Enabling and Scaling up Market Adoption of Nature-related Financial Disclosures

• In early September 2023, the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) joined the world's largest conservation organizations, institutions, as well as business and financial coalitions, to launch a new initiative at www.naturepositive.org. This initiative aims to standardize the definition of the term "Nature Positive," strengthen the integrity of the term, and support efforts to achieve nature-positive outcomes.
• After two years, the TNFD released its final recommendations for managing and reporting on nature-related risks in September 2023.
• At the time of the release, the TNFD also introduced a "Getting Started" guide, developed in collaboration with 9 partner organizations: Business for Nature, Capitals Coalition, CDP, the Finance for Biodiversity (FfB) Foundation, the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), the UN Global Compact, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and the World Economic Forum (WEF).
• Further guides and a catalog of tools to help businesses implement the recommendations were made available on the new TNFD website.
• TNFD's recommendations were structured to allow companies and financial institutions to build on their climate-related reporting. To support adoption and provide consistent, comparable, and decision-useful information for report users, the Taskforce developed a set of additional guides that cover the following:
  • How to get started with the TNFD recommendations, with practical steps, considerations, and insights from pilot projects;
  • The identification and assessment of nature-related issues (the LEAP approach), using and integrating existing market-leading frameworks, tools, and datasets;
  • Specific sectors and ecosystem types (biomes);
  • Scenario analysis to support organizations in conducting a qualitative scenario workshop focused on testing and expanding thinking, planning, and decision-making;
  • The inclusion of indigenous peoples, local communities, and affected stakeholders.
• In December 2023, TNFD released "TNFD in a Box." "TNFD in a Box" serves as a capacity-building tool and can be downloaded for free.
• After the release of the TNFD recommendations, TNFD entered its second phase, focusing on:
  • 1. The embedding of TNFD recommendations into the global sustainability reporting standard, which is currently being developed by the ISSB.
  • 2. The promotion of voluntary implementation of TNFD recommendations.
    • The goal is to guide companies and financial institutions across all sectors and regions through various phases of their nature-related risk and opportunity management: from basic awareness to building internal capabilities, to the point where they have the confidence and capacity to commit to nature-related reporting in line with the TNFD recommendations.
  • 3. Training and capacity-building for companies and financial institutions (FIs).
  • 4. Improving the quality and access to nature-related data for companies and FIs.
  As of October 2024, 502 companies and financial institutions have committed to disclosing on their TNFD-aligned nature-related risks. These include leading publicly listed companies across geographies and industry sectors representing US$6.5 trillion in market capitalisation; over 120 financial institutions, including some of the world’s largest asset owners and managers, representing over US$17 trillion in Assets under Management (AUM). Some have already begun publishing TNFD-aligned reports, and investors are calling for companies to begin reporting against TNFD.

TNFD has established an excellent collaborative dialogue with the ISSB. The MOU signed between the IFRS Foundation and TNFD in April 2025 will deepen the collaboration between the two organisations as the ISSB considers the TNFD recommendations in its research into the needs of global capital markets for information about nature-related risks and opportunities.