In the latest article in a series to help businesses make nature an integral part of their decision-making process, we look at how a range of different frameworks and standards are coming together as the foundational building blocks behind a nature strategy.  

Much has happened since the gavel went down at COP15 in Montreal at the end of 2022, and a new global agreement on nature  made it over the line. “There has been a huge evolution around nature,” explains Elodie Chêne, a Senior Manager at Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the sustainability reporting standard setter.  

“Biodiversity was simply not on the radar for most businesses before then,” she says, but the Global Biodiversity Framework has helped to better ‘define the space’, leading to new standards and frameworks that meet the complexity of measuring impacts on nature and biodiversity. 

But while this has led to positive interest in creating nature strategies and folding nature into business strategy, she says: “we know that some companies are feeling a bit overwhelmed with so many frameworks, regulations and standards.”  

Helping businesses navigate 

Understanding and adapting to regulation, identifying what information needs to be reported, and then completing public disclosures, are just some of the challenges that businesses face. Yet each framework and standard are necessary and complementary, continues Chêne: “they are not duplicating themselves, and they all serve a different purpose; interoperability has become crucial.” 

There are four broad areas – known as the high-level business actions on nature (ACT-D) – that companies need to consider as they embark on creating a nature strategy: assess material impacts and dependencies; commit to science-based targets aligned with these impacts; transform through actions aligned to targets; and disclose progress with executive support.  

All are inter-linked, each part guiding and influencing the other, as companies develop ways of incorporating nature into their day-to-day activities of both their direct operations, and across value chains. 

Key frameworks and guidance 

The Nature Strategy Handbook is an important guidance tool for businesses navigating this landscape, helping them to identify when and where, during the process of developing a nature strategy, to engage with different frameworks through.  

Additionally, Chêne also suggests companies look at the Global Biodiversity Framework, describing it as: “the most authoritative instrument for setting goals and targets,” while Emily McKenzie, Technical Director at the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) says: “The TNFD LEAP approach is a great place to start to identify an organization’s nature-related issues and therefore the focus of its efforts on nature.  

“Our recommendations and guidance give organizations the confidence to get started and shows how they can leverage other work they’ve already done, for example around climate, because the TNFD recommendations build on the same structure, language and approach as TCFD’s”, says McKenzie.  

The TNFD has produced guidance that can help an assessment of how a business both impacts and depends on nature and corresponding risks and opportunities to the organisation (known as the LEAP approach), and a set of disclosure recommendations. TNFD’s LEAP approach is designed to offer a systematic way of completing an assessment, helping businesses to understand nature-related issues as a foundation to manage and report on them.  

“An assessment using the LEAP approach may uncover that your strategy is not resilient in the face of nature-related physical and transition risks,” adds McKenzie.  

Translating science into action 

The Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) helps companies to address and prioritize their environmental impacts across freshwater, land, biodiversity and the ocean, and then advance to target setting and action. After a year-long pilot, SBTN has recently updated its technical guidance to help companies create credible action plans that are underpinned by targets directly linked to their impacts and grounded in environmental and societal materiality. 

“Our role is as a mechanism to translate science into action around sustainability goals,” explains Erin Billman, Executive Director at SBTN, offering companies the opportunity: “to holistically assess their material impacts and follow best available science around how they take to action,” says Billman. 

Around 150 companies are currently preparing to set science-based targets, and Billman is keen to ensure that as they discover new risks, opportunities, and gaps in their targets for supporting nature, they also scale their ambition. 

For example, she explains, one company that had committed to ending deforestation in its supply chain has now extended this to ending conversion across all natural ecosystems, with a growing recognition of the role wetlands and grasslands play in supporting biodiversity, as well as addressing climate change. 

SBTN’s methods encouraged another business to look upstream at its impacts, where it discovered issues with pesticide use that it was unaware of. “It meant they were able to take immediate action to address a hidden risk to the business,” says Billman. 

SBTN also encourages organizations to apply a local lens to their strategy, focusing on place-based action, where nature often needs it most. “Unlike climate, nature is location specific,” she says. With water, for instance, whether a business is suffering from a shortage or not depends on where it is, and the time of year. “For targets and actions to be credible, they need to be linked to place,” she says. 

The final stage of the process is disclosure in alignment with sustainability reporting standards such as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and GRI, which recently updated it’s GRI 101 Biodiversity Standard. This again demonstrates the interplay between the many different organizations that are helping companies set targets and improve their performance around nature and sustainability.  

As Chêne explains: “Next to GRI 101, the GRI has a broad scope around all issues related to sustainability. We look at the UN instruments and GBF targets, the recommendations from TNFD, and the guidance from SBTN, and that ensures the standards we are proposing are in line with relevant frameworks; that’s how interoperability works.” 

Equally, says Billman, SBTN and TNFD use GRI’s content to establish their own requirements on materiality assessments. “There is a need and a unique role for all of these initiatives,” she says. 

GRI’s focus is on impact and looking at the needs of all stakeholders, says Chêne: “With the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), we form that global baseline for best practice in sustainability reporting.” The goal of the standard is to enable action and raise awareness at the highest levels, so companies understand what is material, and can put in place the right strategies, actions and resources. 

All these organizations and frameworks play a crucial role in delivering the high-level business actions (ACT-D) – Assess, Commit, Transform and Disclose. Designed to help business follow a consistent approach to accelerate action on nature, ACT-D is the foundation of the It’s Now for Nature campaign.