Have your say: new TNFD draft sector guidance launches

Agriculture, aquaculture and forestry are among the industries included in new draft sector guidance from the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures.

The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) has released new draft sector guidance – including for the agriculture, aquaculture and forestry industries – to help organisations involved with these sectors identify, assess and disclose their impacts and dependencies on nature, and to address the growing risks of declines in the resilience of nature for business and finance.

Global Canopy is proud to have supported development of the TNFD’s agriculture and aquaculture sector draft guidance. It also supported the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) in producing the new forestry sector draft guidance.

The new TNFD draft guidance provides businesses that operate in, and are connected to, the agriculture, aquaculture and forestry sectors with counsel on the key information they will require when conducting their TNFD LEAP (Locate, Evaluate, Assess, Prepare) assessment. The LEAP approach helps businesses to gather relevant insights to enable them to disclose on the TNFD’s 14 disclosure recommendations. The guidance will also support financial institutions’ credit risk assessment processes, and with engaging businesses from these sectors in their portfolios.

“The new TNFD draft sector guidance on agriculture, aquaculture and forestry will save organisations time and money by enabling them to pinpoint the critical pieces of research they need to undertake in their direct, upstream and downstream value chains, and data they need to obtain, in order to get started with the TNFD recommendations. It supports businesses and financial institutions with stocktaking the required data that they already possess, and to identify their data gaps as part of their work to start adopting the TNFD.”

Marianne Haahr, Nature-Related Finance Director at Global Canopy

The new draft sector guidance for agriculture, aquaculture and forestry is available on the TNFD website.

 

• Draft agricultural sector guidance
• Draft aquaculture sector guidance
• Draft forestry sector guidance

Have your say – feedback sought on new TNFD draft sector guidance and proposed sector disclosure metrics

The TNFD is seeking feedback from companies and financial institutions on new draft sector guidance connected to the agriculture, aquaculture and forestry industries. Feedback is open until 29 March 2024.

“The TNFD final recommendations launched in September 2023 and now work is ongoing to produce an expanding suite of resources, such as sector guidance, to support organisations to get started with the TNFD recommendations. It is crucial that businesses operating in, and financial institutions connected to, the agriculture, aquaculture and forestry sectors provide their feedback on this guidance to ensure it works well in practice.”

Marianne Haahr, Nature-Related Finance Director at Global Canopy

Market feedback is also being sought by the TNFD on its Discussion Paper on Proposed Sector Disclosure Metrics, which Global Canopy had a key role in producing, until 29 March 2024. 

Businesses and financial institutions can provide feedback on the draft sector guidance and the Discussion Paper on Proposed Sector Disclosure Metrics after creating, or logging into, their profile on the TNFD website.

Give feedback

Getting started with TNFD recommendations using ENCORE

When getting started with the TNFD recommendations, businesses and financial institutions must undertake an assessment of their nature-related issues. There are a number of tools available to support them with this. Among them is ENCORE, which was jointly developed by Global Canopy, UNEP-FI and UNEP-WCMC. The free, online tool provides financial institutions with data that enables them to identify the nature-related risks they are exposed to through their lending, underwriting and investment in high-risk industries and sub-industries. 

The TNFD recommends organisations take the LEAP (Locate, Evaluate, Assess, Prepare) approach to determine and disclose their nature-related issues. Financial institutions can deploy ENCORE as part of the LEAP approach to undertake a high-level screening that identifies: the high-risk sectors and production processes to which their portfolios are exposed; and the exposure of their portfolios to ‘high’ and ‘very high’ impacts on nature and dependencies on ecosystem services.

Explore ENCORE

Watch a video filmed during Climate Week NYC in 2023 where financial institutions share their experience piloting the TNFD recommendations – specifically how to assess deforestation in investments using the TNFD LEAP approach.

Global Canopy is a founding partner of the TNFD, and was an official piloting organisation for the TNFD prior to the launch of the TNFD final recommendations in September 2023. It continues to provide technical expertise to the TNFD, and to build capacity among businesses and financial institutions, preparing them to get started with adopting the TNFD recommendations.