Frequently Asked Questions

Understanding Nature-related Risks

  • Nature-related risks arise when companies either degrade the ecosystems around them or depend on resources and services those ecosystems provide.

    These risks can be:

    • Physical risks: arise from the degradation of nature and subsequent loss of services that nature provides, such as water scarcity or loss of pollinators

    • Transition risks: arise from the transition to a nature positive economy. These include regulatory, financial, and reputational risks

  • Climate and nature risks share important similarities: both present physical and transition risks as the economy shifts toward being low-carbon and nature-positive, and both require location-specific mitigation strategies. However, they differ in critical ways:

    Geographic scope: Climate impacts occur globally due to atmospheric greenhouse gases, while nature impacts are inherently local, tied to specific ecosystems and watersheds.

    Measurement: Climate risk consolidates into a single metric (tons of CO₂ equivalent), while nature encompasses biodiversity, water quality, soil health, and ecosystem functions, each requiring different measurement approaches.

    Forecasting: Climate science offers global models projecting risks decades ahead. Nature risk assessment lacks comparable predictive models, except for water-related risks.

    Offsetting: Carbon emissions in one location can, in theory, be offset elsewhere due to CO₂'s global effects. Restoring one ecosystem cannot offset destroying another – each provides unique, non-transferable local benefits.

  • Impacts on nature refer to how a company's operations affect ecosystems, either positively or negatively. Negative impacts include habitat degradation, pollution, deforestation, or biodiversity loss across facilities, supply chains, or product lifecycles. Positive impacts include habitat restoration, pollution reduction, or conservation efforts.

    Dependencies on nature describe how companies rely on ecosystem services to operate successfully. These include provisioning services (water, timber, agricultural products) and regulating services (pollination, water purification, flood protection, climate regulation).

    Dependencies create risk when ecosystem services decline. For example, beverage companies depend on clean freshwater, while agricultural businesses depend on pollination and healthy soils.

    Understanding both is essential because companies face nature-related risk in two ways: by degrading the ecosystems they rely on, and by depending on ecosystems that may decline.


  • Nature risk assessment helps companies move from high-level commitments to informed decision-making. It improves visibility into risks such as water scarcity, ecosystem degradation, and regulatory exposure before they disrupt operations or supply chains.

    Companies conducting comprehensive nature risk assessments are better positioned to meet investor expectations, respond to emerging regulations, and demonstrate credible progress on nature commitments. This approach supports stronger risk management, greater resilience, and more defensible sustainability disclosures. Ultimately, the goal is to work toward having a net positive impact on nature – transforming nature risk assessment into a strategic advantage.

    To learn more about how to build the business case for nature action, check out our webinar.

About the TNFD

  • The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is a global framework that helps organizations understand how their activities depend on and impact nature – and how nature-related issues can create financial risks and opportunities for business.

    Built to mirror the structure of the climate-focused TCFD, TNFD provides guidance on identifying, assessing, managing, and disclosing nature-related risks across operations and value chains. It emphasizes location-specific analysis, recognizing that nature risks are highly dependent on where a company operates or derives its resource inputs.

  • The TNFD is a voluntary framework. However, following the LEAP approach is widely recognized as the best way to ensure a comprehensive nature risk assessment that meets emerging expectations.

    Numerous existing sustainability reporting frameworks and regulations are aligning with the TNFD's LEAP process, including:

    Regulations:

    • EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)

    • JP Keidanren Declaration

    Standards:

    • ISO

    • Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

    • CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project)

    • Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)

    With more investors and regulators seeking transparency on corporate nature risk, nature disclosures are becoming increasingly standard practice, even where not yet legally required.

  • LEAP is TNFD's four-step assessment process:

    • Locate your interfaces with nature

    • Evaluate impacts and dependencies

    • Assess risks and opportunities

    • Prepare to respond and disclose

    This structured approach guides companies from understanding where their operations interact with nature to developing strategies and disclosures that address material nature-related risks.

  • The TNFD recommends numerous datasets but does not require the use of any specific ones. The key is ensuring your nature risk assessment addresses all aspects of sensitive locations as defined by the TNFD's LEAP approach. This includes:

    • Important areas for biodiversity (such as protected areas or Key Biodiversity Areas)

    • Ecosystem integrity levels (measuring the health and functionality of ecosystems)

    • Community presence (including Indigenous lands and local community dependencies)

    • Physical water risk (such as water stress)

    The most effective approach uses multiple datasets that together provide comprehensive coverage of these dimensions, tailored to the specific geographies and ecosystems relevant to your operations and value chain.

About CSRD & ESRS

  • The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is an EU regulation requiring large companies to provide detailed, standardized reports on their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) impacts, risks, and strategies, replacing older rules to boost transparency for investors and stakeholders, mandating external audits, and covering the entire value chain through the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). It is a key part of the EU's Green Deal, pushing for better corporate accountability and a sustainable economy by requiring disclosures on climate, pollution, labor, human rights, and more, using a "double materiality" lens. 

  • The European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) define how companies must report under CSRD. They are the technical standards that make CSRD operational.

  • Double materiality is a sustainability reporting concept requiring companies to assess and disclose their impact on the environment and society AND how sustainability issues affect the company's finances. It broadens traditional financial materiality to include a company's ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) footprint, meaning a topic is material if significant for either perspective or both, ensuring transparent reporting on value creation and societal responsibility under the EU’s CSRD regulation.

Getting Started with Nature Risk Assessment

  • The most effective starting point is understanding where your company interacts with nature. Nature risks are highly location-specific, so companies should begin by mapping their operations (and, where possible, supply chains) against biodiversity-sensitive areas, water-stressed regions, and other environmental risk factors.

    From there, companies can assess key impacts, dependencies, risks, and opportunities, building a clear baseline that supports TNFD alignment, target-setting, and future disclosures.

    Check out our webinar on how to get started with nature risk assessment.

  • Ecosystem services are the benefits that nature provides to people and businesses, such as clean water, pollination, flood protection, and climate regulation. These services support business operations, supply chains, and local communities.

    Ecosystem pressures are the stresses that human activities place on natural systems, such as land conversion, water extraction, pollution, and habitat fragmentation. These pressures degrade ecosystems and reduce their capacity to provide the services we depend on.

  • Your company has nature dependencies if it relies on water, raw materials, agricultural inputs, or benefits from ecosystem services like pollination or water purification. Industries such as food and beverage, agriculture, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and textiles typically have significant dependencies.

    Even companies without direct extraction or land use can be highly dependent on nature through their supply chains. A structured, location-based assessment is the most reliable way to identify where these dependencies exist and how vulnerable they may be to environmental change.

Nature Targets and Action

  • Nature Positive is a concept that moves beyond just "doing less harm" to actively improving nature's state. It describes a global goal to halt and reverse nature loss by reducing negative impacts on nature and actively contributing to ecosystem protection and restoration over time. The Nature Positive Initiative defines it as halting and reversing nature loss from 2020 levels, with the goal of putting nature on a measurable path to recovery by 2030 and achieving full recovery by 2050.

  • Nature risk assessment helps companies identify issues that can materially affect financial performance, from operational disruptions and supply chain instability to regulatory and reputational risks.

    By quantifying where nature risks intersect with business value, companies can prioritize action, allocate resources more efficiently, and reduce uncertainty. For many organizations, nature risk assessment also supports regulatory readiness, investor confidence, and long-term resilience which makes it a strategic investment rather than a compliance exercise.

    Check out our webinar on how to build the business case for nature action step by step to learn more.

  • Nature risk assessment results show where nature risks are concentrated, helping companies set location-specific, measurable targets backed by evidence. By identifying your most material impacts and dependencies, you can prioritize actions where they'll have the greatest effect on reducing risk and improving ecosystem health. This is in contrast to setting top-down, sometimes arbitrary targets such as reducing water use by 20% across all operations.

    Effective targets are specific to the ecosystems and services you affect or depend on, such as water use reduction in water-stressed basins, habitat restoration in biodiversity-sensitive areas, or supply chain interventions where deforestation risk is highest. Your assessment provides the baseline data and geographic specificity needed to set targets that are both ambitious and achievable.

About the Dunya Analytics Platform

  • Our platform is purpose-built to align with the TNFD's LEAP approach, supporting companies through each step: locating interfaces with nature, evaluating environmental context, and assessing related risks and opportunities.

    Dunya Analytics automates complex geospatial analysis and integrates multiple datasets, reducing the time and technical expertise required to run consistent, location-specific assessments that meet TNFD guidance and support defensible disclosures.

  • Our platform is built for sustainability, risk, finance, strategy, procurement, and supply chain teams who need to identify, assess, and manage nature-related risks across their operations and value chains. Whether you're conducting TNFD assessments, screening suppliers, evaluating site locations, planning for business resilience or preparing disclosures, Dunya Analytics provides the location-specific insights you need, with no specialized GIS or technical expertise required.

  • We incorporate dozens of the best available nature datasets using our proprietary risk methodology to quantify nature impacts and risks.

    The datasets we use are selected by our science team with PhDs in climate, nature, and biodiversity data. We select among the leading datasets and verify with the data provider how the data are meant to be used, to ensure accurate interpretation.

    All data and methodologies are transparent to the user to make results explainable, defensible, and auditable.

    We offer the most comprehensive TNFD-aligned platform solution, built on strong scientific foundations, the best available data, and powerful methodologies.

  • We support companies throughout their nature risk journey. The Dunya Analytics platform is designed to be intuitive and self-service, with our complete methodology and user guides readily accessible. Our team is always available for questions about methodology, platform functionality, or understanding how to use the platform's outputs effectively. We also support TNFD-aligned reporting and work with our customers to ensure their nature assessment needs are met.

    Our goal is to reduce technical complexity so you can focus on using nature insights across your business.