Home » NewsWWF and partners to deepen collaboration with TNFD on nature-related data initiatives Date Posted 18th October 2024 October 2024: WWF and TNFD Press Release Over a number of years, WWF has shown that application of geospatial data can improve the ability of key financial actors to differentiate on environmental performance, and to aid realignment of capital towards truly sustainable development. ‘Geospatial ESG’ is the emerging application of geospatial data for gaining ‘environmental’ insights for investors at the asset, corporate and sovereign level. In 2015, WWF produced one of the first analyses of its kind examining the encroachment of extractive industries on UNESCO World Heritage Sites and highlighting the implications for investors. Most recently, in 2023, WWF and Maxar released The Biodiversity Data Puzzle Report, outlining how improved ecosystem and biodiversity insights can be gained, and could be consistently produced, for every commercial asset on Earth, with geospatially- driven ex-situ data approaches. Alongside this work, WWF and Responsible Risk have developed a ‘consortium’ of research and partnerships around ‘geospatial ESG’. Partners in the platform have included several leading organisations and asset managers including Ordnance Survey, Innovate UK Business Connect, the Group on Earth Observations, Zurich University of Applied Sciences and University of Zurich, and several more. Over the same time period, the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), of which WWF was a founding member, has initiated the development of a global Nature Data Public Facility (NDPF). Its aim is to enable companies and financial institutions to effectively identify, assess, disclose and manage their nature-related issues, and to support long-term upgrades in nature-related data along the data value chain with a range of partner organisations. This is done through a portfolio of data-centric initiatives that align with and support the adoption and active use of the TNFD recommendations and accompanying additional guidance. Now on the eve of the UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP16), WWF, TNFD and partners in the ‘geospatial ESG consortium’ are combining forces to integrate the insights, products and momentum beyond ‘geospatial ESG’ into the TNFDs Nature Data Public Facility initiative and proposed ongoing programme of work to facilitate nature-related data for markets. Catherine Armour, Director of Data Initiatives at the TNFD, said: “We are delighted to deepen our long-term collaboration with WWF, one of our founding organisations, to help meet the growing nature-related data needs of the market. Today’s announcement underscores the need for organisations right across the nature data value chain – from primary data collectors to end users – to come together to improve the quality, timeliness and decision usefulness of nature-related data.” Donna Lyndsay, Sustainability Lead, Ordnance Survey said: “Location data is the key to understanding the impact of an asset on the ecosystem and biodiversity. Ordnance Survey is bringing together our knowledge on how to accurately locate things on the planet and how to provide trust and objectivity into geospatial ESG. We are aiming to do this by providing a system for verified asset location with our partners. We see this as a key capability to drive the transparency needed to help link global identifier and datasets together to protect nature and people.” The TNFD intends to release the blueprint and development roadmap for the NDPF at the World Biodiversity Summit coinciding with COP16. NOTES ABOUT THE WWF WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to build a future in which people live in harmony with nature, by: conserving the world’s biological diversity, ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable and promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption. MEDIA CONTACT Danny Smith – Senior Advisor, International Finance – WWF Verdens Naturfond [email protected] Rita Lockheart, Communications Lead, TNFD [email protected]