By Deepshikha Singh, Head of Stewardship, Crédit Mutuel Asset Management
Crédit Mutuel Asset Management is an asset management company of Groupe La Française, the holding company of the asset management branch of Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale.
"In a world of ecological overshoot, even an imperfect compass is better than sailing blindfolded."
As nature-related risks are gaining traction in sustainable finance, biodiversity footprinting has become an important tool for evaluating the impact of corporate or portfolio activities on ecosystems. These footprints are expressed in ecological pressure units, such as MSA.m² (Mean Species Abundance ) or PDF (Potentially Disappeared Fraction of species ).
These figures are based on complex models: life cycle assessment (LCA) databases integrated with biodiversity loss simulators such as GLOBIO , which convert land use and emissions data into estimates of ecological degradation . Despite the complexity, the footprinting tools offer a useful starting point for assessing systemic exposure to nature loss, leading to their wider adoption into the mainstream ESG data suite
The PBAF (Partnership for Biodiversity Accounting Financials) requires its members to commit to exploring and disclosing biodiversity impacts and actively participating in developing harmonized methodologies which include footprinting approaches (MSA, PDF, CBF, etc.). In its Additional guidance for Financial Institutions , TNFD (Taskforce for Nature-Related Financial Disclosures) has included biodiversity footprinting approaches as additional disclosure metrics that can be used by FIs, with required detail.
Out of the 129 financial institutions that have officially registered as TNFD adopters, majority seem to be members of PBAF, and hence, have been engaging with one or the other footprinting tools for their official reporting. As of July 2025, 15 of them, including BNP Paribas AM, ING, MUFG, and Robeco, have published their first TNFD reports, of which 30% have included some kind of biodiversity footprinting.
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