Overview

The recommendations of the TNFD have been designed to meet the corporate reporting requirements of organisations across jurisdictions, to be consistent with the global baseline for corporate sustainability reporting and to be aligned with the global policy goals in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The TNFD disclosure framework consists of conceptual foundations for nature-related disclosures, a set of general requirements, a set of recommended disclosures structured around the four recommendation pillars of governance, strategy, risk and impact management, and metrics and targets. This is consistent with the approach of the TCFD and the ISSB’s IFRS Standards.

Recommended disclosures 

The recommended disclosures for all sectors are structured around four pillars

  1. Governance
  2. Strategy
  3. Risk and impact management
  4. Metrics and targets

governance
Governance

Disclose the organisation’s governance of nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities. 

  1. Describe the board’s oversight of nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities.
  2. Describe management’s role in assessing and managing nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities. 
  3. Describe the organisation’s human rights policies and engagement activities, and oversight by the board and management, with respect to Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities, affected and other stakeholders, in the organisation’s assessment of, and response to, nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities.  

strategy
Strategy

Disclose the effects of nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities on the organisation’s business model, strategy and financial planning where such information is material. 

  1. Describe the nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities the organisation has identified over the short, medium and long term. 
  2. Describe the effect nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities have had on the organisation’s business model, value chain, strategy and financial planning, as well as any transition plans or analysis in place. 
  3. Describe the resilience of the organisation’s strategy to nature-related risks and opportunities, taking into consideration different scenarios. 
  4. Disclose the locations of assets and/or activities in the organisation’s direct operations and, where possible, upstream and downstream value chain(s) that meet the criteria for priority locations. 

risk management
Risk and impact management

Describe the process used by the organisation to identify, assess, prioritise and monitor nature-related dependencies, impacts, risk and opportunities.

    • Describe the organisation’s processes for identifying, assessing and prioritising nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities in its direct operations.
    • Describe the organisation’s processes for identifying, assessing and prioritising nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities in its upstream and downstream value chain(s).
  1. Describe the organisation’s processes for monitoring nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities. 
  2. Describe how processes for identifying, assessing, prioritising and monitoring nature-related risks are integrated into and inform the organisation’s overall risk management processes.

metrics and targets
Metrics and targets

Disclose the metrics and targets used to assess and manage material nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities.

  1. Disclose the metrics used by the organisation to assess and manage material nature-related risks and opportunities in line with its strategy and risk management process. 
  2. Disclose the metrics used by the organisation to assess and manage dependencies and impacts on nature. 
  3. Describe the targets and goals used by the organisation to manage nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities and its performance against these. 

General requirements 

Our recommendations include six general requirements that are additional to the general requirements and other provisions of the ISSB’s IFRS-S1 Standard. Report preparers publicly stating their use of, and alignment with, our recommendations are expected to apply the general requirements to create consistency in the information disclosed. The general requirements apply to all four pillars of the recommended disclosures: Governance, Strategy, Risk and Impact Management, and Metrics and Targets.  

They describe:   

  1. The application of materiality.
  2. The scope of disclosures.
  3. The location of nature-related issues.
  4. Integration with other sustainability-related disclosures.  
  5. The time horizons considered.
  6. The engagement of Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities and affected stakeholders in the identification and assessment of the organisation’s nature-related issues. 

Disclosure metrics 

TNFD’s metrics include: 

  1. A small set of core metrics – ‘core global metrics’ that apply to all sectors and ‘core sector metrics’ for each sector – to be disclosed on a comply or explain basis. 
  2. A larger set of additional disclosure and assessment metrics, which report preparers may wish to use for their assessment and, where relevant and helpful, disclosure. 

Principles of our approach  

The TNFD Recommendations were developed on the basis of seven principles

  1. Market usability 
    Directly usable and valuable to market participants, notably corporates and financial institutions, as well as policy and other actors. 
  2. Science-based
    Follow a scientifically anchored approach, incorporate well established and emerging scientific evidence, and converge towards other existing science-based initiatives. 
  3. Nature-related risks 
    Embrace nature-related risks that include immediate and material financial risks, as well as nature dependencies and impacts and their related organisational and societal risks. 
  4. Purpose driven 
    Actively reducing risks and increasing nature-positive action by using the minimum required level of granularity to ensure achievement of the TNFD goal. 
  5. Integrated and adaptive 
    Can be integrated into and enhance existing disclosures and other standards. Account for and be adaptive to changes in national and international policy commitments, standards and market conditions.
  6. Climate-nature nexus 
    Employ an integrated approach to climate- and nature-related risks, scaling up finance for nature-based solutions.
  7. Globally inclusive 
    Ensure the framework and approach is relevant and accessible worldwide, across emerging and developed markets. 
  • Getting started

    We recognise that every organisation is different often with their own pathway to adopting our recommendations.

    To help organisations get started we’ve created a useful Getting Started guide alongside a set of Additional Guidance and a range of useful tools and capacity building materials that can help organisations chart their course towards the identification, assessment, management and disclosure of nature-related issues.

    Getting started