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Launch of TNFD highlights pressing need for unified reporting standards

The Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) is encouraged to see the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) achieve significant traction in making nature an area of focus for the business community globally, as the standard setters look to create a unified system for sustainability reporting.

London, 04 June 2021 – We are committed to contributing to the success of the TNFD as it looks to align its work with existing measurement tools, reporting mechanisms, standards and frameworks. The natural world plays a vital underpinning role in supporting human life. In turn, threats to nature have the potential to cause significant and wide-ranging impacts for business.

In order to reach its goals, the TNFD should build upon the well-established work of the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), the Natural Capital Protocol and associated guidance and initiatives, as well as work by the alliance of leading standard-setters in sustainability reporting focused on enterprise value and wider sustainability impacts via the IFRS International Sustainability Standards Board.

There is an urgent need for globally consistent, comparable, and reliable sustainability disclosure standards. By working with standard-setters, frameworks, protocols, coalitions from key jurisdictions, the framework issued by TNFD will help to provide a globally consistent and comparable sustainability reporting baseline for nature.

Mardi McBrien, Managing Director, CDSB:

“By working in a coordinated manner and building on agreed and increasingly standardized frameworks and metrics, we can get further, creating a lasting impact faster. In the face of the urgent need to address biodiversity loss, it is imperative that businesses seek to understand, report upon and mitigate their impacts and dependencies on the natural world.”

“It is encouraging to see the TNFD align its work with the established systems we have in place already, which are in a steady process of unification, and CDSB looks forward to contributing its own work to this same endeavour.”

Ravi Aberwardana, Technical Director, CDSB:

“As a member of the TNFD Informal Working Group, and Co-Lead to a Working Group, it is great to see this work gain so much support. Biodiversity remains one of the most integral aspects in our attempts to preserve the value in the natural world.”

“While this work remains ongoing, this should not be a waiting game for companies looking to report on the financially-material implications of biodiversity for your organisation. CDSB has committed to providing practical guidance to companies on reporting on biodiversity-related financial matters in Q4 of this year, and you can contribute to our work by getting in touch with us now, to learn more, and inform and guide future frameworks and standards going forward.”

For more information and interviews, contact:

Patrick Hanrahan, Head of Communications, CDSB

Ph. +44(0)7929414191

www.cdsb.net

About CDSB:

The Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) is an international consortium of business and environmental NGOs. We are committed to advancing and aligning the global mainstream corporate reporting model to equate natural capital with financial capital.

We do this by offering companies a framework for reporting environmental information with the same rigour as financial information. In turn this helps them to provide investors with decision-useful environmental information via the mainstream corporate report, enhancing the efficient allocation of capital.


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