The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is set to announce that the total number of companies and financial institutions committed to voluntary reporting of their nature-related issues in line with the TNFD recommendations now stands at 502 – a 57% increase since the first formal announcement of TNFD Adopters in January 2024.
Some 129 financial institutions are now registered as TNFD Adopters, representing £17.7trn in assets under management, marking an 11% increase since the TNFD’s last formal adoption announcement at London Climate Action Week in June 2024.
Among the notable new adopters are financial institutions abrdn, Banco de Bogotá and Manulife Investment Management, alongside a diverse range of companies across sectors, including KPMG, Qantas, Morrisons, JSW Group and Mitsubishi Electric Corp.
These organisations have signalled their intention to begin adopting the TNFD recommendations and publishing TNFD-aligned disclosures as part of their annual corporate reporting for the 2024 fiscal year (or earlier) or the 2025 fiscal year outcomes.
David Craig, co-chair of the TNFD, commented: “The speed of voluntary market adoption over the past year since the release of the TNFD recommendations highlights the growing appreciation among companies and financial institutions across sectors and geographies that nature is a material risk issue for their business and a new course of opportunity and potential competitive advantage.
“We have seen significant uptake across sectors – in particular from asset managers, as they address climate and nature risk in their portfolios. Going forward, the growth in these assessments and public disclosures is helping direct financial flows towards more resilient business models and nature-positive outcomes.”
Supporting implementation
Since being published in September 2024, the TNFD recommendations now operationalise Target 15 of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) agreed to by over 190 governments at COP15 in Montreal in 2022, enabling business and finance to integrate nature into their governance, strategy, risk management and capital allocation decision making.
The goal of the Taskforce is to support a shift in global financial flows away from nature-negative outcomes and toward nature-positive outcomes, aligned with the GBF. It is now focusing its efforts on encouraging and supporting voluntary market adoption and supporting efforts to address the implementation, capability building and data needs of market participants.
Speaking about being part of the latest group of TNFD Adopters, Sarah Moody, chief corporate affairs and sustainability officer at abrdn, said: “At abrdn, the environmental transition – the interconnecting relationship between climate and nature – is a key pillar of our sustainability strategy. Becoming a TNFD Adopter is a vital step on our sustainability journey.
“Alongside this, we are developing an engagement approach within out investments team focused on the companies with the most material exposure to nature and are seeking the best approaches to data gathering on nature-related impacts.”
Meanwhile, Brian Kernohan, chief sustainability officer and Manulife Investment Management, commented: “With over 40 years of experience as an institutional manager of natural capital investments and as one of the pioneers in issuing a TNFD-aligned nature disclosure, becoming a TNFD Adopter is a logical next step for us. In 2024 alone, we have made several important ‘LEAPs’ forward in our ability to identify nature-related risks and opportunities, and we believe the best is yet to come.”
