°C sectoral benchmark. 69% of companies assessed this year reduced their absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions in the past three years (Beta Metric 11.2.b). However, only 32% of companies assessed this year reduced their emissions intensity in line with credible 1.5°C benchmarks for their sector in the past three years. In the subset of companies assessed in both 2024 and 2025, this does reflect an increase from 31 companies to 37 (Metric 11.1.c). So, while this trend remains positive, emissions reductions must accelerate further if companies are to align with Paris Agreement goals.
- Disclosures on decarbonisation strategies show improvement, with companies expanding their disclosures on offsets, abatement measures and climate solutions. While this still only amounts to 8% of companies overall, more companies than last year (+4% in 2024) are disclosing credible transition plans for meeting their own medium- and long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets (Sub-indicator 5.1). This improved company performance is occurring alongside increased investor engagement with companies on their decarbonisation strategies. However, large reporting gaps remain on how companies are allocating capital to the implementation of their decarbonisation plans.
- Findings on target setting are mixed. The majority of companies assessed continue to set medium- (85%) and long-term (80%) GHG reduction targets. However, fewer set short-term targets, with 41%of companies setting a short-term GHG reduction target in 2025, reflecting a slight decrease from last year. However, six more companies than last year now have short-term targets aligned with credible 1.5°C benchmarks for their sectors.
- This year’s results on corporate climate accounting and audit disclosures showed little to no year-on-year change. However, companies obtaining partial assessments can provide a useful guide to good practice, particularly in Europe/UK, where 81% of companies assessed by Carbon Tracker partially met the relevant climate accounting assessment criteria.
- Corporate performance on climate policy engagement plateaued in 2025, following several years of steady improvement. The same proportion of companies in 2025 aligned their direct climate policy engagement with Paris Agreement goals as last year. However, there was a 2% reduction in alignment of companies’ indirect climate policy engagement activities via industry associations. As such, fewer (2%) companies than last year (4%) met InfluenceMap’s overall criteria for real-world climate policy engagement alignment assessments in 2025 (InfluenceMap Indicator 1).
Additional Key Findings
- Several positive outcomes from this year’s Benchmark results align with themes prioritised by some investors: Climate Action 100+ supports a range of thematic engagements to support stronger company performance on defined theme priorities. These efforts are contributing to progress in select sectors and target groups, particularly in relation to Just Transition, climate policy engagement, and climate accounting and audit. For more on Climate Action 100+ thematic engagements, see here.
- Certain sectors are demonstrating leadership and setting an example. In the steel sector, all companies have set robust, 1.5°C-aligned long-term GHG reduction targets – a sign of significant ambition. This progress reflects ongoing investor engagements in Europe and Asia. To learn more about Climate Action 100+ sectoral engagements, see here.
Looking Ahead
The 2025 Benchmark website has been streamlined to improve clarity, spotlight key information, and provide investors with enhanced tools to compare company performance across indicators, sectors and regions. By unifying disclosure and alignment into a single assessment framework, the Benchmark improves accessibility of information and enables better informed dialogue between investors and companies.
As a cornerstone of the Climate Action 100+ initiative, the Benchmark delivers consistent, comparable insights into corporate transition planning and progress. With the recent introduction of a formal feedback mechanism, work is already underway to evolve the framework further and ensure it continues to meet the needs of investors, companies and other stakeholders. An updated framework for the next round of assessments will be released in April 2026.
Quotes
Rebecca Mikula-Wright, CEO of AIGCC and global Steering Committee member: “This year’s company assessments continue to show progress in key areas in Asia and Australia. In Asia, a significant proportion of Asian companies now clearly indicate board-level oversight on climate issues, with a corresponding uptick in disclosure of time-bound targets supported by decarbonisation strategies. In Australia, there has been a noticeable shift towards companies committing to decarbonise in line with just transition principles. In addition, more Australian companies are disclosing steps to monitor and enhance key board climate capabilities. Both just transition and climate governance are key focuses for AIGCC.”
Mindy Lubber, President and CEO, Ceres: “We are seeing the impacts of climate and new technologies reshape businesses and markets globally. Climate Action 100+’s Benchmark remains an important tool for investors to assess and address financial risk in their engagements with companies. Despite political headwinds, we are seeing more companies reduce emissions and set out detailed transition plans. While this trend is encouraging, investors expect the pace to continue to accelerate. Acting on climate is key to building an economy that is both resilient to risk and open to innovation and opportunity.”
Stephanie Pfeifer, CEO of Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC): “This year’s Benchmark results reinforce that persistent investor engagement is pivotal to advancing climate action, with Europe providing clear examples of leadership. We have seen meaningful improvements in the transparency of corporate climate lobbying and in companies’ adoption of just transition principles, reflecting the importance of nuanced engagement. The Climate Action 100+ Benchmark continues to play an essential role in helping investors identify where progress is unlocking financial opportunity and where stronger alignment with economic reality can support long-term value creation.”
Tamsin Ballard, Chief Investor Initiatives Officer, Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI): “This year’s Benchmark results show encouraging progress on core investor asks relating to emission reductions, governance and disclosure – all the more so given the increasingly complex global policy environment in which Climate Action 100+ investors and companies are operating. More focus companies than ever are reducing their emissions intensity and absolute emissions and providing greater detail on their decarbonisation strategies. Alongside progress, gaps remain, and companies need to be clearer on how they choose to allocate capital to decarbonisation, set near-term as well as longer-term targets, and align policy engagement with their climate ambitions. Together, these results highlight the role investors engaging through Climate Action 100+ can play in helping companies transition responsibly while managing climate risks to their portfolios.”
Valeria Piani, Head of Stewardship at Phoenix Group, and global Steering Committee chair: “The Climate Action 100+ Net Zero Benchmark tool offers investors and companies an opportunity to compare performance against industry expectations on transition planning and across peers. We particularly welcome the enhancements to the online platform to better allow these comparisons. Whilst each engagement dialogue with companies is tailored and specific to their circumstances, it is helpful to be able to identify best practice examples and areas for further improvements on specific metrics across regions and sectors.”
Anne-Marie Gagnon, Director, ESG- British Columbia Investment (BCI) Management Corporation and representative for North America: “BCI leverages the Climate Action 100+ net zero company benchmark as part of our overall methodology to assess the credibility and maturity of companies’ net-zero aligned commitments. We perform our portfolio assessment annually in line with our commitment to engage with our most carbon-intensive investments.”
Research and data organisations involved in the Benchmark
Transition Pathway Initiative, LSE
Shafaq Ashraf, Policy Fellow, Research Project Manager, TPI Centre at LSE: “Amid growing transition headwinds, rigorous and transparent corporate assessments are ever more critical. The latest Climate Action 100+ Benchmark results highlight that companies are setting medium- and long-term decarbonisation targets. However, ambition alone is not enough. Alignment with science-based pathways combined with credible, quantified transition plans remain key factors in evaluating the robustness of transition strategies.”
Influence Map
Ciara Ellis, Senior Analyst, Investor Research, InfluenceMap: “A company’s lobbying record is one of the most reliable indicators of its commitment to the energy transition. Since 2022, InfluenceMap data has shown annual improvements in positive lobbying and lobbying disclosure by the Climate Action 100+ focus companies; however, progress has noticeably slowed in this 2025 analysis. This is especially evident in regions like North America, where the quality of climate lobbying disclosures this year fell by over 20%. Although the politics around climate may have changed, the science has not. It is paramount that companies continue to take action to align their advocacy activities with what the science says is necessary to deliver the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement if they are to continue to provide an attractive investment opportunity to investors who have taken into account the material risks that climate change poses to global stability – both in the financial sector and the real economy.”
Carbon Tracker Initiative
Barbara Davidson, Head of Capital Markets Transparency at Carbon Tracker:
“The Climate Accounting and Audit Assessment remains a key test for whether the material impacts of climate risks and company targets are adequately disclosed to inform investors’ capital allocation and stewardship decisions. While EU- and UK-based companies continue to lead, transparency in many markets – particularly the US – still lags. Notably, only a small number of audit reports evidenced sufficient consideration of climate impacts. As climate deadlines draw closer, clear, consistent information is urgently needed to provide investors and regulators with the insight required to make effective decisions.”
Guy Prince, Head of Energy Supply Research at Carbon Tracker: “As the energy transition progresses, investors need to understand how oil and gas companies are preparing for a lower-demand future, and whether capital is being allocated appropriately. Our alignment assessments show that project options – particularly among US supermajors – are poorly aligned with Paris-consistent demand pathways. If demand falls in line with these pathways (as current clean energy growth rates suggest), oversupply is likely to weaken prices, leaving high-cost projects most exposed and at risk of eroding long-term value. Investors should therefore expect companies to provide sufficient disclosure to allow a robust assessment of portfolio resilience and value creation across a range of future scenarios.”
About the Net Zero Company Benchmark
This is the sixth round of Net Zero Company Benchmark assessments to be released by Climate Action 100+ since March 2021. These assessments are updated annually in October of each year, and this year, companies have been assessed against Version 2.2 of the updated Benchmark 2.0 framework. Please see here for an overview of the framework for 2025.
The Climate Action 100+ Benchmark is a vital tool for investors and companies, offering an independent, periodic reference point to assess corporate climate risk management and transition progress in a consistent and comparable way. Stakeholder feedback highlights its role in helping investors set company-specific engagement priorities, track progress, and inform proxy voting decisions. By spotlighting the most material climate-related corporate risk factors, the Benchmark clarifies investor expectations, prompting companies to raise internal awareness, enhance disclosures, and establish new climate targets. It also helps to shape industry standards and set broader norms for climate-related disclosure.
About Climate Action 100+
Climate Action 100+ is an investor-led initiative bringing together over 600 investors to engage the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters to take action on climate change to mitigate financial risk and maximise the long-term value of assets.
164 focus companies, key to the global transition to a net zero emissions economy, are currently engaged as part of the initiative.
The work of the initiative is supported by five investor networks: the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change (AIGCC), Ceres, Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC), Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) and Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).