Scaling Nature Action Through SMEs: Aligning Policy, Finance, Technology and Data

Businesses of all sizes depend on nature. They rely on natural resources such as water and productive soils, benefit from ecosystem services such as pollination, and face risks from ecosystem degradation. Understanding and managing these relationships is increasingly important for business resilience, risk management and sustainable supply chains.

Nature intelligence provides actionable insights into a company’s dependencies and impacts on nature, along with related risks and opportunities. It helps businesses integrate nature into strategy, operations and decision-making. Through its LEAP approach, the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) offers a structured framework to identify nature interfaces, assess dependencies and impacts, evaluate risks and opportunities, and prepare responses and disclosures.

Digital technologies and AI can turn environmental and supply chain data into actionable nature intelligence, reducing assessment costs and improving decision-making. However, many SMEs lack the resources and capacity to benefit, highlighting the need for supportive policies, proportionate disclosure requirements and incentives.

Nature intelligence can also strengthen investment decisions, ESG assessments and financial instruments. With the right policy and financing support, SMEs can translate these insights into action and access capital for sustainable business practices.

Co-organised by UNDP, Conservation X Labs (CXL) and TNFD, this event will bring together policymakers, businesses and technology providers to explore how policy, finance and digital innovation can help SMEs and value chain actors advance nature-related disclosure, sustainable business practices and biodiversity investment.

Event Objectives

• Demonstrate how digital technologies and AI can make nature intelligence more accessible to SMEs and their corporate customers, supporting nature-related assessment, disclosure and decision-making.
• Discuss policy measures and capacity-building support that enable SMEs and value chain actors to participate in nature-related disclosure and adopt sustainable business practices.
• Explore how nature intelligence can inform investment decisions, ESG assessments and financial instruments, including opportunities to finance biodiversity action across supply chains.