While companies track physical assets like machinery and buildings, they’ve largely ignored the vital services that ecosystems provide – including clean water, fertile soils, pollination, and climate stability. These services are foundational to long-term business success and global economic stability, yet rarely show up on a balance sheet.

This is a textbook example of market failure. Natural systems deliver immense value daily, yet because their contributions aren’t priced or measured, they’re often overlooked – until they’re gone. As highlighted in Savills recent Biodiversity Spotlight, the world is already experiencing a significant decline in nature, underscoring the urgent need for businesses to recognise and respond to their environmental dependencies.

From carbon to nature: expanding the sustainability lens

To date, most sustainability efforts have focused on carbon. Thanks to strong political momentum and scientific consensus – especially following the Paris Agreement – terms like carbon footprint and net zero have become part of everyday business language. But carbon is just one piece of the much bigger puzzle.

Two crises, one path forward: nature and climate

Climate change and nature loss aren’t separate crises – they’re deeply interconnected. Rising temperatures damage habitats and drive species extinction, weakening an ecosystems’ ability to store carbon and regulate the climate. It’s a vicious cycle: climate change accelerates nature loss, and nature loss, in turn, worsens climate change.

We can’t solve one without tackling the other. That’s why the concept of becoming nature positive – not just halting biodiversity loss but actively reversing it – is gaining traction. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework sets a bold target: achieve a net gain in nature by 2030, relative to a 2020 baseline.

The measurement challenge

It’s an inspiring vision, but measuring progress is tricky. Unlike carbon, which is uniform and easily quantifiable, nature is local, diverse, and non-fungible. A coral reef in Australia isn’t equivalent to a mangrove forest in Southeast Asia. This complexity makes it difficult to create standardised metrics and opens the door to vague claims and greenwashing.

But change is underway

Fortunately, momentum is building. Public institutions and market mechanisms are stepping in to improve transparency and accountability. Natural capital accounting frameworks – like the UN’s System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – are helping track how ecosystems contribute to national wealth and human wellbeing. Financial innovations such as biodiversity credits and nature-linked bonds are aligning economic incentives with ecological outcomes.

Businesses that rely on natural resources are also responding. Many are rethinking procurement practices to reduce their ecological impact and build more resilient supply chains.

Mainstreaming nature into business strategy

One of the most promising developments is the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). With over 300 companies already on board, TNFD is helping to embed nature into corporate strategy and financial decision-making – just as the TCFD did for carbon. 

At the heart of the TNFD framework is the LEAP approach – a structured process that guides companies through four key steps to integrate nature into their operations:

1. Locate: Identify the business’ interface with nature by mapping where operations, supply chains, and assets intersect with ecosystems.
2. Evaluate: Assess how the business both depends upon and impacts nature, considering ecosystem services, biodiversity, and environmental pressures.
3. Assess: Analyse the associated risks and opportunities – both physical and transitional – arising from nature-related dependencies and their impacts.
4. Prepare: Develop and disclose strategies to respond to these risks and opportunities, and integrate nature into governance, risk management, and strategic planning.

From risk to opportunity

While much of the corporate focus on nature has centred on risk mitigation, a growing number of companies are beginning to see nature as an opportunity. This marks a shift from an extractive to a regenerative one. Rather than simply minimising harm, businesses are discovering that restoring nature can deliver real financial returns.

To support this shift, Savills Earth’s Impact team has developed a Natural Capital Optimisation Framework (NCOF) – a practical tool designed to embed nature into investment strategy and ensure that nature- and climate-related claims are grounded in robust, science-based evidence.

Already being put into practice by a leading investment firm, the NCOF is at the core of an innovative strategy focused on regenerative agriculture and multifunctional land use. By integrating the framework into its investment approach, the firm is showing how natural capital can be managed with transparency and credibility – delivering measurable benefits for nature and society, alongside strong financial performance.

Looking ahead

Despite political pushback and growing scrutiny of sustainability efforts, nature is finally starting to get the attention it deserves. More companies are engaging with nature-related risks, investors are taking notice, and the tools to account for nature are rapidly improving.

For businesses that act now, the benefits go beyond environmental impact. They’ll be building more resilient, future-ready organisations – ones that thrive not in spite of nature, but because they’ve chosen to protect and restore it.

Further information

Contact Katie Stein or Toby Hiram

What do Climate and Nature-related Financial Disclosures mean for land managers?