Building bridges between business and nature
Moving from greenhouse gas emissions to nature intelligence is key to futureproofing business operations
We will not make progress on climate change if we don’t act on nature, according to Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. At Pale blue dot, we have been using planetary boundaries as a framework to guide our investment decisions. Nature, freshwater availability and biodiversity protection are crucial to our future.
It’s simply smart business, as 85% of the world’s largest companies that make up S&P Global 1200 significantly depend on nature across their direct operations. Industries such as food and beverage, and agriculture jump into mind when thinking of nature dependencies. But it goes beyond these: 50% of the global GDP is directly dependent on nature according to the World Economic Forum, including the chemical, pharmaceutical and automotive industries.
Tesla is one example. Its Giga factory was built in a water-scarce region of Germany. Since their process required a lot of water, this amounted to a potential loss in revenue of 36 billion euros. After running at low capacity for a few months, they had no choice but to install a water recycling system to build water resilience and prevent further costs. This goes to show how tracking nature-related metrics can help anticipate expensive risks and bring positive returns for a business.
“I think nature intelligence will be bigger than carbon management in the long term because understanding nature risks saves companies money,” says Anna Alex, Co-Founder of Nala and Founder of the exited carbon accounting platform Planetly.
Credit: Nala
Future-proofing businesses against nature-related risks and compliance
We decided to back the founders of Nala Nicolas Somogyi, Nick Zumbühl, and Anna Alex, united by our shared vision: bringing nature intelligence into the boardroom.
We believe nature risk and dependency should be the next point of focus for businesses. They already impact corporations globally and will change the way companies operate. Plus, reporting frameworks like the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) help create urgency around understanding how a company is at risk. Nature intelligence platforms like Nala are therefore, key partners in ensuring risk management in the short and long term.
Credit: Nala
The three founders have the right backgrounds in nature risk and dependency, data science and entrepreneurial experience to build the software platform business leaders need today to include nature intelligence into their business strategy.
“While working on carbon accounting at BCG, I saw that biodiversity and nature were undervalued,” says Nick Zumbühl. “For years, we have had this tunnel-vision on Greenhouse Gas emissions, although we won’t succeed in tackling the climate crisis if we don’t take care of nature.”
With Nala’s platform, companies can manage their interactions with nature, helping them identify nature-related risks and opportunities across their value chain. This is important for future-proofing business operations and for meeting new sustainability reporting requirements, such as the CSRD and the TNFD. The platform is uniquely placed to support big corporations with nature-related decision intelligence and risk management. Shortly after coming out of stealth mode in October 2023, Nala secured €1.7m in funding led by Pale blue dot, Fonderful and the support of prominent international angel investors. Since then, it has updated its platform to offer more accurate, corporate-tailored nature insights to its clients, which include the likes of MVV, BASF and Arla.