Nature and Biodiversity
Identify and measure portfolio impacts and nature dependencies
Biodiversity is rapidly declining, and its loss has become a significant risk to businesses and investors. Our tools help measure its financial impact and manage associated risks. Go beyond standard biodiversity metrics to analyze company operations at the asset level, assess potential effects on revenue and quantify financial impacts using consistent data across nature-related and physical risk metrics.
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 help investors better understand how biodiversity risk may affect revenue by linking asset-level risks to issuer insights. Built on aggregated data from WWF’s Biodiversity Risk Filter and MSCI Geospatial Asset Intelligence.
We take that exposure a step further to understand its financial implications. Our Nature Financial Risk Metrics estimate expected annual loss, in USD and as a percentage of revenue. The first release covers water scarcity, capturing both direct operations and supply-chain effects.
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 ~4.5 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.
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Source: MSCI Sustainability and Climate, as of May 2025.
Helping you manage risk and identify opportunity
Drill down from your portfolio or loan book to individual asset and regional locations — whether a manufacturing site or regional office — with nature and biodiversity metrics available at the asset, regional and issuer level.
Asset-level data
Our granular data for a bottom-up approach, offers the ability to quantify the impact of investments on biodiversity across sectors.
Regional-level data
Assess loan book or portfolio nature-related risk by region and activity without needing specific operating location data, supporting TNFD, CSRD/ESRS, and ECB disclosure.
Issuer-level data
Our nature and biodiversity metrics combine asset-level insights with issuer-level aggregation, designed to help you select appropriate metrics based on scope, objectives and disclosure requirements.
A granular view of nature exposures
Get extensive coverage across companies, asset locations and regional-level data, with consistent metrics for nature-related and physical risk.
780,000+ Companies
Public and private companies covered, with detailed, continuously expanding location-based data4
4.5+ million Operating Locations
Asset locations that can be expanded upon request, covered by our Geospatial Asset Intelligence5
289+ Metrics
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 Sustainability and Climate, as of July 2026
Featured solutions
GeoSpatial Asset Intelligence
Drill-down insights into location-specific physical and nature-related risks.
Climate solutions
MSCI can help you understand, monitor and manage the risk and return of climate exposures with our integrated data, analytical tools, indexes and research insights.
Physical risk solutions
Analytical tools and data from MSCI designed to support investors and banks in assessing and managing physical risk.
Looking for a demo?
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.
From Awareness to Action: Sector-Based Biodiversity Risk in Investments
Biodiversity decline isn’t just environmental — it’s financial. Identifying biodiversity-loss drivers helps investors strengthen resilience and start to unlock upside in a nature-positive transition.
Concentration Trends in the Nature-Based Carbon Market
Who’s driving the nature-based carbon market? Learn how a small group of companies in the MSCI ACWI IMI Index account for most activity — and what it reveals about climate and nature leadership.
How Vancity Investment Management integrates biodiversity insights into investment strategies
Identifying nature-related risks. From global portfolios to local risks.
Drawing on WWF’s Biodiversity Risk Filter and MSCI’s GeoSpatial Asset Intelligence, this study shows how investors can assess nature-related risk at the asset level and translate those insights to the portfolio level.
Climate solutions
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 Sustainability and Climate, as of July 2026.
5 Source: MSCI Sustainability and Climate, as of July 2026.
6 Source: MSCI Sustainability and Climate, as of July 2026.