Nature and climate are two parts of the same solution

Climate change and biodiversity loss are two of the greatest challenges of our time – they are deeply interconnected.

Climateworks Centre CEO Anna Skarbek opened the 2025 Climate-nature Nexus Breakfast, hosted with Monash University and the Responsible Investment Association Australasia, with a clear message: tackling climate and nature together is necessary and already underway.

Here are the key takeaways from her remarks.

Addressing the climate crisis means restoring nature

Nature and climate are inseparable. We know that climate change is already the third-largest driver of biodiversity loss.

At the same time, forests, soil and the ocean have captured, processed and stored more than half of the carbon emissions humans have released over the past 170 years.

Nature shields us from climate impacts – buffering floods, cooling cities and underpinning food security. But the more nature is damaged, the less it can protect against climate change.

Each shapes the other in ways that affect every part of the economy and people’s lives. So for those in the investment and business world, the message is this: treat climate and nature as parts of the same equation.

Restoring ecosystems alongside reducing emissions is essential to achieving lasting climate outcomes – neglecting either could undermine progress.

Climateworks’ analysis shows that for Australia to reach net zero in line with the Paris Agreement, it would take around eight times more nature-based sequestration by 2050 than what Australian land currently sequesters each year.

Reducing fossil fuel emissions is critical, but even if global coal, oil and gas use was phased out completely, continued loss of nature could still push the planet beyond 1.5 degrees.

Addressing the climate crisis requires action to protect and restore nature. It is not climate now, nature next. It has to be both – together.

Building on the climate playbook

When the world got serious about climate-related disclosures, it wrote a new playbook.

‘Net zero’ became a rallying point for carbon, with an architecture of standards, data and frameworks to support it. Now, ‘nature positive’ is emerging as a parallel goal for nature recovery.

The global information infrastructure is forming quickly, arguably faster than it did for climate, benefiting from the existing climate playbook.

The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) plays a crucial role in embedding climate into mainstream financial disclosure – and now, it is laying the groundwork for nature-related standards.

We expect that, as climate reporting is now mandatory in Australia, nature reporting will not be far behind.

Nature reporting can follow the same frameworks as climate reporting. That means the same expectations, the same rigour – and increasingly, the same regulatory momentum.

Beyond reporting and compliance, it would be an opportunity to re-think business models for nature positive outcomes.

Nature is core business

More than half of Australia’s GDP is moderately or highly dependent on nature. It is not a side issue – it is a foundation of business.

Companies considering their scope 3 emissions are already thinking about nature.

Nature-related risk and opportunity will soon be assessed, disclosed and priced; as with climate reporting, this can help companies manage risk and capture opportunities.

The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) has developed a voluntary disclosure framework that helps organisations identify and report their nature-related risks and dependencies.

The ISSB is now building on that foundation, incorporating nature into global sustainability reporting standards.

In Australia, climate-related financial disclosures became mandatory for large companies from January 2025, and the forthcoming Australian Sustainable Finance Taxonomy includes an additional layer of guidance to help avoid environmental harm.

Together, these developments are laying the groundwork for including nature in both financial reporting and the broader investment decision-making process.

These developments are more than just signals. They are resetting market expectations that capital allocation and organisational investments must take nature into account.

Tools to help companies start now

Measuring nature can be more complex than measuring carbon. There is no single proxy, no tonne of ‘nature equivalent’ as there is with carbon’s tCO₂e.

But it is possible to quantify and value nature, and countries are making real progress on that front.

At Climateworks Centre, we are developing the tools and models to support the shift toward greater transparency around business impacts and dependencies on nature.

These resources are designed to make the process of identifying, measuring, and reporting nature-related risks and their opportunities more accessible and aligned with investor and regulatory expectations.

Supported by the Macdoch Foundation, Climateworks has worked with over 50 partners across science, finance, land management, policy and data to build the Natural Capital Measurement Catalogue.
It is a science-based and user-friendly reference tool for companies.

It outlines what to measure, how to measure it and where to find publicly available data to support it.

Importantly, it is aligned with frameworks and standards like the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting, TNFD, the Capitals Coalition, ISSB and the draft state of nature metrics for the Nature Positive Initiative.

We have mapped more than 160 natural capital metrics, covering biodiversity, soil, water, ecosystems and more – about 90 of those already have usable, public data.

Having the right data is only part of the picture. Companies and governments also need the right tools to make smart land use decisions.

That is why, together with Deakin University and CSIRO, Climateworks developed LUTO2, a world-leading spatial optimisation model.

It is the second iteration of the Land Use Trade-offs Model, which helps decision-makers plan land use to meet climate, biodiversity and economic goals simultaneously.

The model shows us something powerful: location matters.

When we run LUTO2 scenarios using the Paris Agreement temperature goals – with and without biodiversity targets – the model shows that both climate and nature goals can be met, alongside Australia’s economic growth targets and increased food production.

However, the strategies under those different scenario choices look very different.

Without considering biodiversity, the model shows large-scale monocultures. Add biodiversity targets and the model recommends a much richer landscape – environmental plantings, riparian restoration, agroforestry and other approaches that restore ecosystems while still hitting the carbon numbers.

What comes next

Nature is vital to business success – both physically and financially. It underpins economic resilience, supports supply chains and contributes to long-term value creation. Yet its role in the economy and on balance sheets is often overlooked.

The last decade saw climate become a mainstream consideration in financial decision-making. The decade ahead is about bringing nature alongside it, not as an add-on, but as a core part of managing risk and driving value.

The question is not if economies should integrate nature but how fast and how well they can.