Kristina Wyatt on Climate, Nature and the Business Case for Resilience

Climate and nature have often been treated as separate conversations. Climate has largely been framed around emissions, transition planning and physical risk. Nature has followed a different path, focused on biodiversity, water, land and ecosystem health.

In practice, the two are difficult to separate. Forests, wetlands and working lands store carbon, regulate water, reduce flood risk and support supply chains. When these natural systems are degraded, the consequences are not only environmental. They can become operational and financial.

As part of the OneStop ESG Thought Leadership Series, this conversation with Kristina Wyatt explores what that shift means in practice, drawing on her experience across regulation, carbon accounting, corporate sustainability and conservation.

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Q1. You have worked across law, regulation, carbon accounting, corporate sustainability and now conservation. How has your view of sustainability changed over the course of your career?

KW: My view of sustainability has evolved over the course of my career to be sure. Early on, coming from a legal and regulatory background, I saw it largely through the lens of disclosure, governance, and risk management. I spend a great deal of time both working on regulatory disclosure rules related to climate at the SEC and then helping companies understand their obligations and improve transparency.

As I moved into carbon accounting, climate risk and corporate sustainability, I was keenly focused on the importance and also the limitations of metrics. Measurement is essential, but sustainability isn’t just a reporting exercise. The bigger challenge and opportunity is in how organizations integrate climate and nature risk into the way they operate and create long-term value.

My current work in conservation has broadened my perspective even more. It has reinforced for me how interconnected climate, biodiversity, water, working lands, and community resilience really are. Sustainability is not only about reducing negative impacts, it’s also about restoring and strengthening the natural systems that economies and communities depend on.

I think I’ve also become more pragmatic over time. Real progress happens when you can connect environmental goals with economic realities and bring together people with different perspectives, including business leaders, policymakers, scientists, investors, and local communities.

What’s encouraging to me is that the conversation has matured. We’ve moved beyond debating whether sustainability matters to focusing on how to scale credible, durable solutions. That feels like a much more meaningful place to be.

 

Q2. You have spoken about climate and nature being connected rather than separate reporting topics. How has joining The Conservation Fund sharpened that view, and what does it mean in practice for companies trying to assess risk, resilience and long-term value?

KW: Joining The Conservation Fund has really sharpened my view that climate and nature are inextricably connected issues. I honestly used to think about climate and nature in different buckets, with climate focused on carbon emissions and physical risks, and nature focused on biodiversity and physical dependencies. But in the real world, these systems are deeply interconnected.

Working in conservation makes that impossible to ignore. Forests, wetlands, regenerative farms, and grasslands are not only important for biodiversity; they are also critical climate infrastructure. They store carbon, improve water quality, reduce flood risk, support supply chains, and strengthen community resilience. When those systems are degraded, companies face very real operational and financial risks.

I think this has important implications for how companies think about risk and long-term value. A narrow focus on carbon alone can miss broader dependencies and vulnerabilities tied to land, water, and ecosystem health.

In practice, that means moving beyond siloed reporting toward a more integrated view of resilience and understanding where a company depends on natural systems, where it impacts them, and how investing in nature can support both environmental and business outcomes over time.

One of the things I appreciate most about The Conservation Fund is its very pragmatic approach. Conservation is not framed as being in opposition to economic growth. The focus is on creating durable solutions that work for communities, businesses, and the environment together. I think that mindset is going to become increasingly important as companies navigate climate and nature-related risks in the years ahead.

 

Q3. You have advised senior corporate leaders, CFOs and regulators on sustainability and disclosure. When you sit down with a company that still sees sustainability as a cost centre, what is the argument that actually lands?

KW: What frequently lands is moving the conversation away from sustainability as a standalone topic and toward business resilience and long-term performance.

Most senior leaders are already thinking about risk, capital allocation, operational stability, supply chain resilience, customer expectations, and competitiveness. When you sit down and talk with company leaders about their real risks and their plans to address those risks, you frequently find that climate and stabilization of natural systems are embedded within them.

I also think it’s important to meet companies where they are. Not every organization is motivated by the same things. For some, the driver is regulatory pressure or investor expectations. For others, it is physical climate risk, resource constraints, insurance costs, talent attraction, or customer demand. The most effective conversations are grounded in the company’s actual business realities, not abstract ideals.

With CFOs especially, credibility matters. They want to understand materiality, time horizons, tradeoffs, and where investments can create measurable value or reduce exposure over time. Framing sustainability purely as “doing good” is usually less effective than demonstrating how it connects to resilience, efficiency, innovation, and long-term value creation.

 

Q4. Sustainability regulation looks very different depending on whether you are in the US, Europe or Asia-Pacific. For boards navigating this patchwork, what should they be anchoring to?

 

KW: Boards should anchor to strategy, and long-term risk and opportunity, not just to the latest regulatory acronym or reporting framework.

The regulatory landscape is evolving, and it does look different across jurisdictions.

But underneath those differences, there are some common themes that are unlikely to go away, including growing expectations around transparency, better understanding of climate and nature-related risks, and increasing scrutiny of how sustainability issues affect long-term financial performance and resilience.

For boards, I think the key is not to approach this purely as a compliance exercise. If companies focus only on checking regulatory boxes in different jurisdictions, they can end up with fragmented reporting and disconnected strategies.

Instead, boards should stay anchored to the fundamentals: What are the company’s material risks and dependencies? Where are the operational, financial, and supply chain vulnerabilities? How could climate, nature, water, or social disruptions affect long-term value creation? And how prepared is the company to adapt?

Strong governance also matters. Boards do not need every director to be a sustainability expert, but they do need enough fluency to ask good questions, oversee strategy, and understand how these issues intersect with capital allocation, risk management, and corporate performance.

The companies that navigate this most effectively are the ones treating sustainability not as a moving compliance target, but as part of building a more resilient and future-ready business.

 

Q5. In your current work at The Conservation Fund, how do you see conservation, land use and nature-based solutions becoming more relevant to corporate risk, resilience and economic opportunity?

 

KW: I see conservation and land use becoming central to how companies think about both risk and opportunity. For a long time, these issues were often viewed as peripheral. They might have been viewed as important from a philanthropic or reputational standpoint but not necessarily core to business strategy. That is changing.

Some of the leading companies recognize that they depend on healthy natural systems in very tangible ways. Land, water, forests, soil health, and biodiversity all influence supply chains, operational continuity, insurance costs, infrastructure resilience, and long-term resource availability. When those systems are under stress, the business impacts are real.

Nature-based solutions are also gaining attention because they can address multiple challenges at once. Restoring forests and wetlands, improving agricultural practices, or conserving working lands can help companies meet their carbon reduction goals while also improving water quality, reducing flood risk, strengthening biodiversity, and benefiting local communities. That kind of integrated value proposition is important to both corporate resilience and economic development.

I also think companies are starting to understand that conservation is not just about mitigating downside risk. There are real opportunities tied to innovation, investment, supply chain stability, and partnerships that strengthen both environmental and economic outcomes over time.

 

Q6. Looking ahead, what gives you optimism that sustainability, conservation and business strategy can come together in a more practical and financially relevant way?

 

KW: What gives me hope is that the conversation around sustainability has become much more grounded in business reality. We are moving beyond viewing climate, nature, and conservation as separate from core business strategy and toward recognizing that they are directly connected to resilience, competitiveness, and long-term value creation.

I also think companies have a much clearer understanding now of the real-world risks tied to supply chains, resource constraints, extreme weather, water stress, and ecosystem degradation. These are no longer abstract future concerns. Rather, for many companies, they are operational and financial issues that businesses are already navigating today.

At the same time, the tools, data, and frameworks continue to improve. Companies are getting better at assessing climate and nature-related risks, measuring impacts, and identifying where investments in resilience can create both environmental and economic benefits.

What I find especially encouraging is the growing recognition that conservation and nature-based solutions can deliver multiple forms of value at once as I said earlier. That creates a much more practical and investable conversation.

I’m also optimistic because I see more cross-sector collaboration than I did earlier in my career. Businesses, investors, policymakers, conservation organizations, and local communities understand that these challenges are interconnected and that durable solutions require partnership.

 

Q7. You were closely involved in the development of the SEC’s climate disclosure rule and later worked with companies preparing for climate disclosure expectations. With the SEC no longer defending the rule, what do you think is the lasting impact of that work, and why does climate disclosure still matter even when mandates shift?

 

KW: I do think the SEC climate rule had a lasting impact, even if the rule itself is now in the process of being rescinded.

Before the rule, the reporting landscape was highly fragmented, with companies navigating many voluntary frameworks and inconsistent investor expectations. The SEC process helped drive greater alignment around the mechanism for thinking and talking about climate-related financial risks. We heard from companies that they wanted harmonization because the many different frameworks and all the questionnaires companies were responding to were incredibly burdensome. Investors told us they wanted consistent, comparable, reliable information about companies’ view of their climate risks. The rule went a long way to creating a unified framework for reporting.

Also, as we were drafting the climate proposal, we consulted with the IFRS Foundation as it developed what became the first ISSB standards. That effort helped drive harmonization between the SEC rule and the ultimate ISSB standards, through our own separate rulemaking and public consultation processes. Ultimately, the ISSB established a harmonized global baseline for sustainability reporting across jurisdictions. This created greater consistency and comparability for climate disclosures, and now the ISSB is poised to work on nature guidance. This harmonization was to the good for companies and investors and the benefits live on even as the SEC climate rule is in flux.