3 February 2026 - The ClimateWise Principles Independent Review for 2025 reveals momentum building on transition plans and a culture of continued improvement, despite a complex external environment.
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About
The ClimateWise Principles have provided a framework for the insurance industry to disclose climate-related risks and opportunities since 2007. All ClimateWise members report annually against the framework, and reports are independently reviewed, scored and anonymised in a combined report to form the ClimateWise Principles Independent Review.
2025 is the first year that the ClimateWise framework has formally assessed transition plans. This builds on a history of the framework adapting to new requirements. In 2018, the ClimateWise Principles were aligned to the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). In 2024, the Principles were updated to reflect a much wider range of requirements including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD).
Key findings
The 2025 ClimateWise Principles Independent Review highlights growing ambition and leadership across the insurance industry, with members achieving a 6% average score increase on a like-for-like basis compared to the previous year.
Areas where there were notable improvements included:
- Strategic integration: Insurers’ climate strategies are increasingly cohesive, with members using levers such as policyholder engagement and product innovation to support the opportunities associated with the transition to a low-carbon economy.
- Growing focus on double materiality: 58% of members have conducted, or plan to conduct, double materiality assessments, an approach which considers both the impacts of sustainability-related risks on the business and the sector’s broader environmental footprint. This represents a notable increase from 33% in 2024.
- Governance of nature-related risks and opportunities: Nature considerations are becoming more firmly embedded, with 39% of members now integrating nature-related risks into board-level governance processes.
Market leadership: transition planning
The industry is demonstrating increasing capability to build resilience, support the transition and drive meaningful action on climate change.
Notably, one third of members have already submitted full transition plans, while another third have formally committed to developing them, providing detailed roadmaps that outline how their plans will be created.
Priorities for 2026
As we move further into 2026, advances in climate risk management, transition planning and the integration of nature-related considerations within governance structures will remain key priorities, reinforcing the foundations of long-term resilience.
Citing this review
Please refer to this review as University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and Crowe (2026). The ClimateWise Principles Independent Review 2025. Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
