Geneva, 24 May 2022: Today, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is pleased to announce that it will support the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) as one of four piloting program partners to inform the design and development of the TNFD’s recommendations.
The TNFD framework, now in prototype format and under development, will enable corporates and financial institutions to assess and disclose on their nature-related risks and opportunities, with the aim of helping to shift financial flows from nature loss to nature-positive outcomes. Final recommendations from the Taskforce are due in September 2023.
WBCSD, alongside Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Africa through African Natural Capital Alliance (ANCA), Global Canopy and UNEP-FI, has been confirmed as the first of the TNFD’s piloting program partners who will run a portfolio of pilot tests with companies and financial institutions of the ‘beta’ framework. Through this partnership, WBCSD will work with a diverse range of companies across geographies and sectors to pilot test the TNFD beta framework to inform the iterative development of the TNFD’s recommendations over the next 12 months.
Interested individual business and financial institutions of all sizes can pilot test the framework using the TNFD’s interactive online platform for the beta framework at framework.tnfd.global. The TNFD is also exploring additional initiatives to encourage pilot testing in biodiversity hotspots in emerging markets and with Indigenous community enterprises and other stakeholders. The window for pilot testing and feedback from market participants and other stakeholders is open until 31 May 2023.
The TNFD also announced two new initiatives alongside its piloting program partnership – TNFD Consultation Groups and Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities engagement. TNFD Consultation Groups are being activated at national and regional levels to expand outreach and engagement in markets where significant interest in the work of the Taskforce has already been established. The TNFD will also work to ensure the voices and perspectives of Indigenous Peoples and local communities are incorporated into the design and development phase of the framework in partnership with IUCN.
There is an urgent need and huge opportunity to mobilise the innovative power of finance and business to move quickly from developing one-dimensional solutions to three- dimensional solutions that address climate, nature, and social dimensions as a bundle. A strong and inclusive consultation process on the TNFD framework is fundamental to our success. Crowding in insights from a wide range of market players and stakeholders across different sectors and geographies will help the Taskforce deliver a practical framework that has been co-created by both those who will use it as well as those that will feel the impact the most.
- David Craig and Elizabeth Mrema, Co-Chairs, TNFD
We have eight short years to achieve our Global Goal for Nature and become nature-positive by 2030. In recognition of the key role of business in this transformation, WBCSD is pleased to be bringing together leading companies in contributing to the TNFD framework development through piloting. We look forward to working with the TNFD to develop a standardized way of communicating and demonstrating business action for managing nature-related risks and opportunities, which is critical to unlocking a nature-positive future.
- Peter Bakker, President & CEO, WBCSD
The TNFD framework will be an important step in supporting business in their nature-positive journey. As outlined in the WBCSD Practitioner’s Guide, What does nature-positive mean for business?, Disclose and Report is one of the six building blocks for nature-positive business practice and the TNFD framework provides essential guidance to both corporates and investors in this area.
Efforts to develop the TNFD’s nature-risk framework are led by 34 individual Taskforce Members, representing financial institutions, businesses and market service providers, and supported by over 400 institutions around the world who constitute the TNFD Forum. 15 of the 34 TNFD Taskforce Members are WBCSD member companies.
A first ‘beta’ framework was released in March 2022 with input now being received from a wide range of market participants and other stakeholders from over 60 countries through a market-led, open innovation process to co-create the final recommendations. The TNFD framework is also attracting considerable interest from policy makers and regulators as efforts accelerate within a number of jurisdictions towards integrated sustainability reporting requirements.
A further three releases of the beta framework that incorporate feedback from market participants and additional framework components are planned for June 2022 (v0.2), October 2022 (v0.3) and February 2023 (v0.4). This will culminate in the final release of the TNFD’s recommendations (v1.0) in September 2023.
