TNFD, SBTN, and Africa's Biodiversity Credits: What Corporates Must Act On in 2026

The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures released its final framework in September 2023. By 2026, TNFD-aligned reporting has been adopted by more than 400 organisations globally and is being incorporated into mandatory disclosure frameworks in the EU, UK, and, through ISSB equivalence, increasingly by African securities regulators. For corporate treasury teams, lenders, and project developers operating in Africa, the pathway from TNFD disclosure to biodiversity credit procurement has become a genuine compliance and commercial consideration.

What TNFD Actually Requires Organisations to Disclose

TNFD's LEAP framework (Locate, Evaluate, Assess, Prepare) requires organisations to locate their direct operations and upstream value chains in relation to sensitive ecosystems, evaluate their dependencies on and impacts on nature, assess the resulting material nature-related risks and opportunities, and prepare disclosures and response strategies. The critical difference from voluntary biodiversity reporting is that TNFD requires geographic specificity, identifying which operations are in or adjacent to which priority ecosystems, rather than generalist sustainability narrative.

For a Kenyan manufacturing company sourcing agricultural inputs, TNFD disclosure means mapping supply chain geographies against the IBAT dataset, identifying dependencies on ecosystem services (pollination, water regulation, soil formation), and assessing exposure to ecosystem degradation risk. This level of analysis has not historically been a feature of African corporate sustainability reporting, and most organisations are starting from a low baseline.

“TNFD is not primarily a disclosure requirement, it is a risk assessment framework that happens to generate disclosure. Companies that treat it as a reporting exercise will produce inadequate disclosures and miss the strategic value of understanding their nature dependencies.”

, Dr. Wanjiru Kariuki, Supacare Nature Markets Team

The Biodiversity Credit Market: Where It Stands

Voluntary biodiversity credits, distinct from carbon credits, though often generated by the same projects, are issued under frameworks including Verra's Biodiversity Standard, the Australian Biodiversity Offset Methodology, and the emerging BIM (Biodiversity Impact Metric) standard. The market remains nascent: estimated global transaction volumes of $10–15M in 2025 compare with $700M+ in voluntary carbon. However, price discovery is occurring rapidly, with high-quality African biodiversity credits (grassland restoration, savanna conservation) trading at $45–$120 per biodiversity unit depending on co-benefit richness and buyer specificity.

SBTN and Science-Based Targets for Nature

The Science Based Targets Network's framework for setting targets to halt and reverse nature loss is the demand-side mechanism that will eventually drive biodiversity credit procurement at scale. SBTN's Step 5, 'Transform', explicitly acknowledges biodiversity credits as a legitimate instrument for addressing residual impacts that cannot be mitigated in the value chain. Early SBTN adopters in consumer goods, financial services, and extractives, many with African supply chains, are beginning to ask: where do we source biodiversity credits, and what quality standards should we apply?

How TNFD Interacts With IFC PS6

For project developers seeking development finance, TNFD disclosure and IFC PS6 compliance are increasingly aligned in lender expectations. Both require a credible biodiversity baseline, a mitigation hierarchy approach, and quantified residual impact assessment. The operational difference is that IFC PS6 is project-specific and legally binding through the loan agreement, while TNFD is corporate-level and (for most organisations) currently voluntary. The practical opportunity: a project that completes a rigorous IFC PS6 biodiversity assessment is most of the way to TNFD-compliant disclosure for that asset, if the assessment is structured with TNFD reporting requirements in mind from the outset.