Why Nature Is Becoming Central to Sustainability Strategies

The concept of natural capital, the world’s stock of natural assets including soil, air, water, biodiversity, and living organisms, is central to understanding why nature has moved from a peripheral concern to a strategic priority. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Nature Risk Rising report, more than half of the world’s GDP, roughly $44 trillion in economic value, is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services. These services are not abstract. Pollination supports global food systems. Mangroves buffer communities against storm surges. Forests regulate rainfall and sequester carbon. When these systems degrade, the costs in disaster recovery, water treatment, and agricultural losses fall on economies worldwide. Recognizing this, the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) launched its final recommendations in September 2023, giving businesses and financial institutions a framework for reporting on nature-related risks and opportunities, structured similarly to the TCFD for climate. By early 2024, over 320 organizations from 46 countries had committed to TNFD-aligned disclosures, signaling that financial markets are beginning to price nature risk into decision-making.

One of the most significant shifts in sustainability planning is the mainstreaming of nature-based solutions—actions that protect, sustainably manage, or restore ecosystems to address societal challenges including climate change, water security, and food systems. The European Commission, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) have all formally integrated nature-based solutions into their climate and development agendas. Practically, this means planting urban forests to reduce heat island effects, restoring floodplains to manage stormwater naturally, rehabilitating degraded peatlands that store more carbon per hectare than tropical forests, and creating green corridors to allow species migration as climates shift. The IUCN estimates that nature-based solutions could provide around 30% of the mitigation needed by 2030 to keep warming within Paris Agreement targets, at a fraction of the cost of technological alternatives. What makes nature-based solutions particularly compelling is their co-benefits. A restored mangrove forest simultaneously sequesters carbon, supports fisheries, stabilizes coastlines, and sustains local livelihoods; outcomes no single engineered solution can match.

For years, corporate sustainability strategies focused almost exclusively on carbon reduction. That focus, while important, created a blind spot: it was possible to cut emissions while continuing to degrade ecosystems, deplete freshwater, and erode soil health. A net-zero company operating on deforested land still contributes to ecological breakdown. A robust biodiversity strategy addresses this gap. Following the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted in 2022, under which nearly 200 nations agreed to protect 30% of land and oceans by 2030 (the “30x30” target), biodiversity has entered the mainstream of international policy. For businesses, this means assessing supply chain impacts on ecosystems, committing to no-net-loss or net-positive nature outcomes, and integrating biodiversity metrics alongside carbon reporting. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) now requires large companies to disclose their biodiversity impacts, making transparent reporting a legal requirement in Europe.

There is a growing recognition that a sustainable ecosystem is not simply a conservation goal, it is critical infrastructure. The concept of “green infrastructure”, using natural systems to deliver services traditionally provided by engineered solutions, is gaining traction in urban planning, water management, and disaster risk reduction. New York City’s investment in watershed protection in the Catskill Mountains illustrates this well: instead of building a multi-billion-dollar filtration plant, the city invested in protecting the forests and wetlands that naturally filter its drinking water. The nature-based approach cost a fraction of the engineering alternative and has delivered clean water reliably for decades. Similarly, creating and maintaining a sustainable wildlife habitat within and around human-modified landscapes supports ecosystem services that communities depend on, from pest control by birds and bats to carbon storage by old-growth trees. These habitats are increasingly recognized not as luxuries but as functional components of resilient landscapes.

Achieving the sustainability of nature requires more than individual projects or voluntary corporate pledges. It demands systemic change in how economies allocate resources. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework includes a target to reduce subsidies harmful to biodiversity by at least $500 billion per year by 2030, a recognition that public money continues to underwrite ecological destruction at scale. Redirecting even a portion of these flows toward ecosystem restoration would transform what is possible. Investing in sustainable nature — maintaining the systems that regulate climate, water, and food — is far cheaper than engineering replacements for services ecosystems provide for free.