Why Banks Demand Detailed Biodiversity Reports: Financial Risks and Regulatory Requirements

Banks are demanding increasingly detailed biodiversity reports from companies. Why? Biodiversity loss represents not only ecological but also financial risks. Approximately 75% of all bank loans flow to companies that depend on ecosystem services – a risk that banks are increasingly incorporating into their decisions. At the same time, new EU regulations such as the CSRD and ESRS E4 are creating clear requirements for biodiversity reporting.

What do you need to know?

• Regulatory requirements: From 2024, companies must disclose biodiversity data according to EU standards.
• Bank expectations: Required are analyses of dependencies, measurable targets, and transparent strategies.
• Opportunities: Nature-positive approaches could generate over $10 trillion in business value annually.

The pressure is mounting – but with the right data and strategies, you can not only minimize risks but also unlock new opportunities.

Regulatory Requirements and Standards for Biodiversity Reporting

The regulatory landscape in Germany and the EU is evolving at an unprecedented pace, with CSRD, EU Taxonomy, and ESRS E4 establishing the comprehensive framework for biodiversity reporting. These regulations represent a fundamental shift, requiring companies to move beyond traditional environmental compliance and integrate biodiversity management into their core strategic operations while maintaining full transparency in their reporting practices.

The urgency of this regulatory push becomes clear when examining the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2023, which ranks biodiversity loss as the fourth-largest global risk for the next decade. This stark assessment directly influences the increasingly stringent regulatory measures we see today, as policymakers recognize that environmental degradation poses systemic risks to global economic stability. Below, we examine the key regulatory frameworks and their specific requirements that are reshaping corporate reporting standards.

CSRD, EU Taxonomy and ESRS E4

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) forms the cornerstone of the new reporting obligations, fundamentally transforming how European companies approach sustainability disclosure. From the 2024 reporting year, companies must comply with the comprehensive ESRS standards, which represent the most ambitious sustainability reporting framework ever implemented at this scale. A central innovation of the CSRD is the mandatory double materiality analysis, which requires companies to assess both how sustainability issues affect their financial performance and how their operations impact the environment and society – a dual perspective that creates unprecedented transparency requirements.

The ESRS standards build upon the established GRI framework but introduce mandatory compliance and specific EU requirements that go far beyond voluntary reporting. This represents a crucial distinction from the IFRS standards, which focus solely on financial materiality, while ESRS embraces the broader double materiality approach. Notably, ESRS E1 incorporates and extends many TCFD requirements, creating binding obligations where previously only recommendations existed, thereby establishing a new baseline for climate-related financial disclosures across the European market.

The EU Taxonomy operates as a sophisticated classification system that defines precise criteria for environmentally sustainable economic activities, with biodiversity protection and restoration forming a critical component. This framework serves as an essential tool for banks and financial institutions, enabling them to systematically identify, evaluate, and prioritize sustainable investments while ensuring alignment with European environmental objectives.

ESRS E4 specifically targets biodiversity and ecosystems, requiring companies to provide detailed disclosures about their dependencies on ecosystem services, their impacts on biodiversity, and the comprehensive management approaches they employ to address nature-related risks and opportunities. This standard represents the most detailed biodiversity reporting requirement ever mandated at the corporate level.

Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD)

Beyond EU regulations, the global momentum behind the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is rapidly gaining traction as the international standard for nature-related financial reporting. This comprehensive framework complements EU requirements while establishing a worldwide baseline for nature-related disclosures. The framework's growing influence is evidenced by the fact that by June 2024, more than 400 organizations across diverse sectors and geographies had already committed to adopting TNFD recommendations, demonstrating unprecedented global alignment on nature-related financial risk management.

The TNFD framework provides organizations with systematic guidance to identify, assess, manage, and disclose nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities throughout their operations and value chains. Built on four foundational pillars – Governance, Strategy, Risk and Impact Management, and Metrics and Targets – the framework employs the innovative LEAP approach, which guides organizations through a structured assessment process: Locate interfaces with nature across operations and value chains, Evaluate dependencies and impacts on nature, Assess material risks and opportunities arising from these relationships, and Prepare appropriate responses and disclosures based on the assessment findings.

The TNFD recommendations strategically align with Target 15 of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which establishes binding requirements for large and transnational companies to regularly monitor, assess, and transparently disclose their risks, dependencies, and impacts on biodiversity. This alignment creates a coherent global approach to nature-related corporate disclosure, bridging international policy objectives with practical business implementation.

"The TNFD provides the main method for operationalizing Target 15 [and] welcomes closer integration with the ISSB to create a global baseline for sustainability reporting".

Materiality Analysis and Areas of Application

Under the CSRD framework, companies must conduct rigorous assessments to determine whether biodiversity constitutes a material topic for their specific operations and business model. This materiality determination directly influences the scope and depth of required reporting, making it a critical strategic decision that affects both compliance costs and stakeholder expectations.

A practical illustration comes from Merck KGaA's comprehensive 2023 materiality assessment, where the company systematically classified potential negative impacts across four distinct categories throughout their value chain. The company established clear materiality thresholds, determining that any topic demonstrating moderate impact in at least one value chain step would be classified as material, thereby requiring detailed disclosure and management attention.

For conducting these complex assessments, industry experts recommend applying the first three steps of the TNFD's LEAP methodology, which provides a structured approach to identifying and evaluating nature-related materiality. This assessment must comprehensively consider both actual and potential positive and negative impacts across environmental, economic, and social dimensions, ensuring that companies capture the full spectrum of their nature-related material topics and can prioritize their reporting and management efforts accordingly.

Bank Requirements for Corporate Biodiversity Reporting

Following our examination of the regulatory framework, it becomes clear that banks' expectations are increasingly sophisticated, focusing on comprehensive data flows and strategic alignment in biodiversity reporting. Financial institutions now demand detailed, actionable, and forward-looking information that enables them to conduct thorough risk assessments and make informed lending decisions that account for nature-related financial risks and opportunities.

The economic imperative driving these requirements is staggering: recent analysis by WWF demonstrates that without immediate and comprehensive measures to protect biodiversity, the global economy faces potential annual losses of $2.7 trillion by 2030. Simultaneously, research indicates that nearly 50% of all economic sectors maintain heavy dependencies on biodiversity and ecosystem services, creating systemic risks that banks can no longer ignore. Against this backdrop of mounting environmental and financial risks, banks are demanding increasingly precise and reliable data from their corporate clients to inform their risk management and investment strategies.

What Data Do Banks Expect from Companies?

To develop comprehensive understanding of their clients' impacts and dependencies on biodiversity and ecosystem services, banks require specific categories of information that enable sophisticated risk modeling and strategic decision-making:

• Comprehensive impact analyses and dependency assessments: Companies must provide detailed documentation of how their business activities influence natural systems and identify which critical ecosystem services are fundamental to their operations. This information enables banks to conduct thorough assessments of potential credit risks, environmental liabilities, and operational vulnerabilities that could affect loan performance and portfolio stability.
• Measurable targets and implementation strategies: Banks expect concrete, time-bound biodiversity targets supported by detailed implementation plans that demonstrate clear pathways to achievement. These strategic commitments flow directly into creditworthiness assessments and increasingly influence financing conditions, interest rates, and access to sustainable finance products.
• Risk management frameworks and mitigation measures: Companies must provide transparent information about their governance structures, risk assessment processes, and comprehensive damage mitigation measures, including contingency planning for nature-related risks and opportunities.

To support these requirements, banks increasingly deploy specialized analytical tools such as WWF's "Biodiversity Risk Filter" and "Encore" from the Natural Capital Finance Alliance, both of which require standardized, high-quality data inputs to generate meaningful risk assessments and portfolio insights.

Framework Alignment and Consistent Data

Alignment with established frameworks such as TNFD and ESRS E4 has become essential for banks seeking to ensure comparability, consistency, and reliability in assessing portfolio-wide nature-related risks and opportunities. Recognizing this need for harmonization, TNFD and EFRAG have collaboratively published detailed mapping between ESRS and TNFD recommendations, significantly reducing analytical complexity and implementation costs for both companies and financial institutions.

Central to this alignment is the TNFD's LEAP approach (Locate, Evaluate, Assess, Prepare), which provides companies with a systematic, science-based methodology for assessing nature-related topics across their operations and value chains. The ESRS standards explicitly recognize and accommodate this approach, allowing companies to conduct their materiality analysis on biodiversity using the LEAP methodology, thereby creating seamless integration between global and European reporting frameworks.

To meet these evolving requirements effectively, companies should prioritize established metrics and methodologies that not only provide consistent, comparable data but also deliver forward-looking insights that enable proactive risk management and strategic planning.

Forward-Looking Information and Opportunities

For banks operating in an increasingly complex risk environment, forward-looking biodiversity information serves multiple critical functions – supporting regulatory compliance, enabling sophisticated risk management, and identifying emerging investment opportunities in the rapidly expanding nature-positive economy. Banks expect companies to develop and implement strategies that seamlessly integrate with existing climate and sustainability initiatives while demonstrating practical feasibility, measurable outcomes, and clear pathways to implementation.

The massive financing gap in biodiversity conservation – estimated at $1.2 trillion annually by 2030 – simultaneously represents both a challenge and an unprecedented business opportunity for forward-thinking financial institutions. As leading consulting firm BCG emphasizes in their comprehensive analysis:

"Nature finance offers a compelling opportunity for banks where they can create positive environmental impact, support their clients' transitions to a nature-positive future, and strengthen their core business".

Supporting this opportunity assessment, industry analyses reveal that approximately $4.5 trillion – representing about 18% of US GDP – flows through sectors that maintain high or moderate dependencies on nature and biodiversity. These figures underscore the critical importance for companies to transparently present nature-related risks and opportunities, while demonstrating how they plan to navigate the transition to a nature-positive economy. Banks increasingly view this transparency as essential for making informed lending decisions and identifying clients positioned for long-term success in a resource-constrained world.

Tools and Metrics for Biodiversity Reporting

Meeting banks' sophisticated biodiversity requirements demands precision tools and carefully designed methodologies that can capture the complex relationships between business operations and natural systems. Companies must employ both quantitative and qualitative approaches to effectively measure their biodiversity performance and communicate their nature-related impacts and dependencies with the transparency and rigor that financial institutions now expect.

Biodiversity Footprint and Scenario Analysis

Determining an accurate biodiversity footprint requires systematic recording of species diversity and ecosystem functions through multiple complementary methodologies. Modern assessment approaches integrate traditional field studies with cutting-edge technologies including remote sensing, environmental DNA barcoding, and citizen science engagement to create comprehensive, scientifically robust data foundations that can withstand regulatory scrutiny and stakeholder examination.

Statistical indices form the analytical backbone of biodiversity assessment, with the Shannon-Wiener Index serving as a frequently utilized tool that applies information theory principles to quantify species diversity within specific regions or ecosystems. This index proves particularly valuable because it considers not only the total number of species present but also their relative abundance and distribution patterns, providing a more nuanced understanding of ecosystem health and stability than simple species counts.

Beyond the Shannon-Wiener Index, comprehensive biodiversity assessments should incorporate multiple complementary metrics including species richness (the total number of different species in a defined area), species evenness (the distribution of individuals among different species), and hierarchical diversity measures such as alpha diversity (local species diversity), beta diversity (species turnover between locations), and gamma diversity (regional species diversity). These multiple metrics provide valuable insights into local and regional biodiversity patterns while enabling companies to identify biodiversity hotspots and areas of particular conservation concern within their operations and value chains.

Scenario analysis extends these present-focused approaches by introducing forward-looking perspectives that enable companies to simulate different environmental conditions and identify potential risks to their business activities before they materialize. This combination of current assessment and future-oriented modeling creates a solid foundation for integrating biodiversity considerations into comprehensive ESG strategies that can adapt to changing environmental conditions and regulatory requirements.

Best Practices for ESG Integration

Successfully integrating biodiversity data into existing ESG frameworks requires implementing a structured double materiality approach that systematically evaluates both how companies depend on natural systems and how their operations impact ecosystem health and biodiversity. This dual perspective ensures comprehensive coverage of nature-related risks and opportunities while aligning with emerging regulatory requirements and stakeholder expectations.

The strategic importance of this integration is emphasized by Goldman Sachs, which notes:

"Biodiversity forms the cornerstone of numerous sustainability goals, which companies and investors must increasingly focus on".

Leading financial institutions are demonstrating practical approaches to biodiversity integration through innovative investment strategies and products. Fidelity International has launched the Sustainable Biodiversity Fund, which "invests in the full value chain of solutions to biodiversity loss," targeting companies developing nature-based solutions and sustainable resource management technologies. Similarly, Robeco offers the Robecosam Biodiversity Equities Fund, which focuses on companies that "support the sustainable use of natural resources and ecosystem services to help reduce biodiversity loss," demonstrating how biodiversity considerations can be systematically integrated into investment decision-making processes.

Effective integration strategies also emphasize collaboration with environmental organizations, scientific institutions, and other stakeholders to access additional perspectives, expertise, and resources for strategy development. Companies should systematically examine their supply chains for environmental responsibility, implement comprehensive due diligence processes, and actively promote nature conservation projects through financial support, direct investment, or strategic partnerships with conservation organizations and local communities.

Using Professional Support

Implementing comprehensive biodiversity strategies and reporting systems can present significant challenges for companies lacking specialized expertise or resources. External consulting provides valuable support in navigating these complexities, with many companies finding themselves overwhelmed by the technical requirements, regulatory nuances, and stakeholder expectations associated with biodiversity reporting. Specialized consulting firms like Fiegenbaum Solutions offer essential support in meeting regulatory requirements while developing tailored strategies that align with specific business models and risk profiles.

Fiegenbaum Solutions supports companies through comprehensive analysis of their biodiversity impacts, strategic integration of nature conservation aspects into core business strategy, and development of robust data processing capabilities using modern analytical tools and methodologies. The consulting approach emphasizes practical implementation while ensuring alignment with established frameworks such as TNFD, ESRS, and CSRD, enabling companies to meet multiple reporting requirements efficiently.

Companies benefit from expert support across multiple critical areas including materiality analyses, scenario planning, stakeholder engagement, and clear communication of biodiversity-related measures to investors, regulators, and other stakeholders. This comprehensive support proves particularly valuable in selecting and implementing appropriate measurement tools and technologies that can provide the data quality and analytical capabilities that banks and other financial institutions increasingly demand.

While user-friendly software solutions like VBioindex offer accessible alternatives to more complex analytical packages, many companies require individually adapted solutions that consider their unique business models, operational contexts, risk profiles, and specific stakeholder requirements. Professional consulting helps companies navigate these choices while ensuring their biodiversity reporting meets banks' evolving requirements and positions them for success in an increasingly nature-conscious financial landscape.

Aligning Corporate Strategies with Banks' Biodiversity Requirements

To successfully meet banks' rapidly evolving requirements, companies must strategically transform their approaches to nature-related risk management and opportunity identification. Precise recording and analysis of nature-related data forms the essential foundation for developing effective measures that satisfy both regulatory requirements and financial sector expectations. Banks increasingly prioritize comprehensive assessment of biodiversity risks within their credit portfolios – a logical evolution when considering that approximately 50% of global GDP depends directly or indirectly on natural capital and ecosystem services. Without targeted, immediate measures to address the accelerating biodiversity crisis, economic modeling suggests that annual losses of $2.7 trillion could threaten global economic stability by 2030.

Developing Guidelines and Defining Targets

The foundational step in strategic adaptation involves developing comprehensive, science-based biodiversity guidelines that reflect both international best practices and company-specific operational contexts. This process includes systematically identifying nature hotspots – geographic areas and operational sites where company activities generate particularly significant environmental impacts or depend heavily on ecosystem services. Based on these assessments, companies should establish concrete, measurable nature-related targets that may include promoting nature-positive measures, systematically reducing environmental damage, restoring degraded ecosystems, or enhancing biodiversity within operational areas and supply chains.

Successful integration of nature considerations into financial guidelines requires developing specific, actionable requirements that can be systematically implemented across business operations. Companies should, for example, incorporate comprehensive nature assessments into their underwriting and financing processes for high-risk projects, sectors, or geographic regions, while establishing clear criteria for evaluating nature-related risks and opportunities. Equally critical is implementing regular review processes to ensure that established targets remain relevant, achievable, and effective in the face of changing environmental conditions, regulatory requirements, and stakeholder expectations.

Active Communication with Banks and Stakeholders

Open, proactive communication serves as a fundamental factor in successfully meeting banks' requirements while building trust and credibility among diverse stakeholder groups. Transparency and accountability in nature-related reporting create essential trust among stakeholders and significantly strengthen credibility regarding environmental commitments and performance. Systematic engagement with external stakeholder groups including customers, suppliers, investors, regulatory authorities, and local communities provides valuable feedback that can inform strategy development and implementation while identifying potential risks and opportunities that might otherwise be overlooked.

Digital communication channels including social media platforms, corporate websites, and stakeholder portals can be strategically utilized to share nature-related progress, success stories, and lessons learned – both internally with employees and externally with investors, customers, and communities. This transparent communication approach helps build stakeholder confidence while demonstrating genuine commitment to nature-positive outcomes.

Another critical aspect of effective stakeholder engagement is establishing clearly defined grievance mechanisms that provide accessible channels for addressing nature-related concerns and conflicts. The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures emphasizes the importance of these systems:

"A well-defined and functioning grievance mechanism that provides a recognised and effective channel for such issues to be surfaced and formally addressed is important so that grievances can be identified and resolved before they compound, escalate and undermine the engagement process. It is also important to track grievances, the organisation's response and the outcome to ensure timely closing and learning of lessons".

Additionally, strategic partnerships with environmental organizations, scientific institutions, and research centers can provide access to reliable, cutting-edge information and expertise. Given that nearly 41,500 animal and plant species currently face extinction threats according to the IUCN Red List, these partnerships represent crucial steps in developing effective conservation strategies and demonstrating genuine commitment to biodiversity protection. These collaborative relationships create solid foundations for selecting and implementing appropriate biodiversity strategies that can meet both conservation objectives and business requirements.

Selecting the Right Biodiversity Strategy

Companies face a strategic choice between adopting a compliance-oriented approach that meets minimum regulatory requirements or pursuing a more ambitious, leadership-oriented strategy that positions them as industry pioneers in nature-positive business practices. The leadership-oriented approach, which focuses on comprehensive biodiversity targets and innovative conservation measures, is increasingly favored by banks, investors, and other stakeholders – often driven by evolving legal requirements to systematically consider ESG risks in investment decisions and portfolio management.

Such leadership-oriented strategies offer significant advantages beyond ESG criteria compliance, including enhanced access to sustainable financing sources, improved stakeholder relationships, and competitive positioning in markets increasingly focused on environmental performance. By 2030, experts estimate an annual financing gap of $600 to over $800 billion for global biodiversity conservation efforts, creating substantial opportunities for companies that can demonstrate credible nature-positive strategies and measurable conservation outcomes. Deutsche Bank's active engagement in initiatives like the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) exemplifies how leading financial institutions are positioning themselves to capitalize on these emerging opportunities.

Furthermore, companies should develop comprehensive climate transformation plans that integrate short-, medium-, and long-term targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously addressing biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration. Supply chains require systematic review for ESG risks and opportunities, with companies increasingly integrating ESG performance targets into executive compensation structures to ensure accountability and drive performance. The EU Supply Chain Directive (CSDDD) represents a significant expansion beyond the German Supply Chain Act (LkSG) by including downstream value chain activities and broadening the scope of environmental and social protection requirements, creating additional compliance obligations and strategic opportunities for proactive companies.

Key Insights for Companies on Biodiversity Reporting

Current regulatory developments and market trends make one reality unmistakably clear: banks will continue tightening biodiversity reporting requirements, and companies must proactively prepare for comprehensive disclosures on nature-related topics across their operations and value chains. Angela McClellan, Director for Sustainable Finance at PwC Germany, provides crucial insight into the current state of financial sector preparedness:

"The financial sector has not yet sufficiently recognized the risks and opportunities of a nature-positive economy: This is shown by the results of our survey. Awareness of physical risks, but also of benefits that go beyond competitive opportunities and reputation, must be sharpened both by institutions and customers".

Comprehensive transformation plans that systematically address both climate change and biodiversity loss will become essential prerequisites for maintaining successful banking relationships and securing strategic competitive advantages in an increasingly nature-conscious economy. Katja Kirchstein, Senior Advisor for Sustainable Finance at WWF Germany, delivers an urgent warning about the consequences of inaction:

"Neglecting the opportunities and risks of biodiversity in the financial sector will become a long-term knockout criterion – not only for preserving our ecosystems but also for economic stability. Now is the time to invest in the future and make assumptions for longer-term and more resilient returns."

These expert assessments illustrate the critical urgency for immediate action across all business sectors. Precise assessment of nature-related dependencies, impacts, and risks has become indispensable for maintaining competitiveness and accessing capital markets. Companies should systematically record and analyze their relationships with natural systems, utilize the TNFD framework as comprehensive guidance for their reporting processes, and focus particular attention on the five sectors identified as having the highest biodiversity risks while aligning their strategic targets with national and international conservation priorities.

Another essential strategic approach involves fostering collaboration with external partners across the value chain and broader ecosystem. Close cooperation with supply chain partners, strategic investments in nature-based solutions, and active participation in conservation initiatives can create crucial competitive advantages while contributing to global biodiversity conservation efforts. Thomas Viegas, Nature Strategy Lead at Aviva, articulates this interconnected perspective:

"We recognize that the long-term success of our business, our customers, and society as a whole depends on the health and resilience of nature and its biodiversity".

Companies that act decisively and early can not only meet evolving regulatory requirements but also gain preferential access to sustainable capital, strengthen their market position, and build resilience against nature-related risks. The current moment represents an optimal time to integrate biodiversity aspects into strategic planning processes – a transformative step that can secure not only long-term operational stability but also significant competitive advantages in markets increasingly focused on environmental performance and nature-positive outcomes.

FAQs

What information do banks expect from companies in biodiversity reporting?

Banks place exceptional value on clear, comprehensive, and actionable information when evaluating corporate biodiversity reporting. The primary focus centers on the company's biodiversity strategy and its integration into core business operations, thorough assessment of risks and opportunities arising from biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, and detailed documentation of nature protection measures that have been implemented across operations and value chains. Companies must transparently disclose how their activities influence natural environments – whether through direct land use changes, resource extraction, pollution, or through measurable changes in species diversity and ecosystem health in the areas where they operate and source materials.

Furthermore, concrete, measurable metrics play an increasingly central role in bank evaluations. Quantifiable progress in conservation projects, ecosystem restoration initiatives, and systematic reduction of negative environmental impacts provides essential data that enables banks to assess a company's sustainability performance accurately while meeting growing regulatory requirements and societal expectations for environmental stewardship and accountability.

How can companies successfully meet the requirements of CSRD and ESRS E4?

Companies can successfully meet the comprehensive requirements of CSRD and ESRS E4 by first conducting thorough analysis and assessment of their material ecological and financial impacts across all business operations and value chain activities. This foundational analysis serves as the cornerstone for determining the relevance and materiality of various sustainability aspects while enabling companies to target their reporting efforts effectively and efficiently.

Critical to success is addressing both qualitative and quantitative reporting obligations with equal rigor and attention to detail. Companies should systematically document their targets, implementation measures, and measurable progress while maintaining transparency about areas where certain requirements or data may not yet be fully available. A well-structured, comprehensive sustainability report that seamlessly incorporates both legal compliance requirements and diverse stakeholder expectations represents a central building block for successful CSRD implementation.

Additionally, leveraging recognized international frameworks such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) can provide significant benefits in meeting these requirements. These established frameworks help companies align their biodiversity strategies with financial sector requirements and expectations while creating stronger, more coherent connections between ecological conservation goals and financial performance objectives.

What benefits does integrating biodiversity into business strategy offer companies?

Integrating biodiversity considerations into core business strategy can deliver significant, measurable advantages across multiple dimensions of business performance. Companies gain access to an emerging market potential estimated at an impressive $10 trillion by 2030, representing unprecedented opportunities for growth and innovation. Simultaneously, this integration enables the development of new products, services, and business models that are not only economically attractive but also contribute meaningfully to ecological conservation and restoration efforts.

Strategic biodiversity integration strengthens sustainable business models, systematically reduces operational and reputational risks, and significantly increases organizational resilience to environmental changes and regulatory shifts. In the long term, companies enhance their competitive positioning and develop superior capabilities to meet both evolving regulatory requirements and increasingly sophisticated stakeholder expectations for environmental performance and nature-positive outcomes.