More than half of global GDP is moderately or highly dependent on nature, according to the World Economic Forum, yet most organizations have no structured way to assess their dependence on ecosystems or report nature-related risks. The TNFD framework addresses that gap. Released in September 2023, it provides a standardized approach for organizations to identify, assess, and disclose risks and opportunities related to nature and biodiversity.
The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) builds on the same structure as the TCFD framework but extends it from climate to the broader natural environment. Where TCFD focuses on climate-related financial risks, the TNFD framework covers biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, water pollution, land use change, and resource exploitation.
Below, you will learn what the TNFD framework requires, how the LEAP approach works, what the four pillars cover, whether reporting is mandatory, and what data organizations need to start.
What Is the TNFD Framework?
The TNFD framework is a set of 14 recommended disclosures organized around four pillars: governance, strategy, risk and impact management, and metrics and targets. It was developed by a global taskforce of 40 members from financial institutions, corporations, and market service providers, with Global Canopy, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) and WWF as founding partners.
The framework applies to all sectors, but is most relevant for organizations with significant nature dependencies: agriculture, food and beverage, mining, forestry, real estate, and financial services. Any company with operations or supply chains that touch land, water, or marine ecosystems can benefit from TNFD-aligned reporting.
Unlike many sustainability frameworks, the TNFD framework emphasizes location-specific assessment. Nature-related risks vary dramatically by geography. A palm oil supplier in Southeast Asia faces different biodiversity risks than a mining company in South America. The framework asks organizations to identify where they interface with nature and, under Strategy Disclosure D, to disclose the locations that qualify as priority locations.
The TNFD’s 2025 Status Report counted some 620 organizations from over 50 countries and areas, representing more than USD 20 trillion in assets under management, publicly committed to TNFD-aligned reporting as of July 31, 2025. The TNFD published its 2026 Status Report on September 21, 2026. The framework also supports Target 15 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which asks governments to ensure that large companies and financial institutions regularly monitor, assess and disclose their risks, dependencies and impacts on biodiversity. The biggest change since 2025 is at the global standard-setter, where the ISSB is now writing nature-related disclosure requirements that draw on the TNFD framework.
The Four Pillars of TNFD
The TNFD framework organizes its 14 recommended disclosures into four pillars that mirror the TCFD structure. Each pillar addresses a different aspect of nature-related risk management.
The table below lists all 14 recommended disclosures. The three marked as new have no TCFD equivalent.
| Pillar | Recommended disclosure |
|---|---|
| Governance | A. Board oversight of nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities |
| Governance | B. Management’s role in assessing and managing them |
| Governance | C. Human rights policies and engagement with Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities and affected stakeholders (new) |
| Strategy | A. Dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities identified over the short, medium and long term |
| Strategy | B. Effect on the business model, value chain, strategy and financial planning, including any transition plans |
| Strategy | C. Resilience of the strategy under different scenarios |
| Strategy | D. Locations of assets and activities that meet the criteria for priority locations (new) |
| Risk and impact management | A(i). Processes to identify, assess and prioritize issues in direct operations |
| Risk and impact management | A(ii). The same processes for upstream and downstream value chains (new) |
| Risk and impact management | B. Processes to manage nature-related issues |
| Risk and impact management | C. How these processes feed overall risk management |
| Metrics and targets | A. Metrics for material nature-related risks and opportunities |
| Metrics and targets | B. Metrics for dependencies and impacts on nature |
| Metrics and targets | C. Targets and goals, and performance against them |
Six general requirements apply across all four pillars. They cover how the organization applied materiality, the scope of its disclosures, the location of nature-related issues, integration with other sustainability reporting, time horizons, and engagement with Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities and affected stakeholders.
Pillar 1: Governance. Disclose how your organization’s board and management oversee nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities. Describe the roles, responsibilities, and competencies related to nature. Organizations should demonstrate that nature-related issues receive the same governance attention as climate or financial risks.
Pillar 2: Strategy. Describe the nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities you have identified. Explain how these affect your business model, strategy, and financial planning. The TNFD framework asks organizations to consider short, medium, and long-term time horizons and to conduct scenario analysis where feasible. TNFD makes this concrete in Strategy Disclosure D, which asks organizations to disclose the locations of assets and activities that meet the criteria for priority locations (locations that are material and/or ecologically sensitive).
Pillar 3: Risk and impact management. Describe your processes for identifying, assessing, and managing nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities. Explain how these processes integrate with your overall risk management framework. The TNFD framework distinguishes between dependencies (what you rely on from nature) and impacts (what effects you have on nature).
Pillar 4: Metrics and targets. Disclose the metrics and targets used to assess and manage nature-related risks. Report on your performance against those targets. The TNFD framework recommends both core global metrics (applicable to all organizations) and sector-specific metrics.
How the TNFD LEAP Approach Works
The TNFD framework introduces the LEAP approach as a practical methodology for organizations to assess nature-related issues. LEAP stands for Locate, Evaluate, Assess, and Prepare. It provides a step-by-step process for turning the framework’s recommendations into actionable analysis. TNFD recommends a short scoping exercise before Locate, to agree the assessment’s goals, resources and likely data gaps. For a detailed walkthrough of all 16 sub-components (L1-L4, E1-E4, A1-A4, P1-P4), see our TNFD LEAP approach guide.
L: Locate. Identify where your organization interfaces with nature. Map your direct operations, upstream supply chain locations, and downstream distribution points. For each location, determine the biome, ecosystem type, and proximity to sensitive areas such as protected zones, Key Biodiversity Areas, or high-integrity ecosystems. Continuuiti’s LULC+ analysis automates much of the Locate screen: land cover classification, protected-area proximity from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0), ecoregion and conservation-priority context (RESOLVE), and deforestation and land-use change (Hansen Global Forest Change). Our climate risk screen adds basin-level water stress from WRI Aqueduct. Together these cover four of TNFD’s five sensitive-location criteria at a screening level. OpenStreetMap protected-area boundaries are mapped by contributors, so coverage varies by country. The screen does not replace Key Biodiversity Area, species, or ecosystem-service-provision data, which a full LEAP assessment adds on top. Our guide to the TNFD Locate step maps each criterion to the data behind it.
E: Evaluate. Assess your dependencies on ecosystem services (pollination, water filtration, soil fertility, climate regulation) and your impacts on nature (habitat conversion, pollution, resource extraction). Prioritize the locations and business activities with the highest dependencies and impacts.
A: Assess. Analyze the nature-related risks and opportunities arising from your dependencies and impacts. Quantify the financial materiality where possible. Consider physical risks (ecosystem degradation that disrupts operations), transition risks (policy changes like the EU Deforestation Regulation), and systemic risks (tipping points in ecosystem function).
P: Prepare. Develop your response strategy, set targets and metrics, and prepare your TNFD-aligned disclosures. Define management actions for priority risks and establish monitoring processes for ongoing assessment.
The Four Realms of Nature in TNFD
The TNFD framework organizes nature into four realms that reflect different environmental systems. Organizations should consider their interactions with each realm when conducting their LEAP assessment.
Land. Terrestrial ecosystems including forests, grasslands, wetlands, and agricultural land. Land-related risks include deforestation, soil degradation, habitat loss, and land use change. Organizations with agricultural supply chains or real estate portfolios have significant land realm exposure.
Ocean. Marine and coastal ecosystems including coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds, and deep-sea environments. Ocean-related risks include pollution, overfishing, acidification, and coastal erosion. Shipping, fisheries, and coastal infrastructure face direct ocean realm risks.
Freshwater. Rivers, lakes, aquifers, and freshwater wetlands. Freshwater risks include water stress, pollution, groundwater depletion, and altered flow regimes. Nearly every sector depends on freshwater, making it the most universally relevant realm. TNFD’s LEAP guidance lists WRI’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas among the reference datasets for finding areas of high water stress.
Atmosphere. The climate system and air quality. While climate-related risks overlap with TCFD, the TNFD framework considers atmospheric connections to nature more broadly, including how climate change drives biodiversity loss and ecosystem shifts.
TNFD vs TCFD: Key Differences
The TNFD framework deliberately mirrors the TCFD structure to reduce reporting burden, but several important differences exist. For a single property, the practical difference between the two lenses is worked through in our explainer on climate risk vs nature risk.
| Aspect | TCFD | TNFD |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Climate-related risks only | All nature-related risks (biodiversity, water, land, oceans) |
| Assessment approach | Scenario analysis | LEAP approach (location-based) |
| Location specificity | Optional | Required (nature is location-dependent) |
| Dependencies | Not explicitly covered | Central concept (what you rely on from nature) |
| Impacts | Financial impact of climate on the company | Assesses the organization’s impacts on nature as well as the financial impact on the company |
| Materiality | Financial materiality | Financial-materiality baseline (same as TCFD and ISSB); impact materiality optional, or where a jurisdiction requires it (for example EU CSRD). The organization states which approach it used. |
| Pillars | 4 (Governance, Strategy, Risk Management, Metrics) | 4 (same structure, expanded to include impacts) |
| Disclosures | 11 recommended disclosures | 14 recommended disclosures (adds stakeholder engagement, priority locations, value chain) |
Organizations already reporting under TCFD have a head start. The governance and strategy disclosures overlap significantly. The main additional work for TNFD involves the location-based LEAP assessment, dependencies analysis, and nature-specific metrics. The UNEP Finance Initiative’s guidance on TNFD provides practical advice for financial institutions making this transition.
Is TNFD Mandatory?
The TNFD framework itself is voluntary. Organizations choose to adopt it as a best-practice approach to nature-related disclosure. As of September 2026, no jurisdiction requires TNFD reporting by name. The pressure comes from three places: the ISSB, EU law, and national rules for financial institutions.
The ISSB is the biggest change. In late 2025 it moved its nature work from research to standard-setting, drawing on the TNFD’s recommendations, metrics and guidance, including the LEAP approach. In April 2026 it agreed to propose the requirements as an IFRS Practice Statement that sits alongside IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 without changing them. On July 21, 2026 the ISSB cleared the exposure draft for balloting with a 120-day comment period, and it aims to publish the draft in October 2026. Companies can choose to apply a Practice Statement and jurisdictions can mandate it; a company that says it complies must meet all of its requirements. In response, the TNFD said it would complete its in-progress technical work by the third quarter of 2026 and pause any further technical guidance, and the ISSB’s chair encouraged market participants to continue using the TNFD framework.
In the EU, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires companies in scope to report on biodiversity and ecosystems under ESRS E4 when their materiality assessment finds the topic material. The 2026 Omnibus amendment, Directive (EU) 2026/470, narrows the scope to EU companies with more than 1,000 employees and more than EUR 450 million in net turnover. ESRS E4 and TNFD were developed alongside each other and share core concepts, including location-specific assessment and nature dependencies; EFRAG and the TNFD have worked on aligning the two. Companies reporting under CSRD will find significant overlap with the TNFD framework.
In France, Article 29 of the 2019 Energy-Climate Law and its 2021 decree require financial market participants, including insurers, to report on risks linked to biodiversity loss and to publish a strategy for aligning with international biodiversity goals. Elsewhere the signals are voluntary. Japan’s Financial Services Agency features TNFD-based reporting in its 2025 casebook of good disclosure practice, and Australia’s Sustainable Finance Roadmap funds tools for voluntary nature-related reporting while the government waits for the ISSB’s global baseline.
For organizations operating globally, early TNFD adoption serves a practical purpose: it builds the data collection and assessment processes needed if mandatory requirements take effect. Companies that have already completed their LEAP assessment and published TNFD-aligned reports will face a much smaller compliance burden if regulations arrive in their jurisdiction.
CDP merged its climate, forests and water security questionnaires into one corporate questionnaire in 2024 and is aligning it with TNFD in phases, starting where TNFD mirrors TCFD. Organizations that respond to CDP are already generating some of the data TNFD disclosures need.
How to Get Started with TNFD Reporting
Adopting the TNFD framework does not require a complete overhaul of your reporting processes. The taskforce recommends a phased approach that builds on existing capabilities.
Start with the Locate phase. Map your direct operations and priority supply chain locations. Identify which locations overlap with or are near sensitive ecological areas. Land cover analysis tools can automate the mapping of protected areas, Key Biodiversity Areas, and ecosystem types at each location.
Build on existing TCFD reporting. If you already report under TCFD, reuse your governance and strategy disclosures. Expand them to include nature alongside climate. The TNFD framework was designed for this kind of incremental adoption.
Focus on material sectors. Prioritize the parts of your value chain with the highest nature dependencies. For most organizations, this means agricultural supply chains, water-intensive operations, or locations near high-biodiversity areas.
Use available data sources. TNFD’s LEAP guidance lists example tools such as IBAT (Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool), ENCORE (Exploring Natural Capital Opportunities, Risks and Exposure), and UNEP datasets. Satellite-based land cover data provides the spatial information needed for the Locate phase without requiring on-the-ground surveys.
Connect climate and nature reporting. Organizations already conducting climate risk management can integrate nature-related assessments into their existing workflows. Many of the same locations exposed to climate hazards also face nature-related dependencies, and a unified assessment avoids duplicated effort.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the TNFD framework?
The TNFD framework is a set of 14 recommended disclosures that help organizations identify, assess, and report nature-related risks and opportunities. Released in September 2023 by the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, it provides a standardized approach for reporting on biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, and nature dependencies.
What are the 4 pillars of TNFD?
The four pillars of TNFD are governance, strategy, risk and impact management, and metrics and targets. These mirror the TCFD structure but are expanded to cover nature-related dependencies and impacts alongside financial risks. Each pillar contains specific recommended disclosures that organizations should report on.
Is TNFD mandatory?
The TNFD framework is voluntary, and as of September 2026 no jurisdiction requires TNFD reporting by name. EU companies in CSRD scope report on biodiversity under ESRS E4 when it is material, and France requires certain financial institutions to report biodiversity risks. The ISSB plans to publish draft nature-related requirements that draw on TNFD in October 2026, which jurisdictions could later choose to mandate.
What is a TNFD assessment?
A TNFD assessment uses the LEAP approach (Locate, Evaluate, Assess, Prepare) to analyze an organization’s relationship with nature. It starts by mapping where operations interface with ecosystems, evaluates dependencies and impacts on nature, assesses resulting financial risks and opportunities, and prepares disclosures and management actions. The assessment is location-specific, meaning it examines each site’s unique ecological context.
Is TNFD a standard or framework?
TNFD is a voluntary disclosure framework. It sets out recommendations, and no law makes them binding on their own. The ISSB is now drawing on the TNFD framework to write nature-related requirements, proposed as an IFRS Practice Statement alongside IFRS S1 and IFRS S2, with an exposure draft planned for October 2026.
What are the 4 realms of nature according to TNFD?
The four realms of nature in the TNFD framework are land (terrestrial ecosystems), ocean (marine and coastal ecosystems), freshwater (rivers, lakes, and aquifers), and atmosphere (climate system and air quality). Organizations should assess their dependencies on and impacts across all relevant realms.
How does TNFD differ from TCFD?
TNFD expands beyond TCFD’s climate focus to cover all nature-related risks including biodiversity, water, land use, and ocean health. Key differences include TNFD’s location-specific LEAP assessment approach, its focus on the organization’s impacts on and dependencies on nature (as well as financial impact), and 14 recommended disclosures compared to TCFD’s 11. On materiality, TNFD keeps a financial-materiality baseline like ISSB and treats impact materiality as optional or jurisdiction-driven.
How many TNFD recommendations are there?
The TNFD framework includes 14 recommended disclosures organized across four pillars. This is three more than TCFD’s 11 recommendations. The three additional disclosures address stakeholder rights and engagement, priority locations for nature-related issues, and upstream and downstream value chain risk and impact management.
Is TNFD aligned with ISSB?
Yes. TNFD uses the same four-pillar structure as IFRS S2 and recommends the ISSB’s definition of material information as its baseline. Since late 2025 the ISSB has been drawing on the TNFD recommendations, metrics and LEAP guidance to write nature-related disclosure requirements. It plans to publish them as a draft IFRS Practice Statement for public comment in October 2026.
Who has adopted TNFD?
According to the TNFD’s 2025 Status Report, some 620 organizations from over 50 countries and areas had publicly committed to TNFD-aligned reporting as of July 31, 2025, representing more than USD 20 trillion in assets under management. Adopters include companies and financial institutions across sectors. The TNFD’s 2026 Status Report, published September 21, 2026, carries the latest count.
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Conclusion
The TNFD framework gives organizations a structured way to assess and disclose nature-related risks that extend beyond climate alone. Its LEAP approach provides a practical methodology for identifying where your operations interface with nature, evaluating your dependencies and impacts, and preparing disclosures that investors and regulators increasingly expect. With more than 620 committed adopters, ESRS E4 in force in the EU, and ISSB draft requirements due in October 2026, organizations that start their TNFD assessment now will be better positioned if nature-related reporting becomes mandatory where they operate.
