From Climate Ambition to Implementation: Developing an Organisational Climate Capability Framework for Integrated Climate Action

Organisations are increasingly expected to address both climate change mitigation and adaptation; however, these agendas are often developed through separate governance, planning, and management processes, creating barriers to integrated climate action. While existing frameworks provide valuable guidance on climate governance, risk management, adaptation planning, and disclosure, they offer limited support for translating climate ambitions into coordinated organisational implementation. This study develops a transferable Organisational Climate Capability Framework for integrating climate mitigation, adaptation, climate-risk management, governance, and implementation within existing organisational systems. The framework was developed through an integrative review of climate resilient development, climate governance, adaptation planning, co-production, and organisational capability literature and refined through iterative application within a government organisation. The framework identifies six interconnected implementation mechanisms: governance integration, stakeholder co-development, risk-informed planning, integrated prioritisation, institutional embedding, and implementation readiness. These mechanisms contribute to the development of organisational climate capability, conceptualised as the capacity to coordinate, sustain, learn from, and adapt climate action over time. The study proposes that organisational climate capability mediates the relationship between integrated climate governance and climate-resilient development outcomes. The paper contributes a practical framework and climate capability maturity model to support organisational assessment, capability development, and continuous improvement, providing an organisational pathway for operationalising climate-resilient development and supporting sustainable development objectives.