On the 25th of June, as part of London Climate Action Week, Tecno International, in collaboration with the UCL Centre for Sustainable Business, hosted the event “Business & Nature: An Honest Conversation”. The event brought together business leaders, sustainability professionals, investors and nature experts to explore how natural capital is becoming essential to business resilience, risk management and long-term value creation.
Bringing Natural Capital into the Boardroom
Tecno International led the initiative as part of its continued commitment to helping organisations translate sustainability ambition into practical action.
Hosted at UCL School of Management, the event addressed a topic that is still too often overlooked in business strategy: the role of nature and natural capital in competitiveness, resilience and value creation.
The conversation opened with a keynote from Allegra Fortunato, Director and Head of Strategy at Tecno International London, who addressed the boardroom blind spot: the economic value dependent on nature and its services.
Natural capital refers to the natural systems and resources that support economic activity and human wellbeing. This includes soil, water, air, biodiversity, forests, ecosystems and the services they provide, from pollination and flood protection to climate regulation and resource availability.
For many years, nature and biodiversity were treated as environmental issues, often separate from core business strategy. Climate change became the dominant focus of sustainability, while nature remained in the background.
That is now changing.
According to the World Economic Forum, approximately $44 trillion of economic value generation is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services.
For businesses, this means nature loss is not only an ecological crisis. It is a business risk.
The event featured an expert panel bringing together complementary perspectives on nature-related risk and opportunity.
- Isabel Blanco from EBRD shared the financial and institutional perspective, highlighting why nature is becoming increasingly relevant to resilience, investment and long-term decision-making.
- Charlie Anniss from M&G explored how investors are beginning to consider nature and biodiversity in decision-making, and why companies will increasingly need to understand and communicate their relationship with natural capital.
- Charlie Thefaut from Surrey Wildlife Trust brought the practical conservation perspective, highlighting the importance of moving from commitments to tangible action on the ground.
The panel mapped out why nature can no longer remain separate from business strategy. Companies depend on healthy ecosystems for water, soil, raw materials, pollination, flood protection, climate regulation and stable operating conditions.
When these systems weaken, businesses face higher costs, supply disruption, regulatory pressure, operational instability and reputational risk.
In other words: nature is not external to business. It is part of the infrastructure that makes business possible.
The key takeaways
The discussion brought forward three key takeaways:
- Nature is no longer a side issue for business: More than half of the world’s GDP depends on nature, making nature-related risk an essential question of resilience, competitiveness and long-term survival. Businesses that do not understand their relationship with nature may be underestimating their exposure to risk.
- Investing in nature goes far beyond planting trees: Nature-related action can support innovation, operational efficiency, company culture, stakeholder trust and long-term value creation. Nature-based solutions, biodiversity restoration, natural capital planning, water management and green infrastructure can all help reduce exposure to climate and environmental risk.
- Data turns awareness into action: Understanding how a company depends on and impacts nature is becoming essential to identify risks, prioritise action and move from broad commitments to measurable progress. Businesses need to understand where their operations and value chains intersect with nature, which sites are most exposed, which ecosystems they depend on, and where action can create the greatest impact.
Tecno’s Vision: Turning Nature into Strategic Advantage
At Tecno International, we believe nature-related risk is no longer distant or abstract. It can affect supply chains, operations, investment decisions, regulation, reputation and resilience.
The next step for business is not only to recognise nature as important, but to manage it strategically. This means identifying where the business depends on nature, mapping impacts across operations and supply chains, assessing risks and opportunities by location and sector, integrating nature into governance and risk management, setting measurable targets, and reporting progress through credible frameworks such as TNFD.
This is not about adding another layer of complexity for its own sake. It is about understanding the real conditions that support business performance and long-term value.
That is exactly why we built our nature solutions: to use data to turn nature risk into measurable insights, site by site, mapped directly to TNFD.
Through our nature based solutions, we help companies approach biodiversity and natural capital with greater structure, visibility and confidence, turning nature from a boardroom blind spot into a measurable driver of resilience and strategic advantage.
A Platform for Action
This event was more than a conversation. It was a reminder that businesses cannot build long-term resilience while degrading the natural systems they depend on.
As heatwaves, droughts, floods and resource pressures intensify, nature-based solutions are becoming increasingly relevant to business continuity, adaptation and long-term growth. Healthy ecosystems absorb shocks. They regulate water flows, reduce flood risk, support crop stability, cool urban environments, store carbon and protect communities and infrastructure from extreme weather.
Companies that act early will be better placed to understand their exposure, identify opportunities and turn nature into a source of long-term value.
For Tecno International, “Business & Nature: An Honest Conversation” reinforced our commitment to supporting organisations in moving from awareness to action, helping businesses strengthen their data systems, manage their impacts and align sustainability with long-term value creation.
A big thank you to Catrina Daly and Paolo Taticchi for theri contributions and of course to our expert panel and audience. We look forward to many more exciting events.
Nature means business. The leaders are already listening.