The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) announces the launch of its Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) pilot program with 23 of its member companies. The companies, with a total market value of USD$ 1.3 trillion and from North and South America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, will feed important insights into the development of the TNFD beta framework before its final release in September 2023.  

TNFD is following in the footsteps of the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), and emerging as the framework to enable business to meet the growing expectation to disclose nature-related risks and opportunities and ensure finance flows to nature-positive outcomes.

The pilot follows the announcement of WBCSD as one of six TNFD pilot program partners and will help prepare the companies involved to enact future TNFD framework recommendations. It is a major step for nature-positive business action, ahead of the adoption of the Global Biodiversity Framework by world leaders at the 2022 Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in Montreal in December.

The pilot will cover three systems: energy, land use (including food, agriculture and forestry) and the built environment, the value chains for which account for about 90% of the pressure on biodiversity. It will apply key aspects of the TNFD beta framework, including nature-related risks and opportunities, metrics and targets, assessment and evaluation of impacts and dependencies, and strategic and financial implications. Participating companies will collectively test and try TNFD beta framework components, sharing case studies and examples, and preparing disclosures.

WBCSD will publish the lessons at the end of the pilot to help prepare more companies for TNFD adoption. As part of supporting work, WBCSD is also developing Nature Positive roadmaps for energy, land use and the built environment. These roadmaps will incorporate the outputs and learning from TNFD and the Science Based Targets for Nature (SBTN), providing a harmonized roadmap for business action.

Cristiana La Marca, Head of Environment at the Enel Group, said: “Enel is committed to actively addressing biodiversity issues, from halting nature loss to engaging the Group’s entire value chain. The Group is glad to contribute to the development of the TNFD framework and to have joined the WBCSD pilot project aimed at highlighting the opportunities and challenges that arise from the analysis of impacts on nature. The sharing of lessons learned and the exchange of perspectives with other energy players is key in order to gather technical insights and to contribute to TNFD’s recommendations.”

“Conserving, restoring, and regenerating landscapes are integral to ensuring healthy ecosystems to sustain our global food supply.  As the world’s largest provider of crop inputs, services, and solutions, Nutrien is working to help shape nature related guidance with TNFD. Providing an agricultural perspective will enable the agri-food value chain to better understand, assess, and disclose its impacts and dependencies on nature. We seek to be leaders in supporting a sustainable food system using nature-based solutions to help meaningfully address the nature and climate crises.” – Tim Faveri, VP Sustainability and Stakeholder Relations, Nutrien

“As an engineering and consultancy company with an ambitious sustainability focus for both ourselves and our clients, we are dedicated towards piloting the TNFD framework and learning how this can help us better predict the consequences of ecosystem degradation as well as restoration on our business performance.” – Johan Lammerant, Lead Expert Natural Capital and Biodiversity, Arcadis

“It’s encouraging to see a significant group of WBCSD members committed to leading the way in preparing for nature-related disclosures. Investors and governments increasingly expect business to be transparent and forward-looking in how they respond to nature-related risks and opportunities, and these companies are placing themselves in an advantageous position in the market. We look forward to our continued partnership with TNFD to ensure the framework is robust and business-ready.”– Tom Williams, Senior Director, Nature Action, WBCSD

With the most recent version of the draft framework due in November of this year, the WBCSD-led pilot programme will be testing the very latest version of the TNFD beta framework. We also look forward to deepening our collaboration with WBCSD on a range of longer-term challenges around integration of climate and nature risk management challenges and industry capability building to deliver both net zero and nature positive”. – Tony Goldner, Executive Director, TNFD