In New Zealand and elsewhere, addressing long-term challenges like climate change has increased attention on forward-looking and transformative policies involving changes to the structure of the economy – ‘transformative change’. Analytical tools suited to transformative change include ones that reflect its features – goal-oriented, future-focused, systemic, involving risk and uncertainty etc. Cost-benefit analysis, while a valuable policy appraisal tool in general, has significant limitations in the context of transformative change. While these limitations may be remedied to some extent, other tools may be more suitable in this specific context and could be upweighted.