What is the TNFD?
The TNFD is a global taskforce of 40 business and finance leaders, launched in 2021 with the support of the G20. It does not regulate anyone. It publishes recommendations and guidance on how organisations should assess, manage and report what it calls nature-related issues: their dependencies and impacts on nature, and the risks and opportunities those create for the business.
The final recommendations were published in September 2023. They deliberately reuse the structure of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), so a company that already reports on climate can extend the same governance, strategy and risk processes to nature. The TNFD states that its recommendations are aligned with the GRI impact standards, the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the ISSB’s IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards.
The difference from climate is location. A tonne of CO2 has the same effect wherever it is emitted; the effect of drawing water, clearing land or discharging pollutants depends on where it happens. That is why the TNFD asks organisations to say where their operations and value chains interact with nature, and why its assessment method starts with a map.
The four pillars and 14 recommended disclosures
The framework has three layers: conceptual foundations, six general requirements that apply to every disclosure, and 14 recommended disclosures grouped under four pillars.
| Pillar | What it asks the organisation to disclose |
|---|---|
| Governance | How the board and management oversee nature-related issues, including human rights policies and engagement with Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities and affected stakeholders. |
| Strategy | The nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities identified, their effect on the business model, strategy and financial planning, the resilience of the strategy, and the locations of assets and activities in priority areas. |
| Risk and impact management | The processes used to identify, assess, prioritise and monitor nature-related issues in direct operations and across the value chain, and how they are integrated into overall risk management. |
| Metrics and targets | The metrics used to assess and manage material nature-related issues, and the targets and goals set against them. |
The six general requirements cover the materiality approach, the scope of disclosures, the location of nature-related issues, integration with other sustainability disclosures, the time horizons considered, and engagement with Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities and affected stakeholders.
The LEAP approach, step by step
LEAP is the TNFD’s integrated assessment process. It is guidance rather than a requirement, but it is how most organisations produce the information the recommended disclosures ask for. It begins with a scoping step and then runs in four phases:
Locate
Find where the organisation’s direct operations and value chain interface with nature, and which of those locations are ecologically sensitive.
Evaluate
Identify the environmental assets and ecosystem services the business depends on, and the impacts it has on them, at those locations.
Assess
Turn dependencies and impacts into the nature-related risks and opportunities that matter for the business, and decide which are material.
Prepare
Decide on strategy and resource allocation, set targets, and prepare the disclosures in line with the recommendations.
Financial institutions apply LEAP to the companies they lend to and invest in. The TNFD’s 2026 Status Report found that LEAP is so far proving most useful for stewardship and risk management, ahead of capital allocation and portfolio construction.
What the 2026 Status Report shows
The TNFD published its 2026 Status Report at Climate Week NYC on 21 September 2026. It combines a survey of more than 500 market participants with AI-enabled analysis of corporate reporting, triangulated against data from market data providers.
Organisations publishing TNFD-aligned reports
| 2025 Status Report | 500+ |
|---|---|
| 2026 Status Report | 1,000+ |
- Average disclosure stayed above 8 of the 14 recommended disclosures, and the volume of disclosure grows with each year an organisation reports.
- All investors surveyed were concerned about the effect of nature loss on financial markets, and 59% ranked nature among their three most important sustainability topics.
- More than 70% of respondents support mandatory nature-related reporting, preferably within one to three years.
- 56% of investors are already exploring or deploying capital into nature-related opportunities.
Is TNFD reporting mandatory?
No. The TNFD is a framework, not a regulator, and reporting against it is voluntary. Mandatory nature reporting arrives through standards that jurisdictions adopt, which is why the ISSB matters.
In November 2025 the ISSB decided to set standards on nature-related risks and opportunities drawing on the TNFD’s recommendations, metrics and guidance, including parts of LEAP. The TNFD said it would complete its technical work in progress and then pause to support the ISSB. In October 2026 the ISSB published its Exposure Draft, IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Practice Statement 1, Nature-related Disclosures, with a 120-day comment period that closes on 19 February 2027. Jurisdictions that have adopted ISSB standards will then decide whether and when to require it.
In the EU, companies within the scope of the CSRD already report on biodiversity and ecosystems under ESRS E4 where the topic is material, so a company that has worked through LEAP has much of the analysis that standard asks for.
What the TNFD means for investors
For an asset manager or owner, the TNFD is two problems at once. The firm may report against it itself, and it needs nature-related information about every company it holds to do so. That information is scattered: a water-risk paragraph in one annual report, a deforestation policy in a separate PDF, a LEAP assessment published only in Japanese.
Questions to answer for each holding
- Does the company report in line with the TNFD, and against which of the 14 recommended disclosures?
- Has it disclosed where its operations sit relative to sensitive locations, and has it run a LEAP assessment?
- Which dependencies and impacts has it identified as material, and do they match its sector?
- Has it set targets, and are they consistent with what it reports elsewhere?
