Gera Tools

Climate Risk TCFD Screener

Screen physical and transition climate risks for TCFD disclosure

Select your industry sector and geography to assess exposure to physical climate risks (acute and chronic) and transition risks (policy, technology, market, reputational) under 1.5°C and 4°C warming scenarios, producing a TCFD risk priority matrix. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Last updated Source: Gera Tools

What is TCFD?

The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) is a framework for reporting climate risk in financial filings. It splits risk into physical risks (from a changing climate) and transition risks (from moving to a low-carbon economy). Many jurisdictions now mandate TCFD-aligned reporting.

The Climate Risk TCFD Screener gives you a fast, structured first pass at the physical and transition climate risks facing your organisation. By combining your sector and geography it scores each TCFD risk category under two warming scenarios and ranks them into a priority matrix you can use to scope a disclosure.

How it works

TCFD divides climate risk into two pillars. Physical risk comes from the climate itself and splits into acute (events like floods and storms) and chronic (slow shifts like sea-level rise and heat). Transition risk comes from the shift to a low-carbon economy and splits into policy/legal, technology, market, and reputational risk.

The screener assigns each sector a transition-risk weighting based on its emissions intensity and exposure to carbon pricing, and each geography a physical-risk weighting based on its hazard profile. It then combines these under two scenarios:

1.5°C scenario:  transition weight ×1.4,  physical weight ×0.7
4°C scenario:    transition weight ×0.6,  physical weight ×1.5

This mirrors the TCFD logic that aggressive decarbonisation raises transition risk but limits physical risk, while inaction does the reverse. Each category is scored 0–100 and bucketed into Low, Medium, High, or Severe.

The four transition risk categories explained

TCFD identifies four types of transition risk, each representing a distinct pathway through which the shift to a low-carbon economy can affect a business:

Policy and legal risk — the risk that new regulations, carbon pricing schemes, emissions caps, or litigation increase costs or limit market access. Industries with high direct emissions exposure (energy, cement, steel, aviation) face the highest policy risk under a 1.5°C scenario because aggressive decarbonisation requires rapid regulatory change.

Technology risk — the risk that low-carbon alternatives make existing products or assets obsolete before the end of their useful life. Automakers face this in a world where electric vehicles displace combustion engines; utilities face it when cheap solar and battery storage undercut fossil fuel generation.

Market risk — shifts in consumer preferences and investor mandates toward sustainable products and away from carbon-intensive ones. This is increasingly materialising through ESG-driven procurement, green building standards, and supply-chain decarbonisation requirements.

Reputational risk — the risk that the company is perceived as a climate laggard, triggering stakeholder backlash, recruitment difficulties, or loss of social licence to operate. Energy and extractive industries carry the highest baseline reputational exposure, but food, retail, and financial services companies are increasingly scrutinised.

What the two scenarios test

TCFD recommends testing against at least two scenarios that represent materially different futures:

1.5°C (aggressive action) scenario assumes rapid and deep decarbonisation — strong carbon pricing, tight emissions caps, accelerated technology adoption. Under this scenario, transition risks dominate: companies that are slow to decarbonise their operations, supply chains, and products face stranded assets and regulatory cost. Physical risks are limited because warming is contained. This is the scenario most relevant to near-term regulatory and market risk.

4°C (limited action) scenario assumes continued reliance on fossil fuels and insufficient global climate policy. Transition risks are lower because policy pressure is slow, but physical risks compound significantly by mid-century: coastal flooding, extreme heat, water stress, and agricultural disruption become material. This scenario is most relevant for long-lived physical assets (buildings, infrastructure, coastal facilities) that will experience the consequences over their useful lives.

Running both scenarios simultaneously is the core value of the TCFD framework — it prevents organisations from managing only the risk most convenient to acknowledge.

How to use the output

The priority matrix ranks all TCFD risk categories from most to least severe for your sector-geography combination under each scenario. Use this output to:

  1. Identify which risks to research further. Categories scored High or Severe warrant dedicated analysis with site-specific data and financial modelling rather than just this screener’s heuristic estimate.
  2. Structure a TCFD disclosure. Many frameworks require you to address all four transition and both physical risk categories, but you can acknowledge a category as Low in your sector without deep analysis.
  3. Prioritise internal risk management. The priority ranking can guide which risks to incorporate into enterprise risk registers and scenario planning exercises first.

This screener is a scoping aid, not a substitute for site-specific hazard modelling, third-party climate data, and financial impact analysis. A formal TCFD report at the asset level requires physical hazard data from providers such as climate analytics firms and financial projections co-developed with finance and strategy teams.