Australian insights
Australia’s National Climate Risk Assessment(Opens in a new tab/window)
The Australian Climate Service has released(Opens in a new tab/window) Australia’s first national assessment of climate-related risks across systems such as health, infrastructure, the economy and the environment. It finds that climate impacts on the natural environment are already, and will continue to be, significant, widespread and cascading across all key systems. It is accompanied by the National Adaptation Plan(Opens in a new tab/window), which draws on the evidence base provided by the assessment to inform and drive prioritised adaptation action at a national scale to combat the risks arising from unavoidable climate impacts.
Australia’s Net Zero Plan(Opens in a new tab/window)
The Australian Government has released(Opens in a new tab/window) its Net Zero Plan guiding Australia’s transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The Agriculture and Land Sector Plan(Opens in a new tab/window)— one of six plans supporting the Net Zero Plan— outlines three strategic objectives to guide the sector’s contribution to net zero, including the need to support diverse landscapes by balancing agricultural production, carbon storage, and nature repair. It acknowledges that carbon storage and nature repair will present key opportunities for producers and land managers. The plan outlines four foundational action areas for the sector and government investment, which includes supporting innovation to deliver commercially viable abatement options and strengthening on-ground action.
ASFI report: Integrating nature into finance(Opens in a new tab/window)
The Australian Sustainable Finance Institute (ASFI) released a research paper (Opens in a new tab/window)— commissioned by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water— exploring the expansion of the Australian Sustainable Finance Taxonomy to include additional sustainability objectives beyond climate mitigation. The research paper considers economic activities in the agriculture and land sectors for the following environmental objectives: biodiversity and ecosystems protection, sustainable use and protection of water resources, and pollution prevention and control. It proposes draft criteria aligned with Australia’s Strategy for Nature which commits to halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030 and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework 2030 targets.
Consultation on implementing Australia’s Strategy for Nature 2024-2030(Opens in a new tab/window)
The Australian Government, through the Department for Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, has opened consultation(Opens in a new tab/window) on the implementation plan for Australia’s Strategy for Nature 2024-2030. The consultation is seeking feedback on how to achieve Australia’s biodiversity targets, what actions organisations are taking and where further effort is needed. The plan will guide how governments, communities, businesses and individuals can work together to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. The consultation is open until 15 October 2025.
First project registered under the Nature Repair Market(Opens in a new tab/window)
The first project under the Australian Government’s Nature Repair Market has been announced(Opens in a new tab/window) by the Clean Energy Regulator (CER). Located on a cattle grazing property in the north-east of New South Wales the project is expected to restore 438-hectares of previously cleared land through the replanting native forest and woodland ecosystems method(Opens in a new tab/window). The replanting of this land intends to improve biodiversity and ecological connectivity. The proponent, Silva Capital, has also registered a project on the same site under the Australian Carbon Credit Unit Scheme. The Nature Repair Market project details can be found on the Biodiversity Market Register(Opens in a new tab/window).
International insights
Second Global Nature Positive Summit announced(Opens in a new tab/window)
The Nature Positive Initiative has shared an announcement(Opens in a new tab/window) by a group of leading international and Japanese organisations that the second Global Nature Positive Summit is to be hosted in the city of Kumamoto, Japan, on 14-15 July 2026 under the patronage of the Japanese Ministry of Environment. A website and programme will be launched soon. This Summit will build on the success of the inaugural Global Nature Positive Summit(Opens in a new tab/window) in Sydney, Australia in October 2024. The Summit’s overarching theme will be on how to support a nature-positive transition in our economies, for the resilience and lasting security of our society and for generations to come.
Barclays unveils approach to navigating nature-related financial risk (Opens in a new tab/window)
Barclays has published(Opens in a new tab/window) an approach to assessing nature-related financial risks of large financial portfolios and outlines pragmatic steps to drive progress. Building on existing frameworks, Barclays has developed nature scenarios and stress tests to calculate the nature-related physical and transaction risk. Barclays will be using the results to prioritise and engage with selected companies in the Mining and European Power portfolios. It will be working towards using the insights to inform its internal risk management and client assessment approach and disclosures and it intends to integrate the LEAP insights from its nature scenario analysis into its Corporate Transition Risk forecast model.
Nature's Price Tag: The economic cost of nature loss(Opens in a new tab/window)
Ceres, a nonprofit sustainability advocacy organisation, has published(Opens in a new tab/window) a report quantifying the cost of nature loss across eight key economic sectors including food production, consumer goods retail and mining. It outlines how the primary drivers of nature loss, including land and sea use change, overexploitation of resources, climate change, pollution, and invasive species impact critical ecosystem services that underpin economic activity. Under a business-as-usual scenario, it finds that the decline in ecosystem services caused by the five nature loss drivers has the potential to cost these priority sectors a combined US$430 billion per year globally. The report also outlines sector risk profiles, investor engagement strategies, and a framework for assessing, targeting, and mitigating nature-related risks.
7 ways the tech can lead the nature-positive transition(Opens in a new tab/window)
The World Economic Forum has published(Opens in a new tab/window) an article that identifies seven key actions, from improving water use and tackling pollution, for the tech sector to both reduce harm to nature and generate nature benefits across the entire value chain. These actions ensure alignment with the mitigation hierarchy(Opens in a new tab/window) – avoid, reduce, restore and compensate – to prioritise preventing negative impacts from occurring initially. The article reports that the tech sector’s growth is highly dependent on nature and is facing rising risks from climate change and ecosystem degradation and that a nature-positive approach has the potential to deliver up to $800 billion in cost savings and revenue upside across the tech sector value chain.