Nature and Climate action. A resource navigator for companies and financial institutions

Global Commons Alliance, Accountability Accelerator, the Climate Champions team, AccountAbility

The Global Commons Alliance’s Accountability Accelerator (GCAAA) works to strengthen the accountability of businesses and financial institutions when it comes to their impact on nature and climate. GCAAA also supports organizations in delivering on their respective nature commitments to mitigate harms, restore, sustainably access, and safeguard the regenerative capabilities of the global commons.iii Its aim is to keep the world within safe and just planetary boundaries6 for humans and nature alike. The UN Climate Change High-Level Champions, established following COP 21 and mandated by the Paris Agreement, drive real world momentum into the UN Climate Change negotiations by mobilizing climate action amongst non-state actors (companies, cities, regions, financial, educational and healthcare institutions) to achieve climate and nature goals.

GCAAA, CCT, and AccountAbility, a global specialist sustainability advisory, standards, and research firm, developed this navigator to orient companies and financial institutions within the landscape of business guidance, management tools, methodologies, and disclosure frameworks that address nature and climate action and transparency. The resources included in this navigator support organizational decision-making with respect to business impacts, dependencies, and pressures on natural systems.

GCAAA and CCT understand how the rapid proliferation of frameworks, business guidance, and disclosure demands can represent challenges for companies and financial institutions in understanding where to start, what resources are most relevant to their operations, and how to engage as strong stewards for nature and climate. This navigator seeks to equip users with a more streamlined path to approaching the tools, measurement systems, action steps, and disclosure instruments that facilitate effective management of nature- and climate-related impacts, dependencies, risks, and opportunities as well as enable informed selection and utilization of resources most applicable to their business’ operations.

The business guidance, management frameworks and tools, and disclosure instruments aggregated and profiled in this navigator focus primarily on nature, inclusive of its land, freshwater, atmospheric, and ocean realms as well as its biodiversity. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes significant established science-backed linkages between climate change and nature loss,7 businesses should begin to assess the level of interconnected and compounding risk across their operations, portfolios, and supply chains. Due to the vast interrelatedness of these challenges, this navigator also includes key decarbonization-focused management resources for companies and financial institutions, and where available in the evolving resource landscape, transition planning resources that support simultaneous consideration of nature and climate action.

Widening organizational risk aperture to be inclusive of both nature and climate will create opportunities to better safeguard natural systems and improve business resilience and competitive advantages. Businesses can assess their value chains to leverage nature-based solutions,iv for example, which can help drive the global climate change mitigation efforts required by 2030 and also build resilience in landscapes and communities already experiencing climate change impacts. Simultaneous action on nature and climate may also present chances for organizations to realize efficiencies in the collection and management of the data needed to support disclosures and decision-making, and to build the necessary internal capacity and expertise.