Japan’s deep-rooted respect for harmony with nature has made it one of the fastest adopters of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), the frameworks’ chair David Craig said on Monday.
The TNFD, launched in 2021, provides guidance for companies and financial institutions to assess how their operations depend on and affect natural capital and to disclose those risks in their financial reports.
“It’s cultural,” Craig told a panel at AlterCOP 30 in Singapore. “I spent a lot of time in Japan. They were very, very quick to get involved in TNFD… It became clear to me very quickly that the business language system talks about being harmony in nature. And they saw TNFD as actually thinking about, how do I run business in harmony with nature?”
Craig explained that Japan’s sense of self-reliance also plays a key role.
“One of [my] colleagues said to me, you’ve got to remember, when you’re Japan and you’re surrounded by enemies, you need to be self-reliant… So this whole idea of self-reliance is one of the other drivers, too,” he said.
According to the TNFD’s 2025 Status Report, 620 organisations across more than 50 countries – representing around US$20 trillion in assets under management – have committed to adopting the framework, and Japan accounts for a substantial share of early adopters.
Around 130 Japanese companies and financial institutions are now conducting nature-related assessments and reporting aligned with TNFD, making Japan home to the highest number of adopters globally. It is estimated that roughly one-quarter of the first 320 early-adopter companies identified worldwide were Japanese.
The Japanese government has also provided direct funding support to the TNFD, underscoring its policy alignment with global nature goals.
The country’s business federation Keidanren said Japan is among the most engaged regions in Asia Pacific, reflecting both cultural alignment and growing investor interest in nature-positive business models.
Asset managers have also begun pressuring listed firms to quantify their exposure to deforestation, water scarcity and other nature-related risks that could affect long-term value.
That momentum is mirrored in Japan’s domestic financial policy landscape.
The Financial Services Agency has encouraged companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange to integrate nature and biodiversity considerations into sustainability reports, complementing climate-related guidance under the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, established in 2015 to standardise corporate climate-risk disclosure to investors and regulators.”
Major financial groups such as MUFG and Sumitomo Mitsui have joined TNFD pilot programmes, while Japan’s Environment Ministry funds research to integrate natural capital accounting into corporate balance sheets.
Global uptake
As Japan’s leadership helps set the tone for Asia, other regions are now beginning to follow suit, accelerating the global uptake of nature-related reporting.
“If you strip out Japan from the numbers, actually it’s not looking as good, but the good news is we’ve had a big uplift,” Craig said. “That 50 per cent increase in the last 12 months was from Brazil, Colombia, India, and China’s now embracing TNFD and really starting to move at scale in the way that they do.”
Craig said the taskforce is also focused on ensuring that the framework is practical across the supply chain, not just for large corporations.
“We have got to be very careful when we invent frameworks that they’re fit for purpose, not just for the CDL, with talented sustainability experts and teams, but the SME, the one-person, two-person farmer – they don’t have a disclosure team, believe it or not. So how do we help them?”
TNFD’s recent report found that 63 per cent of companies and financial institutions surveyed view nature-related risks as equally or more significant than climate-related ones, and 78 per cent of reporting firms are now integrating climate and nature disclosures.
Craig noted the group’s data and satellite initiatives are designed to reduce reporting burdens and make participation easier for smaller players.
“The change and transition doesn’t happen in this room,” he said. “It happens with the manufacturers and the materials and the things that have been made. So we’ve got to make sure that that’s fit for purpose, and that is the supply chain in nature.”
AloJapan.com