S&P Global Sustainable1 unveils TNFD-aligned nature risk management tool

Dataset covering more than 17,000 companies and 1.6 million assets

S&P Global Sustainable1 has launched a Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures-aligned dataset that assesses a company’s impact and dependence on nature across its operations with the aim of helping investors manage biodiversity risk.

The Nature & Biodiversity Risk dataset can be accessed through S&P Capital IQ Pro and covers more than 17,000 companies and 1.6 million assets. It uses nature-related risk metrics such as a dependency score and ecosystem footprint to create a nature risk profile.

The dependency score considers the level of reliance that a business’ direct operations have on 21 different ecosystem services, as well as the expected resilience risk of the ecosystem providing these services, where these businesses are operating around the world. The dependency score is on a scale from 0 to 1.0 (where 0 represents no dependency risk and 1.0 represents very high dependency risk).

The Ecosystem Footprint measures a business’ direct operational impact on nature and biodiversity. This metric combines three key areas of analysis: the areas of land impacted by the company (land area), the degree to which the location-specific ecosystem integrity is reduced (ecosystem degradation) and the significance of the location-specific ecosystem impacted (ecosystem significance).

Thomas Yagel, chief operating and product officer, S&P Global Sustainable1 said: “There is an increasing demand from companies and investors to be able to quantify both their dependency on nature and the impact of their operations on location-specific ecosystems.”