The Future for Nature in Transition Planning

The climate and nature crises are interlinked: climate change is the third leading cause of nature loss, with natural ecosystems absorbing about half of_CO2 emissions and increasing our resilience to the effects of climate change.

Climate transition plans can affect or depend on nature: for example, the land-use change created by the extraction of metals essential for renewable energy, or the use of nature-based solutions to sequester carbon and adapt to the effects of climate change. These relationships can be reflected in climate transition plans using the TPT Disclosure Framework.

However, acting solely from the perspective of climate change will not be enough to address the nature crisis. It is critical that we halt and reverse nature loss: our fundamental dependence on nature also poses enormous risks to our economy. 55% of global GDP – some USD 58 trillion – depends moderately or heavily on healthy and functional ecosystem services.

Through the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (MGBKM), countries have committed to take urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. As in the case of the climate crisis, it will be essential to reorient business and financial flows to achieve the MGB objectives.

There is an opportunity to leverage the lessons of climate change to address the nature crisis, in particular, to develop tools to align the private sector with nature's goals, including the potential use of transition plans to consider nature as well as climate goals.

To date, however, the UK's transition policy, rules and planning requirements have focused on climate, following the UK Government's commitment to move towards mandatory climate transition planning at COP26.

This paper examines how TPT's approach to climate transition planning could be applied to nature's goals, and what can be done to create the enabling environment needed for companies to apply this approach in transition plans. It builds on a series of workshops held with the Nature Working Group in 2023 to consider the following issues:

• What are the business arguments for acting in favor of nature?
• What should be the strategic objectives of nature in transition plans?
• What capabilities and incentives do companies need, and where are there gaps currently?
• What solutions are needed to fill these gaps, and what are the implications for policymakers?