Introduction

Businesses and financial institutions increasingly seek to understand their dependencies on nature for risk, resilience and reporting. The Nature Positive Initiative (NPI) has driven convergence around a consensus set of ‘State of Nature’ metrics describing the health of ecosystems and species. These are being embedded within major voluntary disclosure frameworks including those of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), and the Science Based Targets for Nature (SBTN) (p.2).

State of nature metrics and ecosystem services: a strong link that can be strengthened

The consensus State of Nature metrics capture multiple dimensions of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, including ecosystem extent and condition and extinction risk and population trends for selected species (p.2). Whilst closely related, the relationship between state of nature and ecosystem services is not always straightforward — service supply may depend on higher-level ecological interactions, landscape configuration and socio-economic contexts (p.2).

The metrics are flexible enough to be configured toward questions about business dependence on ecosystem services. Businesses can select condition indicators relevant to priority services, focus species population metrics on the most important species, and use optional metrics such as the proportion of natural and semi-natural habitat (p.3).

A practical way to build insight on dependencies from State of Nature metrics

A four-step process is outlined for configuring the consensus State of Nature metrics (p.3–5).

Step 1 — Identify priority ecosystem services: Start at company or sector level without reference to specific locations. A mining company may identify dependencies on water regulation and flood control, while an agricultural business may prioritise crop pollination and soil quality (p.4).

Step 2 — Define where and at what scale the ecosystem service is produced: Assess spatial and temporal scales for each priority service. Services supplied locally draw on site-level metrics; those from wider landscape processes draw on landscape-level metrics (p.4–5).

Step 3 — Gather and configure State of Nature metrics: Select condition indicators reflecting attributes relevant to dependencies (e.g. soil-related attributes for soil quality, or vegetation characteristics for flood mitigation). Select species most important for priority services in addition to globally threatened species, and use the optional natural and semi-natural habitat metric where habitat configuration matters (p.5).

Step 4 — Assess coverage and the need for complementary metrics and analysis: Where links are direct, configured metrics serve as strong indicators; where partial, complementary indicators sharpen the picture; where indirect or context-dependent, additional analysis is usually needed (p.5).

Where the consensus State of Nature metrics provide strong insight, and where complementary metrics can add value

State of Nature metrics are most useful where services are strongly linked to ecosystem extent and condition — such as flood mitigation linked to upstream vegetation extent, erosion control linked to vegetation cover, and cultural values linked to the persistence of threatened species (p.6). For services such as fisheries productivity, crop pollination and water purification, a combination of configured metrics and complementary indicators provides a stronger picture (p.6).

Moving from State of Nature metrics to insight on risk and resilience

The flexibility built into the NPI metric framework means these metrics can support dependency assessments when configured with dependencies in mind. Organisations are encouraged to identify priority ecosystem services, configure metrics to capture information on business dependence and service vulnerability, and determine where additional indicators or analysis are required (p.7).