Nature and Biodiversity
Identify and measure portfolio impacts and nature dependencies
Biodiversity is rapidly declining — and the loss has become a material risk to businesses and investors. We provide advanced tools to measure its impact and manage associated risks. Our solutions go beyond standard metrics, allowing investors to analyze company operations down to specific asset locations using consistent data across nature-related and physical risk metrics. Our solutions are also designed to help businesses align with evolving biodiversity disclosure regulations, including the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
Portfolio assessment and disclosure
We support clients trying to meet TNFD or CSRD reporting requirements using the four-step integrated assessment framework, LEAP, which stands for locate, evaluate, assess and prepare.
We can help you identify assets that are contributing to deforestation and corporate operations located in deforestation areas, as well as measure a company’s total biodiversity footprint.
We offer solutions to help you integrate our climate and environmental risk data in response to the European Central Bank’s plan to require disclosure of nature-related risks alongside climate-related risks.
A material risk to businesses
Economic risk from biodiversity loss can emerge at the asset, company or portfolio level. Biodiversity and climate change are inextricably linked, with biodiversity loss reducing nature's ability to absorb greenhouse gases.
$5 trillion
Of global economic damages could be caused by biodiversity loss and environmental degradation over five years1
75%
Of Earth’s land surface has been altered by human activities2
29%
Of existing animal and plant species are at critical risk of extinction3
Map of assets in biodiversity-sensitive areas
GeoSpatial Asset Intelligence now integrates data from our partnership with WWF, featuring their Biodiversity Risk Filter (BRF) metrics. Investors can assess nature-related risks across ~2 million asset locations by combining these insights with biodiversity-sensitive area and Mean Species Abundance (MSA)-based metrics. All within an interactive, filterable geospatial visualization.
Source: MSCI ESG Research, as of October 2024.
Helping you manage risk, identify opportunity and drive change
We enable drill-down insights from your portfolio or loan book to individual asset locations — whether a mining location, manufacturing site or regional office — with nature and biodiversity metrics at the issuer level and physical risk metrics at the asset level.
Our detailed nature and biodiversity metrics framework is designed to help you select appropriate metrics based on scope, objectives and applicability.
We use granular data for a bottom-up approach, offering the ability to quantify the impact of investments on biodiversity across sectors.
We have spent decades developing metrics and data for global investors to measure climate- and sustainability-related risks and opportunities — and we have applied that experience to our nature and biodiversity solutions.
A granular view of nature exposures
Get extensive coverage across companies and asset locations with consistent data for both nature-related and physical risk metrics.
100,000
Public and private companies covered, with detailed, continuously expanding location-based data4
1 million+
Asset locations that can be expanded upon request, covered by our Geospatial Asset Intelligence5
180+
Data points across impact on nature, nature risks and opportunities included in our Nature and Biodiversity Metrics issuer-level data package6
Discover MSCI’s Nature and Biodiversity Framework
Source: MSCI ESG Research, as of Dec. 2023
Featured solutions
Nature and biodiversity
Pinpoint biodiversity sensitive areas and deforestation exposure with our location-specific metrics. Quantify the impacts of your investments on biodiversity across sectors or portfolios with biodiversity footprinting — or use our powerful screening metrics to assess nature and biodiversity risks.
GeoSpatial Asset Intelligence
Drill-down insights into location-specific physical and nature-related risks.
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Research and resources
Investor guide: Biodiversity risks and impacts
Identify which questions to ask and which metrics to consider as you incorporate biodiversity into your investment process.
TNFD framework: Five things to know
Learn about the initiative to create a global standard for corporate reporting of nature- and biodiversity-related risks.
The Carbon-Credit Market Could Help Solve the Biodiversity-Funding Challenge
The private sector could be key in solving the biodiversity crisis, with the VCM offering an established mechanism and important source of finance for nature-based solutions, potentially funding USD 100 billion of nature-based projects annually by 2050.
How Vancity Investment Management integrates biodiversity insights into investment strategies
Climate Transition Strategies
Use our integrated data, analytics, indexes and research-led insights to identify opportunities, sharpen your view of climate-related financial risk, and find your competitive edge.
1 University of Oxford, Dec. 2023. “The Green Scorpion: the Macro-Criticality of Nature for Finance.”
2 Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). 2019. "The Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.”
3 https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/forests-and-deserts/species-extinction-rate
4 Source: MSCI ESG Research, as of June 27, 2024.
5 Source: MSCI ESG Research, as of June 27, 2024.
6 Source: MSCI ESG Research, as of June 2024.