INSIGHT by NatureMetrics
NatureMetrics is the first company in the world to launch a Nature Intelligence subscription service powered by environmental DNA (eDNA) technology, converting the intricacies of nature into meaningful insights for corporate sustainability teams to take action.
〉The NatureMetrics Intelligence Platform will transform how organizations assess and report their impacts on nature.
〉New research by NatureMetrics shows that over 40 per cent of senior sustainability leaders identify major challenges in obtaining actionable insights on biodiversity.
〉NatureMetrics is reshaping our understanding of ecosystems by building a comprehensive biodiversity monitoring solution, deploying the most powerful tool in the world for detecting and monitoring species.
Last week, NatureMetrics, the global nature intelligence company, announced the official launch of its Nature Intelligence platform, simplifying how businesses can report species and ecosystem impacts required in new 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).
This follows a new global study commissioned by NatureMetrics with over 200 sustainability leaders across Europe, North America, and Australia revealing that more than two-fifths (41%) anticipate major challenges in obtaining actionable insights on biodiversity.
In a new era where businesses must now start reporting on their nature risk and dependencies, the NatureMetrics Intelligence Platform enables businesses to comprehensively measure and report their impacts on nature at scale, and drive effective biodiversity management to improve outcomes for nature on the ground.
The Platform is now fully live and operational for all customers wishing to access the service following successful implementation with existing beta clients. The new solution will enable businesses to make critical decisions on their natural capital, contributing to risk analysis and investment assessments, and management and mitigation strategies.
NatureMetrics converts the DNA footprint of animals, bacteria, and fungi into vast datasets that are summarized into a set of simple metrics and indicators to describe the state of biodiversity, and inform critical actions for sustainability leaders. This revolutionary approach overcomes the challenges of time-intensive and invasive biodiversity survey methods, which cannot provide the scale of data needed in a new era of corporate-level reporting on nature.
eDNA has emerged as the most powerful tool in the world for detecting and monitoring species, capable of providing data on thousands of species at once, by analyzing DNA traces from easy-to-collect water or soil samples. NatureMetrics has been generating this data for its clients around the world since 2016, feeding into use cases ranging from large-scale conservation initiatives to environmental impact assessments and regenerative agriculture projects. NatureMetrics is now taking the next step, turning this data into a suite of metrics and indicators accessed through an interactive digital platform, paving the way for a wider range of increasingly sophisticated analytics and the potential to integrate its eDNA datasets with multiple other data types and sources.
“The launch of TNFD marks a critical turning point for nature. The initial response demonstrates just how eager businesses are to turn the tide on biodiversity loss. Up until now, it has been almost impossible to gather data at scale, posing a major challenge to reporting. Our solution transforms this – we enable organizations to gather meaningful data at site-level and turn that into simple insights in our Platform to drive reporting, decision-making and effective action on the ground.
“Biodiversity must now be central to business strategy or the systems on which they are built will simply fail. We’re giving businesses the tools to achieve this in the most robust and scalable way possible. With so much momentum behind corporate accountability on biodiversity impact, it’s vital that words turn into real actions that drive measurable outcomes for nature.”
-Kat Bruce, Founder at NatureMetrics
| Key features of the Platform
〉Manage portfolios: keep biodiversity data from all your sites in one place.
〉Identify species-related risks: easily detect invasive and endangered species.
〉Map biodiversity at site-level: view distribution of species and variation in indicator values across a landscape.
〉Measurement of ecosystem integrity: Science-based metrics and indicators describing species and functional diversity and ecosystem health, with satellite-derived connectivity and land use metrics following soon.
〉Track biodiversity outcomes: dig deeper into the data to understand how actions on the ground are driving the greatest improvements and positive changes to biodiversity health.
〉Simple reporting and communication: bring nature insights to life in an engaging way to inform key stakeholders and feed into ESG reporting.
〉Prepare for disclosure: transparency of data all in one place that is auditable and ready for future disclosure requirements.
NatureMetrics is the first company in the world to launch a Nature Intelligence subscription service powered by eDNA technology. It represents a breakthrough in understanding and reporting on nature impact, providing simple, standardized metrics to track and report on site-based nature progress, relevant to major reporting requirements and science-based targets.
NatureMetrics has customers from both the conservation and corporate space up and running in the platform, already seeing the benefits of having powerful insights into biodiversity health at ground level.
“I’m excited by the potential of NatureMetrics’ new platform and the powerful eDNA data that sits behind it. These tools transform how we understand and protect nature, empowering our partners on the ground with the ability to easily derive key ecological insights. This data-driven approach equips our teams with information to target our conservation efforts, elevating the impact of our initiatives and advancing our commitment to a sustainable future for nature.”
-Dr. Meredith Palmer, Senior Conservation Technology Specialist at Fauna & Flora, an early adopter of the Platform
A new global study commissioned by NatureMetrics with over 200 sustainability leaders across Europe, North America, and Australia, demonstrates the huge need for scalable nature reporting solutions that can be applied across international portfolios and supply chains.
The research shows that over two-fifths of senior sustainability leaders face major challenges with reporting their risk and dependencies on nature. 41% cite obtaining clear insights to take action on as a key challenge, while 43% identify aligning reporting with regulatory compliance requirements will be a major problem. Meanwhile, 37% said they are feeling the pressure from stakeholders to demonstrate impact.
Following the launch of the Global Biodiversity Framework at COP15, NatureMetrics has seen an unprecedented increase in corporate clients wishing to get ahead of new nature reporting obligations. The company is now working with organizations across every major industry in over 100 countries, from Fauna & Flora and EDF to Nestle and Anglo-American.
Given so many companies are embarking on nature reporting for the first time, NatureMetrics has recently expanded its Nature Advisory team, supporting the development of corporate nature strategies, outlining where ground-level biodiversity monitoring plays a vital role. Now enabling NatureMetrics to provide an end-to-end service for those companies wishing to be true nature-positive leaders.
NatureMetrics provides an end-to-end biodiversity reporting solution, supporting businesses right across their nature-positive journey, from defining industry best practice nature strategy, to reporting and becoming disclosure-ready, aligned with major reporting requirements.
NatureMetrics’ new Nature Intelligence subscription service is now available and more details can be found at www.naturemetrics.com.
| brief bio
Kat is a biodiversity scientist and one of the global pioneers in the use of environmental DNA for large-scale biodiversity assessment. Kat founded NatureMetrics in 2014 to improve the ability of businesses, governments and NGOs to measure and track the state of nature at site-based assets. From a team of 4 scientists, NatureMetrics has become one of the world’s leading nature technology companies, helping hundreds of companies to track their impacts and make better decisions for nature across global portfolios of sites. She is one of the founding members of the UK Business and Biodiversity Forum, part of the TNFD data catalyst, and has been involved in both Climate and Biodiversity COPs in recent years as a leading voice in the fast-emerging field of NatureTech.
| All opinions expressed are those of the author and/or quoted sources. investESG.eu is an independent and neutral platform dedicated to generating debate around ESG investing topics.
