Why Separating Climate and Nature Holding Is Us Back

After years of battling climate change, corporate sustainability teams now face a new frontier: biodiversity and nature. But treating climate and nature as separate issues is a flawed approach. One that risks inefficiency, missed opportunities, and poor outcomes for people and the planet. So why are we still doing it?

The global frameworks for climate (UNFCCC), biodiversity (CBD), and desertification (UNCCD) have enforced an artificial split between deeply interconnected issues. This fragmented global governance has bled into reporting frameworks and strategy development, meaning corporates (and governments) are missing opportunities to unlock cross-cutting solutions. As sustainability leaders know, separate frameworks mean duplicative reporting, siloed strategies, and a loss of momentum on tackling the climate-nature crisis holistically.

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So, how did we end up with three COPs, and the global environmental agenda split into climate, nature and land degradation? 

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The roots of the problem

This fragmented approach has deep roots. Efforts to achieve global coordination on the environment began in 1972, with the United Nations Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm. However, it wasn’t until the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio that any binding agreements were established. Here, global leaders agreed to create three separate conventions to address deforestation, biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions. On paper, this separation was a smart way to focus efforts and increase the likelihood of resolving differences in priorities across the global north and south. In practice, it created an institutional legacy that treats nature and climate as distinct, even competing, priorities.

Unfortunately, this distinction is fundamentally flawed. Climate and nature are part of a self-reinforcing cycle. On one side positive, healthy ecosystems act as carbon sinks, mitigating climate change; and also negative, climate change disrupts ecosystems, leading to greater biodiversity loss. Nature should be the dominant framework. Climate is just one of six planetary boundaries currently under pressure (out of nine), making climate part of a much broader system of natural dependencies and impacts. 

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Why this matters

This artificial separation of climate and nature isn’t just an intellectual discussion. It leads to worse decisions and outcomes.

For corporates, it means:

1. Increased inefficiencies, such as duplicate reporting responsibilities across TNFD and TCFD, draining time and resources.
2. Missed opportunities, where climate funding mechanisms often overlook nature-based solutions, deprioritising solutions that address both carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation.
3. Sapping political capital, by framing nature and climate as competing priorities, we run the risk of reducing momentum.

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What does an integrated approach look like?

To move forward, we should stop framing nature and climate as separate challenges and approach them as interconnected parts of a single system. But what does this look like?

At the intergovernmental level, this means

• Creating a single, unified platform that aims to ensure we’re living within the constraints of all our planetary boundaries.
• And, integrating funding and policy mechanisms to scale solutions that benefit both climate and nature.

For corporates, this means

• Aligning with frameworks, like TNFD, that are inclusive of nature and climate to identify, measure and reduce impacts and dependencies.
• Adopt solutions that tackle both greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss, such as regenerative agriculture and ecosystem restoration.
• And, embed nature and climate considerations into procurement, risk management and corporate strategy.

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What’s next?

For sustainability leaders, the call to action is clear: move beyond silos, rethink priorities and embrace the integration of nature and climate. Of course, while this all sounds good in theory, in practice, integrating climate and nature is much more challenging.

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In our next blog post we’ll share practical advice for how corporates can align on nature and climate strategies.

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