The corporate sustainability landscape is undergoing a profound evolution. In 2025, just cutting carbon isn't enough. As over 100 countries have set or are considering net-zero emissions targets, covering close to 90% of global emissions, forward-thinking organizations are recognizing that climate action alone cannot secure a sustainable future. Nature-positive commitments—strategies that actively restore ecosystems and reverse biodiversity loss—are emerging as the critical next frontier in corporate environmental stewardship.

The pressure is broader now coming from every direction. Regulators. Investors. Customers. They're not just asking companies to reduce harm. They're asking what they're restoring. This shift reflects a fundamental truth: over half of global GDP depends on healthy ecosystems. When nature breaks down, supply chains get hit, input costs rise, and regulatory risks spike.

This comprehensive guide explores how organizations can move beyond net-zero carbon targets to embrace nature-positive commitments, integrating frameworks like SBTN and TNFD, setting measurable targets, and realizing both financial and reputational benefits through early action.

From Net-Zero to Nature-Positive: Expanding Corporate Commitments

Understanding the Nature-Positive Paradigm

Nature-positive means shifting from minimizing damage to actively restoring nature. That includes forests, soil, water systems, and biodiversity. It's not charity—it's long-term risk management and value creation. While net-zero focused on carbon, nature-positive deals with everything carbon doesn't: ecosystems, land use, species loss. It's broader and in some sectors, more urgent.

Key Distinctions:

• Net-Zero: Focuses primarily on greenhouse gas emissions, aiming to balance emissions with removals

• Nature-Positive: Addresses the full spectrum of environmental impacts including biodiversity, water, soil health, and ecosystem function

• Integration: Both are essential and mutually reinforcing—you cannot achieve net-zero without nature, and restored ecosystems are critical carbon sinks

The Business Imperative

In the same way net-zero redefined carbon accountability, nature-positive is redefining natural capital. And the companies that move early will not only hit their compliance targets but shape new standards, build brand equity, and open doors to capital that's increasingly flowing toward regeneration.

Market Momentum:

• As of November 2023, around 145 countries had announced or are considering net zero targets, covering 92% of global GDP

• 65% of the largest 2,000 publicly traded companies by annual revenue have net zero targets

• Over 480 non-state actors, specifically businesses and financial institutions, have committed to Nature Positive for Climate Action

Financial Reality: According to UNEP's State of Finance for Nature report, the USD 4.1 trillion financing gap in nature must be closed by 2050 for the world to meet its climate change, biodiversity and land degradation goals.

Complementary Frameworks: SBTN and TNFD

Science Based Targets for Nature (SBTN)

Building on the momentum of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), SBTN provides companies with science-based targets for nature across freshwater, land, ocean, and biodiversity. The framework enables organizations to set targets that are:

• Scientifically Grounded: Based on the best available ecological science and planetary boundaries

• Measurable: With clear metrics and methodologies for tracking progress

• Actionable: Providing practical pathways for implementation across operations and value chains

• Aligned with Global Goals: Supporting the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework

Companies are encouraged to set science-based targets for climate and nature, integrating both into strategic planning, recognizing their interdependence.

Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD)

The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) has developed a set of disclosure recommendations and guidance that encourage and enable business and finance to assess, report and act on their nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities. Released in final form in September 2023, the TNFD framework represents a watershed moment for corporate nature accountability.

Adoption and Impact:

• By 2025, over 500 organizations have committed to adopting the framework

• Over 500 companies from 54 jurisdictions that include 25 emerging economies, are working towards the adoption of TNFD-aligned reporting as of January 2025

• These companies represent $6.5 trillion in market capitalization, with financial institutions managing $17.7 trillion in assets

• As of July 2025, over 1800 companies have joined the TNFD Forum, and over 600 companies have voluntarily committed to disclosing information based on the TNFD recommendations, with a total market value of $7 trillion

How TNFD Complements Climate Frameworks

The TNFD Framework is built around the same four pillars as the framework of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD):

1. Governance: The board's oversight of, and management's role in, assessing and managing nature-related issues

2. Strategy: Nature-related issues identified over short, medium and long term, and their effect on business model and strategy

3. Risk & Impact Management: Processes for identifying and managing nature-related issues across value chains

4. Metrics & Targets: Performance in relation to nature-related issues, including progress towards targets

The TNFD Framework integrates all 11 TCFD-recommended disclosures by broadly substituting references to 'climate' with 'nature'. In addition, the TNFD Framework provides three new disclosures centred around: (i) stakeholder rights and engagement; (ii) priority locations to accommodate specific considerations arising from regional differences; and (iii) upstream and downstream value-chain risk and impact management.

Interoperability: The TNFD Framework is designed to be interoperable with the ISSB's Sustainability Disclosure Standards. In 2025, the TNFD signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the IFRS Foundation, aiming to align its framework with the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), enhancing global consistency in sustainability reporting.

Setting Nature-Positive Targets: A Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Identify Priority Ecosystems and Locations

The TNFD recommends that organizations disclose where interactions with nature are taking place. The geography could heighten or increase the risk profile. Location specificity is essential because biodiversity isn't like carbon. You can't just plug in a number. It's location-specific, seasonal, and complex.

Assessment Priorities:

• Direct Operations: Where do your facilities, manufacturing sites, and offices interface with nature?

• Supply Chain Hotspots: Which suppliers operate in biodiversity-sensitive regions or rely heavily on ecosystem services?

• Value Chain Impact: Where do upstream and downstream activities create the most significant nature dependencies or impacts?

• Critical Ecosystems: Are operations connected to watersheds, wetlands, forests, or marine ecosystems that provide essential services?

Tools and Resources:

• Use spatial analysis tools to map operations against biodiversity hotspots

• Leverage the TNFD LEAP approach for businesses and financial institutions to assess, monitor, disclose and report on nature-related risks, dependencies, impacts and opportunities

• Consult regional biodiversity databases and indigenous knowledge systems

Step 2: Assess Dependencies and Impacts

Organizations must understand their nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities. This requires systematic analysis across multiple dimensions:

Dependencies Analysis:

• Water: Quantity and quality requirements for operations, cooling, processing

• Pollination: Agricultural supply chains dependent on insect populations

• Climate Regulation: Reliance on forests, wetlands, and oceans for temperature and precipitation regulation

• Raw Materials: Timber, fiber, genetic resources sourced from natural ecosystems

• Coastal Protection: Infrastructure dependent on mangroves, coral reefs, or coastal wetlands

Impact Assessment:

• Land Use Change: Conversion, fragmentation, or degradation of natural habitats

• Pollution: Chemical, plastic, nutrient, noise, or light pollution affecting ecosystems

• Resource Exploitation: Overextraction of water, fish, timber, or other resources

• Climate Change Contributions: GHG emissions that exacerbate ecosystem stress

• Invasive Species: Unintentional introduction or spread

Entities should disclose any dependencies with, or impacts on, nature, including details of any risks or key opportunities.

Step 3: Set Measurable Goals Aligned with Science

Once you understand your nature interface, establish concrete, science-based targets:

Target Categories:

Biodiversity Targets:

• Species population goals (maintain or increase indicator species)

• Habitat protection or restoration (hectares of forest, wetland, grassland)

• No net loss or net positive biodiversity outcomes

Ecosystem Health Targets:

• Soil organic matter content

• Water quality parameters (nutrient levels, turbidity)

• Forest health indicators (canopy cover, species diversity)

Resource Use Targets:

• Freshwater consumption reduction in water-stressed basins

• Sustainable sourcing percentages (FSC, MSC certification)

• Zero deforestation commitments across supply chains

Restoration Targets:

• Hectares of degraded land restored

• River kilometers reconnected

• Coral reef square meters rehabilitated

In 2025, over 30 businesses and financial institutions began field-testing a draft set of nature-positive metrics through the Nature Positive Initiative. The final version is expected in 2026. Groups like TNFD, SBTN, and IUCN are already offering frameworks to track species impact, land-use change, and habitat condition in ways that tie back to business decisions.

Getting Started: Start simple. Track what you can: local ecosystem health, supplier land use, restoration area. Don't wait for a perfect scorecard.

Step 4: Monitor Progress and Report Transparently

The TNFD recommends 14 disclosures to promote the provision of clear, comparable and consistent information by companies.

Monitoring Framework:

• Establish baseline measurements before interventions

• Deploy regular monitoring using standardized methodologies

• Engage third-party verification for credibility

• Track both output metrics (activities completed) and outcome metrics (ecosystem improvements)

• Report progress annually with transparency about challenges and learnings

Disclosure Requirements: Entities should outline their approach to materiality, including details of the scope of the disclosure, areas of the business and wider value chain.

Scenario analysis should be integral to help entities identify how nature loss can affect their business in the long term, informing risk management, strategy and resilience processes.

Quality Imperative: Nature-positive is getting airtime, which means it's also getting scrutiny. Empty pledges are easy to spot and even easier to dismantle.

Financial and Reputational Benefits of Early Adoption

Competitive Advantages

Access to Capital: Capital is increasingly flowing toward regeneration. Financial institutions managing $17.7 trillion in assets are adopting TNFD to assess biodiversity risks of their portfolio investments.

Risk Mitigation: Businesses that ignore these challenges expose themselves to reputational risk, regulatory fines and operational disruptions. Conversely, those that have taken proactive steps to mitigate their biodiversity impacts can be leaders in a rapidly evolving market landscape.

Supply Chain Resilience: Organizations protecting ecosystem services secure long-term access to water, materials, and stable operating conditions. This resilience translates directly to reduced operational risks and cost stability.

Regulatory Preparedness: The TNFD plays a vital role in advancing Target 15 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which calls for legal, administrative, and policy measures to ensure that large and transnational companies and financial institutions regularly monitor, assess, and transparently disclose their impacts on biodiversity. Early adopters position themselves ahead of mandatory requirements.

Brand and Market Value

Customer Preference: Consumers increasingly favor brands demonstrating genuine environmental leadership. Nature-positive commitments, transparently reported, build customer trust and loyalty.

Talent Attraction: Top talent, particularly younger professionals, prioritize employers with authentic sustainability commitments. Nature-positive strategies signal organizational values that resonate with purpose-driven employees.

Market Differentiation: Companies that move early shape new standards and build brand equity. First movers in nature-positive practices establish thought leadership and competitive positioning.

Communicating Nature-Positive Commitments

Stakeholder Engagement Strategy:

Investors: Emphasize risk management, long-term value creation, and alignment with emerging disclosure standards. Quantify financial benefits where possible.

Customers: Tell authentic stories about specific ecosystem restoration or protection efforts. Use visual media to showcase tangible impacts. Avoid greenwashing by focusing on measurable outcomes.

Employees: Engage workforce in nature-positive initiatives through volunteer programs, education, and integration into company culture.

Communities: Partner with local stakeholders, particularly Indigenous Peoples and local communities. A premise of the TNFD Framework is an interconnection between human rights and nature.

Regulators: Demonstrate compliance readiness and engage constructively in policy development.

Communication Principles:

• Be specific: Name ecosystems, species, and restoration sites

• Be measurable: Share baseline data and progress metrics

• Be honest: Acknowledge challenges and learning journeys

• Be visual: Use photos, videos, and infographics to make nature tangible

• Be consistent: Integrate nature messaging across all communications channels

Pioneering Examples: Businesses Leading on Nature-Positive

Unilever: Regenerative Agriculture at Scale

Unilever is moving beyond low-impact sourcing. It's committing to regenerative practices across farming, forestry, and land use with a deadline: 2030. That means working directly with producers to rebuild soil, protect ecosystems, and eliminate deforestation from its value chain.

They're not treating nature as a risk to avoid. They're building it into the way they grow, manufacture, and deliver. Unilever is also committed to achieving a deforestation-free supply chain for key commodities, ensuring that palm oil, paper and board, tea, soy, and cocoa come from deforestation and conversion-free sources.

Measurable Commitments:

• Protect and regenerate land, forests, and oceans, with a target of 1.5 million hectares by 2030

• 100% sustainable sourcing of key agricultural crops

• Halve food waste in operations by 2025

L'Oréal: Biodiversity-Centered Product Design

L'Oréal is rethinking packaging from the ground up. The focus? Biodiversity. They're using materials with smaller ecological footprints, designing for end-of-life reuse or breakdown, and linking their sourcing to restoration work in impacted habitats.

This isn't a side-project. It's baked into product design and supply chain decisions. L'Oréal has significantly reduced CO2 emissions from their plants and distribution centres while increasing production. By the end of 2021, they had reduced emissions by 87% compared to 2005.

They aim to use 100% renewable energy across all their sites by 2025, demonstrating integration of climate and nature goals.

SCGC: Forest Regeneration Programs

SCGC launched a long-term forest regeneration program called "Plant-Cultivate-Protect." It focuses on restoring native forests, not just planting trees but maintaining full ecosystems. This holistic approach recognizes that healthy ecosystems require biodiversity, soil health, water cycling, and time to establish resilience.

Financial Sector Leadership

Banks and asset managers, such as HSBC, Manulife Investment Management, and other firms, are adopting the TNFD to assess biodiversity risks of their portfolio investments.

Energy sector companies like Tokyo Electric Power have started to recognize the risks of their over dependence on natural ecosystems and begun formulating strategies to integrate the TNFD principles into operational planning.

Retail and consumer goods leaders such as IKEA are also modifying their supply chain management practices to be consistent with TNFD guidelines.

Governance Examples

Oji Holdings: Japanese pulp and paper manufacturer Oji Holdings exhibits effective governance through its CEO-led sustainability committee. The committee meets biannually to discuss risks and opportunities related to biodiversity and reports directly to the board. By placing accountability at the highest level, Oji Holdings confirms that nature-related risks are prioritized.

Seven & i Group: Japanese retailer Seven & i Group has incorporated biodiversity concerns in its strategic planning. The company actively promotes practices that minimize ecological impacts, including responsible sourcing and reduced deforestation in its supply chain.

Council Fire's Approach to Nature-Positive Strategy Development

As organizations navigate the expansion from net-zero carbon to nature-positive commitments, strategic partnership becomes essential. Council Fire brings integrated expertise across climate and nature, helping companies develop strategies that deliver measurable environmental and business value.

Our Integrated Methodology

Drawing on our core pillars of systems thinking, radical partnership, and action over abstraction, Council Fire provides:

Nature-Climate Integration: We help organizations understand the interlinkages between climate and nature goals, developing strategies that advance both simultaneously rather than treating them as separate workstreams.

Framework Navigation: Our team guides companies through SBTN and TNFD adoption, from initial assessments through target setting and disclosure. We translate complex frameworks into actionable roadmaps.

Ecosystem Assessment: We conduct comprehensive analyses of nature dependencies and impacts across operations and value chains, identifying priority ecosystems and material risks.

Target Development: Working with your team, we establish science-based, measurable nature-positive targets that align with business strategy and stakeholder expectations.

Stakeholder Engagement: Our radical partnership approach ensures meaningful engagement with Indigenous Peoples, local communities, NGOs, and other stakeholders essential for nature-positive success.

Monitoring and Reporting: We establish robust measurement frameworks and support transparent disclosure aligned with TNFD and other reporting standards.

Industry-Specific Solutions

Food and Agriculture: Regenerative agriculture strategies, sustainable sourcing programs, and supply chain transformation

Financial Services: Portfolio biodiversity risk assessment, TNFD disclosure support, and nature-positive investment strategy

Manufacturing: Ecosystem impact reduction, circular economy integration, and nature-based solutions for operations

Energy and Utilities: Biodiversity offset programs, habitat restoration, and renewable energy siting that protects ecosystems

Real Estate and Infrastructure: Nature-inclusive design, green infrastructure, and ecosystem service enhancement

Proven Results Through Partnership

Council Fire understands that nature-positive transformation requires both ambition and pragmatism. We partner with organizations to:

• Balance environmental goals with business realities

• Secure leadership buy-in through compelling business cases

• Build internal capabilities for ongoing nature management

• Engage supply chains and value chain partners

• Communicate progress transparently to stakeholders

• Navigate evolving regulatory requirements

Whether you're taking first steps toward nature-positive commitments or scaling proven initiatives, Council Fire provides the strategic guidance and implementation support to succeed.

The Path Forward: Leading the Nature-Positive Transition

Nature-positive is a redesign of how companies operate within the systems that keep them alive—soil, water, biodiversity, climate. And just like carbon before it, once the standards are set, the early movers will define the benchmarks everyone else has to chase. There's still room to lead. But not for long.

The convergence of scientific understanding, market pressure, and regulatory evolution creates an unprecedented moment for corporate action on nature. Climate change is exacerbating the crisis in nature, and nature will be central to addressing climate change. Organizations that recognize this interconnection and act decisively will shape the sustainable economy of the future.

The frameworks exist: SBTN provides science-based targets, TNFD enables transparent disclosure, and emerging standards offer measurement approaches. The business case is clear: nature-positive strategies reduce risk, open access to capital, enhance reputation, and build long-term resilience. The leadership examples demonstrate feasibility across sectors and geographies.

What remains is commitment and action. The companies that embrace nature-positive goals today—setting ambitious targets, measuring rigorously, reporting transparently, and partnering authentically—will be the ones that thrive in tomorrow's economy. The question is not whether nature will become central to corporate strategy, but which organizations will lead the transition and which will struggle to catch up.

Ready to develop your organization's nature-positive strategy?

Council Fire brings the expertise, frameworks, and stakeholder engagement capabilities to help you set ambitious targets, measure progress, and communicate achievements. From initial assessment through implementation and reporting, we partner with you to build strategies that deliver value for both nature and business.

Contact us to begin your nature-positive journey.