A UK-based tech company on Tuesday launched a first of its kind cloud-based platform powered by environmental DNA to “equip business for [the] nature reporting boom”, it said.
NatureMetrics launched its new “Intelligence Platform”, which aims to enable companies to report under nature reporting requirements such as the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and Science-based Targets for Nature (SBTN).
According to research published by the company, 43% of senior sustainability leaders cited aligning reporting with regulatory compliance as a major challenge for nature impact reports. More than 40% of respondents also cited costs of reporting, time and effort, and establishment of useful baselines as major challenges.
“The launch of TNFD marks a critical turning point for nature,” said Kat Bruce, founder of NatureMetrics.
“Up until now, it has been almost impossible to gather data at scale, posing a major challenge to reporting … We enable organisations to gather meaningful data at the site-level and turn that into simple insights in our platform to drive reporting, decision-making and effective action on the ground,” she added.
Environmental DNA (eDNA) has been predominantly used for regulatory reporting in the past, particularly for extractives, agriculture, and construction industries. The site-based biodiversity monitoring process takes soil and water samples for laboratory analysis and picks up DNA traces of species in the ecosystem.
The new subscription platform had been in beta testing with existing NatureMetrics customers for nearly a year since COP15 and aims to allow users to:
- aggregate and track biodiversity data across all sites within a portfolio
- detect invasive and endangered species
- view distribution of species and variation in indicator values across a landscape
- measure ecosystem integrity using indicators that describe functional diversity and ecosystem health
- track biodiversity outcomes over time
“These tools transform how we understand and protect nature, empowering our partners on the ground with the ability to easily derive key ecological insights,” said Meredith Palmer, senior conservation technology specialist at Fauna & Flora, an early adopter of the platform.
The platform is geared towards large corporates, public organisations, and financial institutions, so they can collect ground-truth data across their portfolio, Tom Ludwig, head of agriculture at NatureMetrics, told Carbon Pulse.
“We really feel like with TNFD we can move from inertia to mobilisation, up to this point we’ve had a good level of engagement but not much momentum. We believe there will be a shift to regulatory adoption of biodiversity reporting, shifting from the voluntary commitments,” Ludwig said.
Since TNFD launched earlier this month, the attention has turned to adoption and how companies can effectively report on biodiversity risks and dependencies. In particular, there is still a wide range of potential metrics that could be used for reporting.
NatureMetrics’ new platform primarily addresses species diversity and occurrence as core metrics, which eDNA is most suited to assess. These metrics can be used as an indicator of biodiversity uplift and detect invasive species.
However, the vast array of potential biodiversity metrics, particularly under TNFD requirements, means that eDNA alone is likely to be insufficient to provide a full biodiversity assessment.
TNFD requires a core set of 14 globally applicable metrics that cover both assessment and disclosure of positive and negative impacts. Core risk metrics include ecosystem integrity, state of nature, and impact drivers, which eDNA could support.
However, TNFD highlights that organisations will need to identify additional indicators based on their specific biome and circumstances, which they will release future guidance on. The potential range of metrics required under TNFD means that a single data source is unlikely to be enough to cover disclosure needs.
“The platform isn’t going to be purely driven by eDNA … we’re aiming to be a one-stop shop. The second evolution will be incorporating earth observation data, with habitat mapping looking at connectivity and linking to species richness,” Ludwig told Carbon Pulse.
He highlighted that many companies are now in a strategic conception stage, to understand how they align to new frameworks. Once corporate dependencies and risks have been identified, he expects companies to deploy ground-truth solutions.
With their clients’ agreement, NatureMetrics contributes its data to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, which it says enables greater transparency of nature data.
Experts from TNFD have previously called for a shared global biodiversity observatory to aid disclosures and the emergence of nature markets. Most nature-related data is captured under differing methodologies and held confidentially among numerous organisations.
By Tom Woolnough – tom@carbon-pulse.com
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