Nature-related reporting is becoming central to corporate sustainability practice. Frameworks such as the European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) expect organisations to identify and disclose their impacts, dependencies, risks and opportunities related to nature.

Yet producing this information is difficult. Nature cannot be captured through one universal metric. It includes species, ecosystems, water, forests, soil, habitats and ecological processes, all of which vary by location. A company may face water stress at one site, operate close to threatened species at another, and depend on ecosystem services elsewhere in its value chain. No single dataset, model or platform can therefore provide a complete picture.

The landscape of available tools has grown rapidly to address this complexity; the TNFD tools catalogue alone lists over 200 tools, with new tools emerging continuously. This proliferation, while reflecting genuine innovation, risks creating confusion and overload for those conducting nature risk assessments who must navigate an expanding tool landscape without clear guidance on how to choose or combine them. Making sense of this crowded landscape calls for a more structured approach, which this briefing describes as the nature tool stack.

First, what counts as a nature tool?

A nature tool can be defined as any practical method, dataset, software application or framework that helps an organisation identify, screen, map, measure or prioritise its nature-related activities for decision-making and disclosure.

A global biodiversity database is a tool, but so is a field survey, an environmental DNA method, a footprinting model or a reporting framework. What matters is the function the instrument performs.

Nature tools can be grouped into five broad categories (see Table 1). This categorisation helps organisations navigate the tool landscape.

Specifically, process and guidance frameworks structure the overall assessment. Data and information platforms provide underlying information on species, ecosystems, land use, forests and protected areas. Screening tools locate potential dependencies, impacts and risks. Measurement and footprinting tools estimate nature-related pressures or biodiversity impacts. Field-based monitoring tools generate site-specific evidence.

Table 1: Categories of nature tools

Source: Author

From a collection of tools to a tool stack

A nature tool stack is a purposefully assembled combination of complementary tools that together address dimensions of nature-related assessment that no individual tool can cover alone.

The keyword here is purposefully. A company does not have a meaningful tool stack merely because its report mentions several tools. A stack requires a clear logic of selection, sequencing and connection. Each tool should serve a distinct purpose, and the output of one should inform how another is used.

For example, a company might begin with sector-level screening to identify likely dependencies and impacts. It may then use spatial datasets to assess the ecological conditions of its sites. These findings can inform site-level assessments and monitoring. The resulting information can feed into risk assessment, target setting, operational decisions and disclosure.

A tool stack is therefore not simply a larger toolbox. It is an information architecture for nature risk assessment.

Three principles are important.

First, the tool stackshould span the tool categories. A stack made only of screening tools still only screens. A robust stack draws from several of the five tool categories presented in Table 1. Tools should compensate for one another’s limitations rather than duplicate the same function.

Second, tools mustmatch purpose. Tools should be selected for their ability to address the specific purposes/questions posed at each stage of the assessment process. Process frameworks such as the LEAP approach are valuable because they pose the questions in sequence: where do we touch nature (Locate), what are our dependencies and impacts (Evaluate), what risks and opportunities arise (Assess), and how do we respond and report (Prepare)? Different tools answer different stages.

Third, the outputs need to be sequenced. The result of one tool should feed the next. Screening should tell you where site-level measurement is needed; measurement should feed valuation and risk assessment. Without this flow, a stack is just a collection, not a system.

Crucially, the right stack is context-dependent, and that is its feature; it is not a deficiency. An extractive company with a handful of high-impact sites needs a very different stack from a diversified conglomerate with hundreds of locations. A first-time reporter might begin with a "lean" stack (a process framework, a data platform and a screening tool) and add measurement and monitoring as its knowledge of nature interactions matures. The logic of assembly is therefore iterative and adaptive rather than pre-determined.

Nature tool stack in practice: Hindalco case

Hindalco Industries’ 2024 TNFD report provides a useful example. The Indian aluminium and copper producer applied a broad set of tools in its inaugural TNFD report, covering 21 operational sites.

Hindalco began with ENCORE for sector-level screening of nature-related dependencies and impacts. ENCORE helps companies identify how economic activities may depend on ecosystem services and generate pressures on nature. This offers an initial view of likely material issues, but it does not establish what is happening at a particular site since ENCORE uses sector-level data.

Hindalco then added several location-based tools. The Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT) was used to examine biodiversity sensitivity, including the proximity of sites to protected areas and other ecologically important locations. Global Forest Watch was used to estimate forest cover and forest-related pressures. The WWF Risk Filter supported additional risk screening, while the Ecoregion Intactness Index provided evidence on ecosystem condition. WRI Aqueduct was used to assess water stress. These tools are complementary rather than interchangeable.

Hindalco also recognised that tools are not always sufficiently precise for local decisions. It supplemented the above tools with Indian specific datasets, including ENVIS, Bhuvan and the Ground Water Resource Assessment. Global datasets provide consistency and broad coverage, but national sources may offer better contextual relevance, spatial detail or regulatory alignment.

At the site level, Hindalco used Biodiversity Management Plans alongside WRI’s Ecosystem Services Review tool to examine impacts and dependencies more closely. It also used the STAR-R metric to quantify potential reductions in species-extinction risk at priority locations.

Together, these tools formed a layered assessment process. Sector-level screening provides the starting point. Global geospatial tools identify potentially sensitive locations. National datasets improve local relevance. Site-level tools deepen the assessment. A species-focused metric supports conservation prioritisation. This is what distinguishes a tool stack from an ad hoc list: each component has a role, and the tools operate at different scales.

Challenges of a nature tool stack

The tool stack concept, while useful, should not be mistaken for a guarantee of rigour. Several challenges warrant critical examination.

The first challenge is interoperability. Tools are usually developed independently and may use different datasets, spatial resolutions, time periods and assumptions. Their outputs cannot therefore be combined automatically. Organisations must interpret how the results relate to one another and resolve any conflicting findings.

The second risk is false coherence. Referring to several tools can make an assessment appear comprehensive even when the underlying evidence remains limited. Hindalco, for example, acknowledged that parts of its initial assessment relied on high-level global, regional and sectoral estimates. A large tool stack may therefore provide breadth without necessarily providing sufficient depth.

Transparency is another concern. Some tools, particularly commercial platforms, provide limited information about their methodologies, assumptions or calculations. This makes it difficult for organisations and report users to evaluate the reliability of individual outputs or determine whether the tools within a stack are methodologically consistent.

Finally, assembling and operating a tool stack requires substantial skills and capacity. Organisations need expertise to select appropriate tools, interpret their results, understand their limitations and connect their outputs to business decisions. These requirements may be manageable for large companies with specialist teams and external advisers, but they can create significant barriers for smaller organisations.

Who is the tool stack for?

The concept is useful in two ways, depending on where you sit.

For those conducting nature risk assessments, beginning a nature assessment, it is a design principle. It offers a way of asking, before any tool is opened: what am I trying to establish, which category of tool answers that question, and how will this output feed the next step? Starting from purpose rather than from the tools avoids the common trap of assembling whatever is available and hoping that breadth of coverage substitutes for coherence.

For analysts, investors and researchers reading nature disclosures, it is a diagnostic lens. The same questions run in reverse: why were these tools selected, how were their outputs connected, and what dimensions of nature does the stack leave unaddressed? A report that uses tools without showing how one informed another may appear that nature is being handled as a reporting exercise. A report in which screening demonstrably drove site-level work, and site-level work informed operational decisions, suggests something closer to nature being embedded in the business model.

The tool stack does not settle whether an assessment is credible. But it makes the choices behind an assessment visible, which is the precondition for asking whether they were the right ones.

This briefing draws on Chapter 10 of the forthcoming Handbook on Nature and Biodiversity Reporting: Ciftci, N. (forthcoming) Nature Tools and Tool Stack for Input into Reporting', in T. Cuckston, M. Sobkowiak and J. Bebbington (eds), Handbook on Nature and Biodiversity Reporting, Edward Elgar Publishing.

To discuss further, you can contact Dr Neytullah Ciftci on n.ciftci@lancaster.ac.uk

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