How investors turn biodiversity data into investment decisions

While more than 60% of UK pension funds have now adopted net zero targets, nature is still often treated as a secondary issue. Only 17% of funds express familiarity with the TNFD reporting standards, according to a 2024 PLSA survey.

Yet the potential financial impact of nature loss is significant, as Natalie Winterfrost, director at LawDebenture, highlights. Opening Net Zero Investor’s Nature Positive Investment Forum, she pointed to research by PwC showing that more than half of global GDP is either highly or moderately dependent on nature.

The effects of nature loss could increasingly be felt across UK markets, warns Dr Nicola Ranger, director of the Global Finance and Economy Group at the University of Oxford. She stressed that the impact would span multiple sectors, including agriculture and manufacturing. "UK GDP losses could range from 6 to 12% in the next decade due to nature-related risks. Agriculture sees the greatest impact on asset values," she predicts, speaking on a panel at the Nature Positive Investment Forum.

Supporting asset managers and owners in integrating these insights into portfolio management is Mette Charles, senior investment research consultant at Aon’s Global Manager Research team. "The challenge is always the ‘so what’ — how to use the overwhelming data. We're working on bridging the gap between data, the issuer, sector, and production process."

NZI Charities and Endowments Summit | 12/06/2026 | London

One of the asset owners working to translate these insights into portfolio-level decisions is Aviva. Eline Reintjes, Climate & Nature investment strategy manager for Aviva’s Insurance, Wealth and Retirement business, recognises both the risks and opportunities in addressing biodiversity loss. She noted that the IWR division works closely with Aviva Investors to assess the impact of nature loss. "Aviva recently published its second transition plan, starting to take an integrated approach and including approaches to nature, adaptation, and just transition issues."

Reintjes added: "Water and land use come up as important areas. Our in-house asset manager has developed a proprietary biodiversity footprint tool which identifies land use as one key driver of biodiversity impacts."

"For real estate acquisitions, Aviva Investors have done location-based assessments of biodiversity sensitivity to identify potential risks or identify where further due diligence is needed" she shares.

"In terms of financial valuation or measurement of nature-related risks, as an industry we're still in early stages, but there are research institutions and data providers starting to look at Nature Value at Risk metrics based on methods borrowed from climate" Reintjes adds. 

Similarly, Phoenix Group, a major UK life insurer, uses the ENCORE tool to assess risks in its portfolios. "It helps us hone in on where there’s a coalescence of material risks in listed equity and credit portfolios," said Chris Hart, nature investment strategy lead at Phoenix.

Phoenix introduced a nature-focused business plan in 2022 and piloted TNFD LEAP reporting in 2023. Hart noted the improved availability of relevant data: "We’re seeing an enriched offering — including asset location data. That opens up more ways to assess natural capital and ecosystem interactions."

However, this also raises new complexities. "Sitting behind that question are a lot of complex additional questions, particularly about how we ingest multiple different data sources, especially asset-specific data."

Looking ahead, Hart said that aligning with third-party managers will be a key focus: "We issue an annual due diligence questionnaire with a substantial sustainability section. This year we’ve updated it to specifically probe tropical deforestation and water security."

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