By Sara M. Bechtold and Ollie Kaiser, Ph.D.

Climate-related transition planning has emerged as a critical way for Canadian businesses to manage risk and navigate change. But what counts as a “credible” plan remains contested. This leaves organizations to navigate fragmented expectations from regulators, lenders, investors and value-chain partners. This is especially true in the Canadian context. International frameworks need to be tailored to remain credible given Canada’s emissions-intensive and nature-reliant economy, regional diversity, decentralized regulatory structure and evolving legal obligations—particularly those related to Reconciliation. 

This brief clarifies what credibility entails in practice by synthesizing its common features across leading international frameworks. It identifies unresolved questions that continue to hinder clarity, comparability and decision-usefulness in the Canadian context. 

In doing so, the brief supports Canadian policymakers, regulators, investors and companies in developing a shared benchmark for credible transition planning—one that remains aligned with international norms while reflecting Canada’s economic structure, decentralized regulatory environment and evolving legal and competitiveness pressures.  

Drawing on a structured review of 28 leading international frameworks, the brief identifies six core dimensions of credible transition planning: ambition, specificity, comparability, resilience, resource allocation and decision-usefulness. Together, these dimensions provide a shared analytical basis for evaluating whether transition plans are coherent, comprehensive and capable of delivering measurable progress, while allowing flexibility in how organizations implement them. 

The brief extends this analysis into key areas where global expectations are converging but remain incomplete, including debates over Scope 3 emissions and offsets, the transparency of scenario analysis, the integration of nature-related risks and how best to advance Indigenous rights and inclusion. We also explore the growing use of artificial intelligence in transition planning and disclosure, and the implications this may have for assessing credibility. 

By clarifying what credibility means in practice, this brief contributes to advancing a more coherent and comparable transition planning landscape in Canada, thereby supporting better alignment across firms, investors, regulators and policymakers. 

Read The Credibility Imperative to understand Canada-specific criteria for credible transition plans.

This brief is a product of our Sustainable Finance research program, which examines how financial markets, policy frameworks and real-economy decision-making can support a competitive, resilient and low-carbon Canadian economy.