For over a decade, climate risk has had a common language that has been missing the social dimension. The Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) taught boardrooms to see environmental risk as financial risk, and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) did the same for biodiversity. But people risk and impact to people, including the workers, communities and consumers at the heart of every supply chain, have too often been left out of that conversation. The Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD) is changing that, an important step in aligning language and reporting frameworks around social risk and impact.

What is the TISFD?

The TISFD is a global initiative, hosted by the United Nations Development Programme, developing recommendations and guidance to help businesses and financial institutions understand and report on their impacts, dependencies, risks and opportunities related to people. Launched in September 2024 with the backing of more than 100 organisations across business, finance, labour and civil society, it released the first “beta” draft of its framework in 2026, with a final version due in 2027.

Crucially, it doesn’t reinvent the wheel. The framework mirrors the familiar four-pillar architecture of TCFD and TNFD of governance, strategy, impact and risk management, and metrics and targets, and is designed to converge with existing standards such as the ISSB, GRI and ESRS rather than replace them.

Why this matters

Inequality and people-related issues are no longer “soft” concerns. As the TISFD makes clear, business decisions on wages, working conditions and supply chains directly affect human rights, well being and social capital. These effects accumulate into system-level risks that threaten entire markets and economies, not just individual companies. The pandemic, and more recent geo-political disruption, exposed just how deeply social vulnerability runs through global value chains, and investor appetite for credible social data has surged ever since.

The problem, until now, has been fragmentation: too many overlapping frameworks, patchy metrics, and a heavy reporting burden that produced little comparability. By creating a common, decision-useful language for social risk, the TISFD helps close that gap.

How it helps organisations

For the companies we work with, the TISFD offers something practical:

  • A familiar structure. Businesses already reporting under TCFD or TNFD can apply the same logic to people-related risk.
  • Double materiality. It asks organisations to assess both how social issues affect the business and how the business affects society, the essence of genuine human rights due diligence.
  • Convergence, not more clutter. Alignment with ISSB, GRI and ESRS means less duplication and clearer, more comparable disclosure

For 15 years, The Mekong Club has worked side by side with the private sector in a positive, collaborative way, to turn awareness of modern slavery into practical action across global supply chains. With an estimated 50 million people in modern slavery and 86% of it linked to the private sector, the case for better measurement has never been stronger.

The TISFD is an important step forward in supporting greater alignment across sectors and geography. It brings human rights and forced labour risk out of the “nice to have” and it gives businesses a credible way to measure social impact. The framework is open for feedback and still evolving. We’d encourage industry to engage now, pilot early, and help shape a standard that puts people firmly on the balance sheet.

References

  1. TISFD – Official Website (Homepage & About) — Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures. https://www.tisfd.org/ [tisfd.org]
  2. TISFD releases its draft framework to increase visibility of inequality and people-related risks and opportunities for business and finance — TISFD News. https://www.tisfd.org/news/tisfd-releases-its-draft-framework-to-increase-visibility-of-inequality-and-people-related-risks-and-opportunities-for-business-and-finance
  3. Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD): An Introduction (Summer 2024) — BSR. https://www.bsr.org/files/event-resources/BSR_TISFD_An_Introduction.pdf
  4. Launch of the Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD) UNDP Sustainable Finance Hub (23 September 2024). https://sdgfinance.undp.org/news-events/launch-taskforce-inequality-and-social-related-financial-disclosures-tisfd

Author: Kate Skattang, Technical Advisor at The Mekong Club
Photo by Rodeo Project Management Software on Unsplash