Reporting on Nature: The importance of standards in driving strategic business decisions

Monday, October 26, 13:45–14:45

UN Pavilion, Blue Zone (up to 50 participants)

Background

Nature-related reporting is rapidly moving from voluntary ambition towards a more structured global reporting landscape, with standards and disclosure requirements playing a critical role in translating organizations’ nature-related risks and opportunities, dependencies and impacts on nature into consistent and decision-useful information, and supporting the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment identifies biodiversity loss as a systemic risk to business, finance and the wider economy. Target 15 of the GBF therefore calls for large companies and financial institutions to assess and disclose their biodiversity risks, dependencies and impacts. Similarly, investors are increasingly asking for information on nature-related risks and opportunities to price risks effectively.

Voluntary disclosures are growing, with 1,154 organisations publishing TNFD-aligned disclosures in 2026, up from 542 in 2025. Yet globally, nature-related disclosure remains thin: fewer than 1% of publicly reporting companies mention their biodiversity impacts. The gap is wider in emerging economies: a 2026 UNDP assessment in Kazakhstan, Peru and Rwanda found nature reporting still largely voluntary, qualitative and unstructured, while a precedent assessment across five economies highlighted persistent barriers, including limited data availability, inconsistent metrics, and gaps in institutional capacity. While nature-related disclosure remains less mature, the UNDP analysis confirmed that existing sustainability reporting practices, governance arrangements, reporting processes and data systems can provide an important foundation for progressively strengthening nature-related disclosure within broader sustainability disclosure ecosystems.

At the same time, the architecture for more consistent nature-related reporting is rapidly taking shape. GRI 101: Biodiversity, published in 2024 and in effect since January 2026, sets requirements for reporting impacts on nature, including location-specific and supply chain disclosure. In April 2026, the ISSB agreed to propose nature-related disclosure requirements in the form of an IFRS Practice Statement, drawing on the TNFD framework, and will publish an exposure draft during COP17. The proposed practice statement will help companies provide nature-related disclosures as required by the ISSB’s foundational Standard, IFRS S1, which is currently being introduced by 48 jurisdictions around the world. GRI and the IFRS Foundation are also working together to enable a seamless, global and comprehensive sustainability reporting system for entities and information users, and existing interoperability mappings already link TNFD, GRI and ESRS.

Complementing these developments on reporting, ISO standards and tools address how sustainability and nature-related considerations are assessed, managed and integrated into organizational processes. ISO/UNDP 53001 provides the overarching management-system framework for organizations to integrate sustainable development into governance, strategy, operations and decision-making. Nature-specific ISO standards and tools can complement and support the application of this broader framework: ISO 17298, published in October 2025, provides requirements and guidance for integrating biodiversity into organisational strategy and operations, while ISO is also advancing an ISO LEAP standard drawing from the TNFD LEAP approach. For those wanting or needing to use them together, these approaches can help connect the sustainability information organizations generate and disclose with the systems and processes through which they manage sustainability-related issues and translate information into action.

What does this mean for governments and companies? The growing adoption of ISSB Standards across jurisdictions creates an important channel through which nature-related financial information could increasingly become embedded in sustainability disclosure requirements. At the same time, different standards can serve complementary reporting and management purposes. The ISSB addresses sustainability-related financial information relevant to investors, while GRI supports organizations in reporting their impacts. ISO standards and management systems can support organizations in assessing sustainability-related issues and embedding the resulting information into governance, strategy and operations. Applied coherently, the standards can help companies build a more consistent underlying information base that serves different reporting and management needs, while reducing unnecessary duplication and strengthening the connection between disclosure and action.

The timing is particularly relevant at COP17: the ISSB is expected to publish its proposed Exposure Draft for consultation during COP17, while ISO is initiating the advancement of the international standard drawing on the TNFD’s LEAP approach. The recent launch of ISO/UNDP 53001 also provides a timely opportunity to consider how emerging reporting requirements connect with the management systems through which sustainability information is integrated into organizational decision-making. Together, these developments create an opportunity for governments, companies and other stakeholders participating in COP17 to engage with the emerging reporting and management landscape.

This COP17 session, convened by UNDP with GRI, the IFRS Foundation, and ISO, brings together standard-setters, policymakers and the private sector to explore how emerging nature-related standards and guidance can help businesses and financial institutions, including the different roles they play in helping them to identify, manage and disclose their dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities related to nature, how reporting and management standards can play complementary roles in translating information into strategic decision-making and action, and how standard setting on nature can help governments implement Target 15.

Objectives

This session will:

• Clarify the respective and complementary roles of ISSB, GRI and ISO in addressing the reporting and management of nature-related information;
• Explore how governments that want to can use emerging standards and reporting frameworks to support implementation of GBF Target 15;
• Share private-sector experience and lessons from applying nature-related standards in practice;
• Discuss how better nature-related information can inform strategic decisions and action by companies, investors and governments.

Target audience

Approximately 50 participants, with a focus on government officials, particularly from emerging and developing economies, alongside representatives of companies, financial institutions, business associations, standard-setting organisations and civil society. Speakers will represent the IFRS Foundation, GRI, ISO and companies.

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