VALUES TO VALUE: Tony Goldner executive director of the TNFD was in Australia recently. He says a community of data technology companies established to share insights on nature was expected to top out at 30 companies. Instead it’s now at more than 140 members. In Sydney Nathan Robertson-Ball’s series of events for corporates interested in nature is going gangbusters.
Businesses staring down the barrel of mandatory disclosure mandatory disclosure of climate-related financial information, with a Scope 3 emissions phase-in set to follow, may be casting a nervous eye at the rise of the global nature-based equivalent.
It starts with four letters, TFND, which stands for the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, and it’s designed to closely match and follow TCFD, now disbanded, having achieved its purpose, which was the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.
The “need case” for this is all around us. Look no further than this NSW Biodiversity Outlook Report 2024, released last week, warning of accelerating species extinctions this century; and this global story based on a Guardian poll of 400-plus top climate scientists, with a potent warning for humanity as well as nature.
Will TFND mean even more hard work and detailed complexity for hard-pressed sustainability teams?
“We never really associate ourselves with the term ESG,” Goldner explained. “This is my personal view, but I think the concept kind of needs to be retired.
Or, more optimistically, is it the driver for a new wave of nature based innovation, with the rise of nature tech? And a vehicle to move on from the current ESG-dominated frameworks that seek to integrate environmental social and (corporate) governance?
As readers of earlier Values to Value columns will readily appreciate, we’re not fans of ESG as we currently know it! It’s intriguing to explore how nature could be the vector to repair or replace ESG, as well as restore natural value.
Expatriate Australian Tony Goldner, the Europe-based head of the (TFND), has just completed his latest trip down under, visiting Australia and New Zealand. Goldner spoke with The Fifth Estate last week, after a series of event in Sydney and Melbourne, and he for one thinks it’s time to move on from ESG. (To which I say hallelujah.) “We never really associate ourselves with the term ESG,” Goldner explained. “This is my personal view, but I think the concept kind of needs to be retired. I think that the mixing of E S and G, they’re now so, so significantly separate issues, that I think they deserve to be broken out and treated as separate but related issues.”
Bundling that content might have worked 20 years ago, but community expectations are changing and investor needs for information are rapidly evolving, he said.
“I think, in some sense it’s a bit of a constraint and sort of unhelpful to continue to force these three quite separate issues into this box.”
At the same time Goldner sees that nature-related data and technology solutions that enhance our understanding of nature are on the rise.
Naturetech moving from science to commercial applications
“We’ve seen a huge burst of innovation in the last couple of years around what you might call Naturetech.
This includes data solutions, the use of satellite imagery and new tools, such as eDNA (environmental DNA), “where you can take a scoop of water out of a river and see all the animals living in the catchment area”, Goldner says.
“There’s some incredibly exciting new technologies. There are more being created all the time. And these are now quite quickly going from scientific tools to commercial applications.”
TFND co-chair David Craig, who has a data background, encouraged the team to create the Nature Data Catalyst, a kind of “community” of data technology companies.
The organisation expected 20 or 30 companies might be interested to share their insights, instead it’s now at more than 140 members.
I have to admit, this fast-evolving focus on nature has kind of snuck up on me, while my head was elsewhere. It’s sometimes expressed as nature positive, thanks to the global Nature Positive Initiative, which sounds, well, more natural than the traditional, more scientific term of biodiversity.
Because I’ve just spent over a decade in the energy technology solutions and clean transition space, where nature often seemed to be held at arm’s length by bytes and kilowatts, I’m still reacquainting myself with the changing landscape for wider sustainability.
Except, now that I think about it, if you are talking about locating energy transition infrastructure – big solar farms and battery systems, onshore and offshore wind farms, high-transmission lines, pumped hydro, or power stations of any kind – then impacts on nature are inevitable. This has recently have become highly politicised and controversial putting value at stake for businesses and communities alike.
Naturetech has arrived and the challenge is to understand the “web of life”
Recently, sustainability professional Nathan Robertson-Ball who is a senior environment and social impact manager with the Commonwealth Bank and now, separately, founder of an emerging nature-positive network, invited me to sit in on an event coordinated by his start up, called Finding Nature.
The event introduced people attending to three Naturetech startups, (one a FinTech with a nature twist).
Robertson-Ball says that naturetech’s time is coming: “There seems to be a rapid rise in naturetech, hot on the heels of clean, green and climate tech.”
There are important differences in what these categories of emerging enterprises are on a mission to solve.
“This is manifesting in the proliferation of startups looking to apply a tech-driven business model to any number of nature-based market opportunities.”
These often need “significant data modelling competencies and accurate, specific inputs from public and private sources”.
“How this evolves though will be fascinating as the scale of education and understanding many naturetech clients will need to undergo to appreciate the intricacies of the literal web of life and how this results to either value drivers or burning platforms should not be under-estimated.”
By contrast the slow progress in addressing climate change and rapid decarbonisation is in many ways a more straightforward problem both to understand and act upon, Robertson-Ball says.
“Whereas nature markets require more time to realise the financial and non-financial benefits of any action, plus a greater appreciation that ‘like for like’ solutions are often not appropriate nor possible.”
Finding Nature is described on its social media as a place “where corporate sustainability folks can connect, be nourished and share wisdom as part of their efforts to create meaningful and real change”.
Robertson-Ball says: “I had in mind that Finding Nature could become the mycelium network for sustainability and ESG professionals in Sydney initially, with an aspiration to broaden it across the country over time if there was a positive reception.”
“So far it’s been an incredible success. People absolutely need and want these alternative spaces to reflect, have some fun, yet at the same time come away engaged and more empowered to do their difficult day job.”
He says there have been eight sold out events in 12 weeks so far on topics as broad as: nature, a part of or apart from; what if all our stories are wrong – learning marketing for sustainability from a guru; and deceit, apathy and desperation – addressing the uncertain harms of artificial intelligence. There’s also a newsletter and a podcast.
All up, I’m liking nature making its presence felt in the ESG and sustainability space. Gaia be praised!
I’m now looking forward to joining, and reporting on, the next Finding Nature event on May 29 with former NSW premier and Australian foreign minister Bob Carr. It will explore the implications for climate change when 40 per cent (or more than 3 billion people) vote in domestic elections in 2024.
See The Fifth Estate’s masterclass, Extreme Green Infrastructure – how to make nature our urgent priority on 4 June 1 pm to 3.15 pm online.