Changing our relationship with nature is essential and as policy signals point to a future where regulation drives nature-positive outcomes businesses, must turn their attention to nature now
3 October 2025
Ecosystems worldwide, from the ocean depths to terrestrial environments, are facing an accelerating decline in nature. The pressures on nature and ecosystem services have reached a critical level, and there is real concern that we may be, or already have, breached tipping points, and change is becoming self-perpetuating.
With this decline, we are removing the very basis that supports our economic systems; the evidence is very clear on this.
Recent analysis by Ceres in Nature’s Price Tag: The economic cost of nature loss, suggests that the financial impacts of ecosystem decline for eight key sectors, including amongst the critical sectors for the Australian economy, will be up to $430 billion per year under a Business-As-Usual scenario.
The stakes, quite literally, could not be higher.
However, no country can address the crisis in isolation, nor can it thrive without the ecological richness that defines life on Earth. Solving this crisis will depend on governments and business working in tandem to shift the world and our economies onto the right trajectory.
All businesses depend on nature, and in many ways, the impacts of nature’s decline are already being felt; to date, we simply have failed to put a price on those impacts.
In this article, we unpack what’s needed to meet the challenge head-on and the critical role that business can and must play in the journey to nature-positive.
The Global Biodiversity Framework sets the stage for protecting nature, but turning global commitments into local action remains a challenge. The goal is clear – to halt biodiversity loss by 2030 and achieve a nature-positive world by 2050. But while COP16 delivered progress such as greater inclusion of Indigenous communities, a clear strategy for financing the economic transformation required is still missing.
This lack of financial commitment risks delaying critical investment, leaving a gap between ambition and the resources needed to deliver nature-positive outcomes.
In the context of having a global commitment but a significant funding gap, protecting and healing nature requires three critical components to come together to involve all actors – governments and business – in the journey towards Nature-Positive:
Let’s unpack what each of these elements mean for business action right now.
A growing range of frameworks, tools, and case studies now support businesses and investors in understanding and reducing their impact on nature. Collaborative efforts by leading organisations, including WBCSD, Capitals Coalition, World Economic Forum (WEF), Task Force on Climate-Related Disclosures (TNFD), and Science Based Targets Network (SBTN), have developed the ACT-D (Assess, Commit, Transform, Disclose) approach – a systematic and adaptable process guiding businesses toward nature-positive strategies.
Currently, in Australia, there are no mandatory reporting requirements for nature. This is, however, predicted to change in the not-too-distant future. The most likely scenario is that the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) Standard 1 will follow suit on the already mandatory reporting Standard S2.
AASB S1 is broad and cross-topic and would capture topics related to biodiversity and nature. The value of regulation lies, of course, in sending a clear message that nature risks and dependencies must be incorporated into business strategies and operations, much in the same way as climate and climate risk are becoming embedded as concerns in how organisations operate.
The most critical thing that organisations can do right now is to get ahead of understanding the risks and opportunities posed by nature to their business, rather than to wait for regulation to take effect.
This cuts right to the core of the issue. Nature has been treated as external to the costs and value created by economic activities, when in fact nature forms the very foundation for creating economic value.
The key step for organisations to take now is to recognise that nature loss poses real, financial risks to most, if not all, organisations.
Equally, natural capital is a form of unrecognised financial value (assets) for organisations. Companies can start today on the journey towards valuing nature in financial terms. One key way that is emerging to integrate nature in this way is to ‘put nature on the balance sheet’.
This involves first understanding nature dependencies and impacts, translating these into measurable units (e.g., litres of water used) and then assigning financial value (e.g., via market or replacement costs, shadow pricing etc.). These values can then be used to link environmental data with financial accounts. In this way, natural capital can be reported on and considered in decision-making, in a language that is intuitive and familiar to decision-makers.
The final piece of the puzzle involves harnessing existing models to mobilise finance for nature restoration and protection. Financial mechanisms, such as payment for ecosystem services, green bonds, and green loans have long supported conservation efforts, and will continue to play a critical role in nature recovery.
However, these tools alone are insufficient. Finance for nature recovery needs to be scaled significantly.
Biodiversity and nature credit markets are now emerging as essential tools that could bridge this finance gap. When designed appropriately, nature credits offer a structured, market-based approach to drive measurable nature-positive outcomes while mobilising private capital and ensuring accountability.
The unitisation of nature through nature credit markets is a key strength of this market-based approach. That is, nature credit schemes turn natural assets or ecosystem services into quantifiable, tradeable units and thereby transform complex and often intangible ecological processes into measurable, financial instruments. For example, forests can provide multiple ecosystem services ranging from habitat provision, through to watershed protection. Applying quantification of species richness and water retention capacity, each of these services can be converted into a tradeable unit as a nature credit.
In other words, nature credit schemes present a mechanism to connect businesses with conservation outcomes delivered by third parties.
Nature credits can be used by organisations in varied ways to respond to nature decline. One scenario is that businesses buy nature credits generated by a third party – possibly within their supply chain – and subsequently retire those credits in response to their identified nature-positive commitments and targets.
Under another scenario, organisations may see an opportunity to generate nature credits to sell to other organisations as a new revenue stream, or in combination with addressing their own nature impacts and dependencies, where surplus credits may be sold to third parties. Connected to this scenario, nature credit schemes also present a pathways to verify conservation outcomes, and hence a method for businesses to report transparently on their response to nature impacts and dependencies.
Ultimately, therefore, nature credit schemes present an opportunity for businesses to manage risk and respond to impacts, whilst also presenting opportunities to get involved in a new type of market to generate revenue, enhance brand value, and innovate business models.
Changing our relationship with nature is essential. Global and domestic policy signals point towards a future state where regulation will drive organisations in the direction towards nature-positive.
But we have no time to lose, and businesses are in a powerful position to act now. The tools and mechanisms needed to respond to the crisis are at our fingertips. Critically, these tools can unlock value for organisations by putting nature on the Balance Sheet, and through participation in new markets and the discovery of new business opportunities.
We support companies in understanding Nature Markets, nature-based solutions and how to go nature-positive. Contact us for guidance today, we’d love to help.
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