TNFD Report a Huge Step Forward Towards Helping Organisations Make Better Decisions for Nature

NatureMetrics congratulates the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) on the beta release of their nature-related risk-management and disclosure framework. The TNFD is a global, market-led initiative with the mission to develop and deliver a framework for organisations to report and act on evolving nature-related risks.

The new framework puts a spotlight on the crucial role the financial sector can play in moving global financial flows away from nature-negative outcomes and toward nature-positive outcomes.

NatureMetrics is a member of the TNFD Forum alongside representatives from other companies, financial institutions, public sector bodies, civil society organisations and others.

NatureMetrics CEO Katie Critchlow said,

“Nature has long struggled to get the same attention as carbon despite its importance in providing our life and economy supporting services. Partly, this has been due to measurement being more complex, hampering establishment of meaningful targets. Now NatureMetrics and others are innovating in robust, scalable data provision and ‘decision-ready’ analysis.”

With its focus on data and measurement, the TNFD framework is an important step raising awareness of the need to set targets, thresholds or mechanisms that can drive better outcomes for nature.

“NatureMetrics want to enable good conversations about nature in the boardroom, just like we’re now seeing on carbon” added Critchlow. “The TNFD report and the action it will compel has accelerated our journey towards our aim of being a global player in the provision of good nature data and analysis to drive good decisions for business and nature”.

In particular, we were delighted to see the new TNFD framework put an emphasis on “location” as a key requirement for consideration in reporting on nature related risks and impacts. Unlike carbon, where a molecule of carbon released anywhere in the world has the same impact, the site-based context matters for nature. Modelled estimates can be useful to identify sites of potentially high impact, but onsite assessment is essential to fully understand impacts and dependencies. Proxy measures for nature without site specificity neither adequately manage financial risk nor incentivise better performance.

The good news is that many clients with high potential impacts or dependencies on biodiversity are already monitoring impact – investors can focus efforts to begin with on these higher risk sectors. The prize which TNFD can help to deliver is to create a common “nature currency” across these sites which can properly incentivise flow of capital from poor to good performers.

A data discussion paper release alongside the framework draws attention to the role innovative technologies – including NatureMetrics’ environmental DNA solution – can play in providing robust, accurate and standardised assessments. We’re supporting the call for more metrics and indicators derived from data to support decision-making by redoubling our own efforts to combine our data with high quality ecological statistics, machine learning and data visualisations to offer clients ‘Nature Intelligence’ at their fingertips.

We look forward to being part of the solution to now help turn this high-level framework into an actionable roadmap alongside our fellow forum members and with the help of some of our valued clients.