Natural capital disclosure is still in its nascence, despite the fact that businesses and their investors have already been exposed to its financial impacts. For the financial sector to be able to take natural capital into account, they need nature-related financial information from the businesses they invest in.
The good news is that the CDSB Framework is fully aligned with the TCFD recommendations, referenced for regulatory compliance globally and applies the TCFD’s approach to all of Natural Capital. As such, there is already a framework for companies to prepare Nature-related Financial Disclosures today. CDSB’s approach is market-led and provides consistent and comparable information suitable for investor decision-making.
We do not have the luxury of time to start from scratch. It is crucial to take into account the market’s calls for harmonisation of reporting approaches. It is therefore important that the work of this Task Force focuses on making existing approaches fit for purpose for the needs of the finance sector, rather than developing a new disclosure framework.
The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures brought climate risk to the mainstream and CDSB has been supporting the uptake of the its recommendations globally. The TCFD has also recognised that it is most productive to build on existing work to advance disclosure and it is key that this process does the same.
We look forward to close cooperation with this initiative to ensure that we promote and advance existing leading approaches to Natural Capital-related Financial Disclosures. This will ensure that such disclosures are brought to the mainstream at the pace and scale needed for a timely transition to an environmentally sustainable and resilient financial system.