Additional sector guidance – Water utilities and services

This additional sector guidance supplements the TNFD’s Guidance on assessment of nature-related issues— the LEAP approach — and should be read in conjunction with that guidance.

This guidance was published as a draft in January 2025 for public consultation and feedback, which has been integrated into this final document.

The TNFD recognises that there can be significant differences across sectors for corporates applying the LEAP approach. It has published this guidance to help organisations with business models and/or value chains across the water utilities sectors to apply the LEAP approach to their context and to disclose sector-specific metrics in line with the TNFD recommendations.

This guidance covers the SICS® industry: Water utilities & services

Key focus area

• Sector specific guidance on how to apply the LEAP approach in this sector.
• Guidance on applying the core global disclosure metrics for this sector.
• A list of core and additional sector disclosure indicators and metrics for organisations in this sector.
• Dependency and impact matrices to identify potentially material dependencies and impacts on nature for this sector.
• Illustrative lists of environmental assets, ecosystem services, impact drivers, risks and opportunities, and response actions in this sector.

Key outcomes

Gain insights on the nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities commonly facing organisations in this sector.

Understand how to apply the LEAP approach for an organisation in this sector.

Understand TNFD’s guidance on the final disclosure metrics recommended for these sectors.

Acknowledgements

The development of this sector guidance has been led by a working group of TNFD Taskforce members with extensive input from both science partners and market participants over the past year, including through focus groups and written feedback. The Taskforce is grateful for the input received from a wide range of individuals and organisations and extends particular thanks to The Nature Conservancy (TNC) who helped develop this guidance.