What TNFD is
The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures is a global, market-led initiative set up to help companies and investors take nature into account. It published its final recommendations in September 2023. They describe themselves as suitable for organisations of all sizes, and they include 14 recommended disclosures about a business's dependencies and impacts on nature, and the risks and opportunities that follow.
If you know climate reporting, the shape is familiar. TNFD copied the four pillars and all 11 recommended disclosures from TCFD, and added three of its own. The pillars are governance, strategy, risk and impact management, and metrics and targets. Our post on climate risk for small suppliers explains the climate version in plain English.
Dependencies and impacts
Two ideas carry most of the weight:
- Dependencies are what the business relies on from nature: clean water, timber, crops, a stable climate, pollination for growers.
- Impacts are what the business does to nature: water used and polluted, waste sent to landfill, land built on, emissions.
A risk is where either could hurt the business, for example a water shortage, or new rules on a material you use. An opportunity is the reverse, such as customers paying more for products that do less harm.
LEAP, scaled down
TNFD's guidance for assessing nature is called LEAP. For a small firm, each step can be a short conversation rather than a project:
- Locate. Where are your sites and your main suppliers? Are any next to rivers, protected land or areas short of water?
- Evaluate. What do you rely on, and what do you affect? List water, materials, waste and land.
- Assess. Which of those could become a real cost or opportunity, and how soon?
- Prepare. Decide what to do, what to measure and what you would say if a customer asks.
Is any of it required?
| What | Position in October 2026 |
|---|---|
| TNFD recommendations | Voluntary, for any organisation |
| ISSB nature guidance | A Practice Statement drawing on TNFD, to be used with the ISSB's general and climate standards. An exposure draft was planned for October 2026, with a 120-day consultation. It had not opened for comment when we checked on 19 October 2026 |
| UK reporting rules | No separate nature reporting requirement. Listed companies reporting under UK SRS must cover material sustainability risks generally, which can include nature, with two years' relief before they have to go beyond climate |
| Biodiversity net gain (England) | A planning rule: most new planning permissions must deliver at least a 10% gain in biodiversity value. Exemptions were amended in 2026 |
So for most small businesses, nature arrives the way carbon did: through customers' questionnaires first. Our post on what UK SRS customers ask suppliers shows the pattern.
Where nature and carbon overlap
You don't need a new system to make a start, because several nature questions are about things a carbon footprint already counts. Water is the clearest. An illustrative office using 1,000 cubic metres of mains water a year, with 950 cubic metres going back to the sewer, produces 354 kg CO2e from supply and treatment with the 2026 government factors (0.1913 kg per cubic metre supplied). That is small in carbon terms, but the cubic metres themselves are the first nature metric most customers ask for. Waste is the same: the tonnes you report for carbon are the tonnes a nature question wants. See waste emissions from your contractor's data.
How Carbon Recycling helps
Carbon Recycling is a carbon reporting tool, not a biodiversity assessment, and we won't pretend otherwise. What it does is keep the records that nature questions start from: water supplied and treated, and waste by type and disposal route, alongside your energy and travel, each converted to CO2e with the government factors and kept year by year. When a customer asks about water or waste, the quantities and their emissions are already there.