Executive Summary
Most of the world’s largest companies are significantly dependent on nature in their operations, even as the biodiversity and ecosystems underpinning those resources are declining due to overexploitation and climate change. This paper uses the S&P Global Energy Horizons Nature & Biodiversity Risk dataset to assess nature-related impacts and dependency risks across the S&P World Index over the two-year period ending on July 30, 2025.
Nature dependency risk: Our analysis indicates that companies with the lowest nature dependency risk in their operations outperformed the S&P World Index by a cumulative 13.8% over the past two years.
Nature impact: Companies with a median impact on nature outperformed the S&P World Index by a cumulative 18.6%.
Sector trends: Information Technology was the leading contributor to the cumulative return of companies in the S&P World Index and was also the sector with the lowest nature dependency risk. Most of the companies in the S&P World Index with the largest impact on nature were in the Utilities, Industrials and Energy sectors, yet they contributed the least to performance. The Information Technology and Financials sectors, despite their small weights in the index, made the greatest contribution to performance.
In December 2022, a significant diplomatic endeavor gathered representatives from nations worldwide to forge an influential accord aimed at confronting the pressing issues of biodiversity loss and ecological decline. Recognized increasingly as critical factors in intensifying climate change, these environmental challenges pose severe economic threats to numerous industries and communities. The creation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) marked a transformative moment in this struggle, drawing parallels to the Paris Agreement on climate change and illustrating a renewed commitment to international solidarity in the preservation of our natural world.
As the years unfolded, the role of addressing nature-related risks became increasingly prominent on corporate agendas. Initiatives such as the establishment of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and the launch of a research initiative by the International Sustainability Standards Board aimed at biodiversity and ecosystems have shifted the corporate narrative around sustainability. Companies are now urged to take into account their impacts and dependencies on nature and ecosystem services. By early 2025, Australia introduced a compulsory framework for climate-related disclosures, representing a significant milestone in corporate accountability that recognizes the deep connections between climate change and biodiversity deterioration.
Furthermore, awareness is growing in several markets regarding the fundamental importance of nature to business operations. The World Economic Forum reports that around USD 44 trillion in global economic output—representing more than half of the world’s GDP in 2019—is significantly dependent on natural resources and ecosystem services. Additionally, ecosystems play a crucial role in addressing climate change, having absorbed roughly 56% of human-induced CO2 emissions over the past 60 years, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Sixth Assessment Report. The degradation of these critical ecosystems threatens to destabilize the safeguards against severe climate change, leading to heightened impacts of global warming.
Against this backdrop, we examined the nature-related risks and impacts of companies in the S&P World Index alongside the index’s cumulative return performance over a two-year period concluding on July 30, 2025.
The S&P Global Energy Horizons Nature & Biodiversity Risk dataset assesses nature-related impacts and dependency risks across a company's direct operations that can be applied at the asset, company and portfolio levels. The dataset applies the Nature Risk Profile for analyzing companies' impacts and dependencies on nature, launched by S&P Global Energy Horizons and the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) in January 2023.
