The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) announced the publication of its long-awaited final recommendations for nature-related risk management and disclosure, aimed at helping inform better decision-making by companies and capital providers on nature and biodiversity-related risks, opportunities, dependencies and impacts, as well as to contribute to a shift in financial flows towards nature-positive outcomes and the achievement of global biodiversity and ecosystem preservation goals.

The launch of the new framework marks a major step towards enabling enhanced corporate sustainability reporting, with the TNFD’s guidelines anticipated to be used to help shape the development of future sustainability disclosure standards. The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) of the IFRS Foundation, for example, which recently launched its landmark sustainability and climate reporting standards, has already announced that the TNFD recommendations will inform its future standard setting, and environmental disclosure platform CDP stated that it plans to align its global disclosure platform with the TNFD framework.

David Craig, Co-Chair of the TNFD and founder and former CEO of Refinitiv, called the release of the recommendations a “step-change” towards enabling companies and financials to “identify, assess and disclose their exposure to nature-related issues in a manner consistent with climate-related-reporting.” Craig added:

“Nature loss is accelerating, and businesses today are inadequately accounting for nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities. Nature-risk is sitting in company cash flows and capital portfolios today. The costs of inaction are mounting quickly. Businesses and financial institutions now have the tools they need to take action.”

The publication follows a two-year process, beginning with the formation of the TNFD in June 2021, building on the success of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), and led by a taskforce of 40 members, including senior executives from across a broad range of sectors and disciplines, encompassing Financial Services, Corporates, and Market Service Providers, and representing over US$20 trillion in assets under management.

The publication includes 14 recommended disclosures, aligned under the same 4 contextual pillars utilized by the TCFD, which include Governance, with disclosures covering board oversight and management’s role in assessing nature-related dependencies, impacts risks and opportunities; Strategy, encompassing the effects of these issues on business models, strategies and financial planning; Risk and impact management, including the processes used to identify, assess, prioritize and monitor nature-related issues in direct operations and in the value chain, and; Metrics and targets used to assess material nature-related dependencies, impacts risks and opportunities.

In addition to the disclosure recommendations, the TNFD also released a set of recommended indicators and metrics for assessment and to support disclosure, as well as a suite of additional guidance aimed at helping organizations to get started with the TNFD recommendations and with the identification and assessment of nature-related issues.

Click here to access the TNFD recommendations.