Nature is a Business Asset – Learn how to protect it

Nature is no longer an issue businesses can afford to leave to the sustainability team. It is fundamental to business operation and resilience.

Extreme heat, drought and wildfires are making the relationship between attractive destinations and a viable tourism increasingly difficult to ignore. That was the message behind my recent call, reported in Travel Weekly, for travel & tourism businesses to put nature at the heart of business decision-making.

The UK Government is making the same case. In May, Nature Minister Mary Creagh urged business leaders to put nature at the heart of boardroom decisions, highlighting the opportunity to reduce costs and risk, strengthen supply-chain resilience and unlock growth. The message is clear: nature is now a business imperative, not simply another item on a sustainability checklist.

Nature underpins the business of tourism

Nature is not simply forests, wildlife and beautiful landscapes. It is the living systems and processes that provide the resources and services on which all economies and societies depend – from clean water, fertile soils and food to climate regulation, flood protection and healthy ecosystems.

Tourism is particularly dependent on these natural assets. Yet those assets are under increasing pressure. Across the world, we are already seeing the consequences of degraded and changing natural systems, from heatwaves to floods.

For travel & tourism, this is both a nature issue and a business resilience issue. The destinations, landscapes, wildlife and natural resources that attract and support visitors, and ensure tourism operations, are not external to the business – they are fundamental to it.

The first step is knowing where to act

Businesses cannot address every issue at once – nor should they try.

The more effective approach is to understand why the business operations and value chain depend on nature, how they may impact it and where the most significant nature impacts, risks and opportunities lie.

This provides the evidence needed to prioritise action: reducing the greatest impacts, managing material risks, strengthening operational resilience and directing investment towards where it can deliver the greatest benefit for nature and the business.

A practical starting point for nature action

This is where NATOUR IMPACT can help.

Developed specifically for travel & tourism, NATOUR IMPACT is an online evaluation tool that enables individual businesses to identify their nature-related risks, prioritise actions and best support nature’s recovery.

The assessment identifies the business’ nature impacts, risks and opportunities and provides a detailed view of current performance against environmental requirements, to guide sustainability and leadership teams from broad ambition to focused action.

NATOUR IMPACT has been recognised by the World Responsible Tourism Awards, it is listed in the TNFD tools catalogue, and has been designed to support operational alignment with environmental performance frameworks including TNFD, SBTN, CSRD and GRI.

Most importantly, it helps answer a fundamental practical question: Where should we focus first?

Businesses that have completed a NATOUR IMPACT assessment have gone on to use the findings to prioritise their sustainability commitments, inform biodiversity strategies and implement Nature Positive Tourism as a practical business priority.

Scott Dunn, for example, described the assessment as providing the evidence needed to make Nature Positive a business priority, while DISCOVA used its findings to focus action on protecting and restoring nature.

Understanding your relationship with nature is an investment in resilience

By identifying and addressing the areas of greatest significance, businesses can strengthen their ability to effectively respond to changing environmental conditions while helping to maintain the attractive destinations, healthy ecosystems and natural assets on which their success depends.

The starting point is understanding where your business has the closest relationship with nature – and where you can make the greatest difference. These are the questions that NATOUR IMPACT is specifically designed to answer for each unique business in our deeply nature-connected sector.

Daniel Turner, Director of Strategy

Find out more …

ANIMONDIAL provides expert guidance and technical support to help tourism businesses understand, manage and respond to nature-related risks while embedding nature-positive practices. Our services can help you:

• Assess nature risks and opportunities quickly and efficiently using NATOUR IMPACT, our award-winning online assessment tool.
• Apply targeted risk screening to identify priority nature risks across your operations and value chains.
• Develop a Nature Positive Action Plan that prioritises practical actions to reduce impacts and support ecosystem recovery.
• Integrate nature considerations into business decision-making, including strategy, governance, procurement and operations.
• Build organisational capacity through tailored training on biodiversity, nature-related risks and Nature Positive Tourism.
• Monitor, measure and report progress using practical indicators aligned with emerging reporting frameworks.
• Engage suppliers and destinations to deliver shared nature-positive outcomes.

Whether you are starting your nature journey or strengthening existing sustainability programmes, ANIMONDIAL helps tourism businesses turn nature-related risks into practical action that builds resilience and supports the long-term health of destinations and ecosystems.