中文Biodiversity — the variety of plant and animal life in a habitat or across the world — is moving from environmental footnote to board-level risk. In a FESPA perspective piece, Clare Taylor explains why biodiversity matters to business and how emerging global frameworks such as the TNFD and new 2027 reporting regulations will touch corporations and their supply chains, including printers and signage producers.
The link to climate change is close but distinct. Most businesses now grasp climate risk; biodiversity loss is less well understood, though no less consequential. Species loss can alter the physical environment, and environmental change can in turn drive species loss. International policy has caught up: in 2022 the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) set targets for 2030 and 2050 to halt and reverse nature loss.
On the reporting side, the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) has built a framework designed to work alongside existing systems — CDP, the Global Reporting Initiative, the ISSB, the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) and others. It mirrors the climate-focused TCFD’s four pillars — governance; strategy, risk and impact assessment; and metrics and targets — and uses the LEAP acronym: Locate your interface with nature, Evaluate dependencies and impacts, Assess risks and opportunities, and Prepare to respond and report.
Regulation is now concrete. The EU has published its Final Revised European Sustainability Reporting Standards in the Official Journal, with biodiversity and ecology covered under ESRS E4. Reporting is expected to begin for financial years starting from 1 January 2027. The UK issued final voluntary standards earlier this year, with a policy statement this autumn on which entities face mandatory requirements; even where nature reporting is not mandatory, material nature-related risks must still be disclosed.
Smaller businesses are not off the hook. Even if a company falls outside the reporting scope — which targets larger businesses — it may sit inside the value chain of a larger reporting company and be asked to supply activity data, especially where forest-based products are involved. Printers with chain-of-custody or EUDR compliance records may already hold much of what is needed. Taylor advises being proactive: ask customers whether they will report, and find out early what data they will require once rules take effect.
Practical, low-cost steps also help. Around the site, bird and bat boxes, bug hotels, permeable paving, green roofs or walls, rain gardens and rainwater planters all support local biodiversity while engaging staff. Toolkits from Groundwork UK, the UK Business & Biodiversity Forum and the TNFD itself offer guidance.
For print and signage firms, the message is that nature-related risk is becoming measurable, reportable and potentially contractual. Preparing now — gathering data, understanding dependencies and taking visible on-site action — turns a looming compliance burden into a manageable, even reputation-enhancing, part of doing business.
Source: FESPA (Biodiversity and Business: What the New Regulations Mean for Companies by Clare Taylor, 24 September 2026).
For printers and signage firms, nature-related risk is more immediate than it sounds. The sector depends on natural capital indirectly but materially: paper and board from forests, water for washing and coating, energy for drying and curing, and raw materials whose supply can be disrupted by ecological stress. Under frameworks such as ESRS E4 and the forthcoming 2027 EU reporting window, large brand owners will be expected to understand and disclose those dependencies — and they will push the questions down to suppliers.
The practical first step is data. Many printers already hold chain-of-custody and EUDR-related records; these become the backbone of nature disclosures. Asking customers early whether they will report, and what evidence they need, prevents a last-minute scramble. Even smaller firms outside the reporting scope should expect to provide activity and sourcing data to larger partners.
On-site action doubles as both compliance and culture. Bird and bat boxes, permeable paving, green roofs and rain gardens are low-cost, staff-friendly signals of environmental stewardship that also satisfy the “prepare to respond” pillar of TNFD’s LEAP method. They demonstrate to customers and recruits that sustainability is operational, not rhetorical.
The strategic read is that nature reporting, like carbon reporting before it, will move from voluntary to expected. Printers who build the data habits and take visible steps now convert a looming obligation into a credibility advantage with exactly the brand customers they most want to keep.
The window to prepare is short but open. With EU reporting anchored to financial years from January 2027, the firms gathering data and piloting on-site measures now will report smoothly; those waiting will scramble. For printers, biodiversity is not a distant environmental nicety but a near-term commercial and compliance consideration woven into customer supply chains. Treating it seriously today is the cheaper path to resilience tomorrow.
Crucially, nature reporting is not a separate sustainability silo but an extension of the carbon and ESG work many printers already do. The same data systems, supplier questionnaires and improvement plans feed both. Firms that treated earlier environmental reporting as a compliance tax may be pleasantly surprised to find biodiversity builds on that foundation rather than starting from zero. The efficient move is to fold nature metrics into existing ESG reporting and avoid duplicating effort.
