Nature Finds Its Reporting Line: Two Years On, the TNFD Moves From Framework to Practice

When the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures set out its recommendations in September 2023, a slow adoption curve would have been the safe bet. Nature is harder to measure than carbon, more local, and less familiar to the finance teams who had spent a decade learning to count emissions. Two years later, that expectation looks too cautious. The TNFD's first status report, published in September 2025, reads less like an early progress note and more like evidence of a discipline beginning to establish itself.

TNFD at a glance

• 733 organisations across 56 countries now committed to TNFD-aligned reporting
• Around USD 22.4 trillion in assets under management and USD 9.4 trillion in market capitalisation among adopters
• 500+ aligned reports published, at an average of 8.7 of the 14 recommended disclosures
• 63% see nature-related risk as at least as significant as climate
• 78% integrate their nature and climate reporting
• 79% of investors have used or are considering the TNFD to assess nature-related risk in their portfolios

Adoption figures as at COP30 (November 2025); reporting figures from the September 2025 Status Report, covering data to 31 July 2025; investor figure from the Responsible Investor Nature Survey (n=100) cited in the report.

 

The pace of adoption

 

The report's baseline is substantial on its own terms. By the end of July 2025, more than 620 organisations representing over USD 20 trillion in assets under management had committed to getting started with TNFD-aligned reporting, over 500 first- and second-generation reports carrying some alignment to the recommendations had already been published, and more than 1,800 organisations had joined the TNFD Forum to learn how to identify, assess and disclose their nature-related issues.

The trajectory has since steepened. Ahead of COP30 in November 2025, the TNFD announced that more than 733 organisations across 56 countries and areas had committed to begin making TNFD-aligned disclosures, a 46% rise in commitments in a single year. The financial institutions among them now oversee around USD 22.4 trillion in assets under management, and the publicly listed adopters represent roughly USD 9.4 trillion in market capitalisation. These are commitments to begin reporting rather than a claim that every adopter has already issued a complete report, and alignment with the TNFD is not a certification or an assurance stamp. But the momentum is real. For a voluntary framework covering an issue most executives could not have defined in financial terms three years ago, this is fast movement.

 

Nature becomes a financial question

 

What makes the report more interesting than a tally of adopters is what it suggests about how business and finance now think. Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents, 63%, said their nature-related risks and opportunities were as significant as, or more significant than, their climate-related ones. That is a meaningful statement. It places water availability, land use, biodiversity, pollution and supply-chain dependencies alongside carbon as matters that can affect operational continuity, asset values, access to finance and long-term returns.

This reframing has been building for a while, helped along by work such as the Dasgupta Review on the economics of biodiversity, which did for nature something similar to what the Stern Review did for climate. The practical consequence is that companies are beginning to treat ecosystem resilience as a business input rather than a reputational side project. A beverage company thinking seriously about the watersheds it draws on, or a lender examining the deforestation exposure buried in its portfolio, is doing financial analysis, not corporate social responsibility. The TNFD's assessment approach, known as LEAP, gives them a structured way to locate where they touch nature, evaluate their dependencies and impacts, and assess the risks and opportunities that follow.

 

Climate and nature, together

 

Perhaps the most interesting finding is how many organisations are folding nature into work they already do. Of respondents publishing nature-related disclosures, 78% integrated them with their climate-related reporting. The two agendas, treated as separate for years, are converging in practice.

That convergence makes sense once you consider how the frameworks were built. The language, structure and four‑pillar architecture of the TNFD recommendations were designed to echo the climate reporting many companies had already adopted, which lets reporting teams build on existing governance, strategy and risk-management processes rather than start from scratch. Nature adds demands that climate reporting does not, chiefly the need for location-specific and ecosystem-level analysis, since a factory's effect on a river depends entirely on which river. But the foundations are shared, and reporters are using them. The TNFD's guidance on nature in transition planning, released in late 2025, pushes this integration further by helping companies bring nature into the transition plans they are already writing for climate.

 

Investors set the pace

 

If there is an engine behind all of this, it is investor demand. The report found that 77% of surveyed asset managers and asset owners wanted a dedicated nature-related reporting standard based on the TNFD. Investors have grown more aware of the nature risk sitting quietly in their portfolios, and they have been vocal about wanting consistent, comparable information to act on it, whether for stewardship, portfolio risk management or capital allocation.

That appetite has now received a consequential response. The International Sustainability Standards Board is developing proposed nature-related disclosure guidance in the form of an IFRS Practice Statement, drawing extensively on the TNFD framework. An exposure draft is expected in October 2026. Although the final form remains subject to consultation, TNFD's recommendations, metrics, guidance and LEAP approach are helping shape the emerging global baseline for nature-related disclosure.

TNFD, meanwhile, has said it will complete the technical work already under way by the third quarter of 2026 and then pause the development of further technical guidance while supporting the ISSB process. Combined with alignment already developed with GRI and European reporting requirements, this brings the outline of a more consistent global reporting architecture for nature into view.

 

Building the capacity to report well

 

None of this means the work is finished, and the report is candid about where practice is still maturing. Companies reporting against the framework disclosed an average of 8.7 of the 14 recommended disclosures, a strong opening position with clear room to deepen. Metrics and data remain the frontier, particularly for aspects of nature beyond the familiar territory of water, waste and forestry, where measurement methods and data availability are still catching up with ambition.

The encouraging part is how quickly that frontier is being pushed outward. Advances in geospatial analysis, remote sensing and other nature-data technologies are widening the range of information available to companies and financial institutions. The TNFD has proposed a Nature Data Public Facility and a set of recommendations to upgrade the wider nature-data value chain, aimed at giving reporters streamlined access to high-quality baseline data while strengthening the public institutions that collect it. Sector guidance, capacity-building materials and a growing training ecosystem are helping preparers build internal expertise. The practical message running through all of it is that organisations do not need perfect data to begin. They can start with their priority sectors, commodities and locations and widen the scope and depth of their analysis over time.

 

A baseline, and a launchpad

 

The context makes the momentum easy to understand. Almost 70% of respondents already face sustainability-reporting requirements or expect to within three years, and engagement has been strongest in Asia-Pacific, with Japan a notable leader. The regulatory tide and the market's own appetite are moving in the same direction.

Read as a whole, the TNFD's first status report is best understood as a baseline rather than a verdict. It captures a market that has, in two years, taken nature from the margins of the sustainability conversation and given it a reporting line, an assessment method and a route towards a global standard. The next phase will be about completeness, depth and usefulness: richer metrics, wider coverage across the realms of nature, and disclosures that investors can act on with confidence. On the evidence of this report, the foundations are laid and the building has already begun.

The next opportunity to measure that progress is already under way. The TNFD's survey for its 2026 Status Report, a global stocktake of progress in nature-related assessment, reporting and decision-making, is now open, with responses invited until 14 August 2026. The findings will inform the second Status Report due to release during Climate Week NYC in September 2026.

 

Link to TNFD Status Report 2025 - here

Link to TNFD Status Report  Survey 2026 - here

 

Sources: TNFD 2025 Status Report (September 2025); TNFD adoption figures announced ahead of COP30 (November 2025); ISSB and IFRS Foundation announcements on nature-related standard-setting; the Responsible Investor Nature Survey; and the TNFD website.