Just Transition Metrics is a collaborative benchmark series developed by Shift in partnership with the Business and Human Rights Centre, Business for Social Responsibility, Council for Inclusive Capitalism, LSE’s Just Transition Finance Lab, World Benchmarking Alliance, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

What the series tracks

The series establishes a limited, foundational set of sector-agnostic quantitative metrics intended to provide a first insight into the ‘justness’ of companies’ climate-related transition plans and activities. The metrics are organised across three key stakeholder groups: own workforce (employees and non-employees), local communities and Indigenous Peoples, and value chain workers.

For the own workforce, the metrics cover job security (jobs created and lost), reskilling, upskilling and redeployment, remuneration and living wage, freedom of association and collective bargaining, and stakeholder engagement. For communities, they cover impact assessments, stakeholder engagement, consent, free prior and informed consent (FPIC) for Indigenous Peoples, and agreement feedback mechanisms. For value chain workers, the metrics focus on impact assessments at sourcing locations.

Methodology

The metrics are designed to be applied within the same ‘boundaries’ as a company’s existing climate transition plan — that is, across the same inventory of entities, facilities, and locations for which climate-related metrics are already measured and reported.

Each metric is accompanied by a rationale, a proposed methodology, and guidance on additional qualitative context. The metrics are designed to complement existing qualitative indicators and benchmarks, recognising that qualitative information provides important context for interpreting quantitative data.

Key methodological references include standard definitions for terms such as ’employee’, ‘permanent’ and ‘temporary’ jobs, and the Living Wage Accounting Model and Progress Tool (developed by Shift and the Capitals Coalition). Guidance draws on existing frameworks including GRI standards (e.g. GRI SCH 1(c) and GRI REWO 6).

Organisations are encouraged to apply similar methodologies to those used in existing workforce reporting, with the particular impacts of the transition on the workforce seen as enhancing — rather than replacing — standard workforce metrics.

Key themes from this edition

The metrics address the need for a clear set of widely supported, practical, and decision-useful quantitative indicators that provide measurable evidence of whether good intentions regarding a ‘just transition’ are achieved in practice.

Key themes include: the distribution of job creation and loss by region, gender, and employment type; access to retraining and redeployment opportunities; whether newly created jobs meet living wage thresholds; coverage by collective bargaining agreements; and the extent to which workers and communities have a genuine voice in transition planning and implementation.

For Indigenous Peoples, the series places particular emphasis on free, prior and informed consent, recognising that agreement on impacts and benefits may not always serve as a proxy for consent. For local communities more broadly, the metrics track whether dispute mechanisms are in place to monitor the implementation of agreements.

The series notes that sector-specific metrics for consumers and end-users are planned for a subsequent phase of work, given the wide variation in potential risks and impacts across sectors such as energy and utilities.

Relevance and uses for finance professionals

For finance professionals, the Just Transition Metrics series provides a structured basis for assessing the human rights and social dimensions of corporate climate transition plans — an area of growing importance in ESG analysis, stewardship, and transition risk assessment.

The metrics are designed to be decision-useful and measurable, enabling investors and analysts to evaluate whether companies are managing the social impacts of decarbonisation in a credible and accountable manner. They facilitate comparison across companies and sectors, and support engagement with investee companies on workforce treatment, community relations, and supply chain exposure during the transition.

The inclusion of living wage thresholds, collective bargaining coverage, and community consent indicators provides granular data points relevant to social due diligence, responsible investment mandates, and emerging regulatory requirements around transition planning disclosures.