08 Jan 26 | Podcast
Have we been treating nature like a free factory?
Earthworm Foundation CEO Bastien Sachet reflects with Ian Welsh on why environmental and supply c...
There is a clear case for companies to be more focused on their impacts on nature
More than half of the world’s GDP is directly dependent on healthy ecosystems according to the World Economic Forum. Yet while over 80% of companies have climate mitigation strategies, only 5% have goals addressing biodiversity loss. This disconnect poses an existential risk.
Nature underpins the stability of the global economy but remains relatively invisible in commercial decision-making. The degradation of ecosystems threatens long-term resource availability, disrupts supply chains, and creates mounting regulatory and reputational risks.
From expense to strategic asset
Investing in nature-positive strategies presents tangible business benefits: reduced supply risk, enhanced resilience, improved brand value and access to emerging markets.
Companies that make nature a part of their core strategy timely, will be better positioned to deal with a number of challenges:
- Mitigate operational risks: Construction, agriculture, and food and beverage are the three largest industries that depend most on nature. They rely on the provision of ecosystem services such as healthy soils, clean water, pollination and a stable climate. As nature loses its capacity to provide such services, these industries could be significantly disrupted.
- Build investor trust: With 88% of institutional investors now integrating ESG into their investment decisions, companies that adopt nature-positive strategies align with investor priorities and can benefit from lower cost of equity and debt. This is also directly linked to tangible financial benefits such as preferential financing (such as sustainability-linked loans), and access to new capital markets and strategic partnerships.
- Diversify revenue opportunities: As regulatory and voluntary markets evolve, companies will be able to monetise their contributions to nature through mechanisms including biodiversity credits, ecosystem service payments and green financing.
A market for biodiversity
The European Commission’s recently announced Roadmap towards Nature Credits represents a critical shift from the somewhat carbon tunnel vision approach that has developed to creating scalable financial tools for implementing biodiversity and nature.
Nature credits represent verified, science-based, and independently certified improvements in ecosystem health. If implemented effectively, they will channel private capital into nature restoration at scale. For businesses, this represents a strategic opportunity to turn nature-positive action into a financial asset and lead in the shaping of future biodiversity markets.
Integrating nature
There are a number of options open for companies to start to embed a nature-focused approach.
1. Mapping biodiversity dependencies and risks: Understanding how business operations depend on, and impact nature is fundamental to identifying risks and opportunities. Over 55% of global GDP is moderately or highly dependent on nature, yet most companies lack visibility into where and how these dependencies occur (see Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures). Mapping these dependencies or measuring nature footprint across land-use, water use, marine ecosystem impacts, and biodiversity pressures is the first step to approaching nature strategically and practically.
2. Implementing sustainable sourcing: Given that supply chains are responsible for up to 90% of a company’s environmental impact (according to the Carbon Disclosure Project) sustainable sourcing is a critical lever for reducing biodiversity loss and achieving corporate nature goals. This includes looking critically at land-use change, deforestation, water use and pollution. Major multinationals have already established sustainable sourcing goals. Nestlé, for example, has committed to sourcing 20% of key ingredients through regenerative agriculture by end of 2025.
3. Investing in nature-based solutions: Nature-based solutions are interventions that protect, sustainably manage or restore ecosystems while delivering measurable benefits for climate, biodiversity and human well-being. Supporting on-the-ground efforts such as regenerative agriculture, aquaculture for marine biodiversity or agroforestry, companies can reduce supply chain risk, enhance community resilience, and contribute meaningfully to both scope 3 emissions reductions and nature-positive outcomes.
2. Implementing sustainable sourcing: Given that supply chains are responsible for up to 90% of a company’s environmental impact (according to the Carbon Disclosure Project) sustainable sourcing is a critical lever for reducing biodiversity loss and achieving corporate nature goals. This includes looking critically at land-use change, deforestation, water use and pollution. Major multinationals have already established sustainable sourcing goals. Nestlé, for example, has committed to sourcing 20% of key ingredients through regenerative agriculture by end of 2025.
3. Investing in nature-based solutions: Nature-based solutions are interventions that protect, sustainably manage or restore ecosystems while delivering measurable benefits for climate, biodiversity and human well-being. Supporting on-the-ground efforts such as regenerative agriculture, aquaculture for marine biodiversity or agroforestry, companies can reduce supply chain risk, enhance community resilience, and contribute meaningfully to both scope 3 emissions reductions and nature-positive outcomes.
4. Establishing accountability frameworks: Clear accountability is essential to ensure biodiversity commitments lead to real impact. Currently, fewer than 10% of companies have set measurable targets or disclose progress for biodiversity. Tools such as biodiversity risk filters, spatial monitoring platforms, and blockchain-enabled monitoring, reporting and verification systems can enable traceable, science-based reporting. Once implemented, the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) will further mandate biodiversity disclosures for 50,000+ companies, making accountability not just best practice, but a compliance issue.
Recently, Innovation Forum organised a closed-door workshop with Pure Strategies looking at how companies can effectively converge climate and nature strategies. There is more about what a structured approach for companies to assess their impacts, align internally and drive strategic action across climate and biodiversity can look like here.
Nature as business imperative
The path forward is clear: embedding nature-positive strategies into the core of business and investment models is clearly beneficial for long-term profitability, regulatory compliance and supply chain resilience.
Nature is not just a moral imperative but a business one. By redefining nature as a strategic asset and making it a part of the core sustainability strategy, businesses and investors can play a decisive role in shaping a future where people, planet, and profit thrive together.
To learn more about how to make the case for biodiversity, ecosystem restoration and regeneration as a core component of long-term growth and business success, join us at the Sustainable Commodities and Landscapes Forum later this year on 21-22 October in Amsterdam.
