Despite the increased momentum on nature over recent years, not enough is being done. While 83% of Fortune Global 500 companies have climate change targets, only 25% have freshwater consumption targets, and just 5% have targets for biodiversity loss. Only 5% of companies have assessed their impacts on nature, with less than 1% understanding their dependencies.

Companies can contribute to “Nature Positive” by establishing credible nature strategies, where “Nature Positive” represents a “global societal goal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 on a 2020 baseline, and achieve full recovery by 2050”. Individual companies, financial institutions and investors can contribute to this shared goal by adopting nature-positive strategies across their spheres of control and influence, including at sites of high-biodiversity importance, in their direct operations as well as across their value chains (see figure below).  

Figure below: Spheres of control and influence 

A credible corporate nature strategy should be built on four high-level steps: assess, commit, transform and disclose (see figure below). Businesses can and should act now to:  

• Assess: Conduct an initial materiality assessment to prioritize efforts; identify, measure, value and prioritize your impacts and dependencies on nature; assess risks and opportunities; and consider climate and people within your nature assessment. 
• Commit: Define ambition and goals, and set transparent, time-bound, specific, science-based targets to put your company on the right track towards operating within the Earth’s limits. 
• Transform: Avoid and reduce negative impacts; restore and regenerate; shift business strategy and models; collaborate, both along your value chain and at a landscape, seascape and river basin level; advocate for ambitious policies and initiatives; and embed nature within your corporate governance. 
• Disclose: Disclose material nature-related information across all three high-level actions above; seek out independent validation and verification to enhance the credibility of actions; and align reporting with major reporting standards such as TNFD, International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) or the EU’s CSRD recommendations. 

Momentum is building. In May 2023, 17 companies started a target validation pilot for the SBTN methods. For more details, companies can refer to the Nature Strategy Handbook, a practical guide to support all businesses in developing a nature strategy. 

Figure below: ACT-D high-level business actions on nature