Blog, 
Authored by Sean Lees, Nature Pledge Coordinator, UNDP Asia Pacific
Despite recent setbacks in the push for mandatory sustainability frameworks globally, a notable counter-trend is emerging in Asia. Business and finance leaders in this region are increasingly adopting nature-related sustainability strategies, including due diligence and disclosures work, with important implications for corporate human rights performance.
In this context, it may be time to supplement our human rights practice, including the efforts to minimise risks to people, with approaches taken under the Business and Biodiversity (BXB) heading.
Business leaders and policymakers in Asia are recognising that environmental degradation is no longer just an ecological issue; it is both a physical risk to assets and a reputational risk for markets. Manufacturing plants have become especially vulnerable to flooding caused by deforestation and related soil erosion, driving up insurance costs and the cost of capital. Over-exploitation of the oceans has led to drops in seafood volumes and revenue. And a steady decline in pollinators is impacting agricultural yields.
With these trends impacting on balance sheets, Asia is currently leading Europe and North America in nature-related commitments in corporate strategy, according to recent reports.
Importantly, the human rights implications of nature-related risks are also coming into focus. Land use changes have often been connected to land grabs, forced displacement, and human rights abuses, including allegations of genocide. Over-exploitation of natural resources is connected to forced labour, while unabated levels of pollution have compromised the right to health, livelihoods and food security.
In late 2025, illegal mining, forestry and plantation operations resulted in widespread deforestation of a national park in one Southeast Asian country. After a cyclone hit the region, flooding and landslides directly related to these illegal operations resulted in the displacement of up to 130,000 people and 1,200 deaths.
Risk disclosure frameworks
Evidencing growing concern of the economic and human rights-related risks of nature loss, regulators across Northeast and Southeast Asia are developing voluntary risk disclosure frameworks, including in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
The International Sustainability Standards Board’s recent adoption of the recommendations of the Task Force on Nature Based Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is also driving momentum. Behind this stands the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the operational framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Target 15 of the GBF sets an expectation for large businesses to assess and disclose their risks, dependencies and impacts on biodiversity.
More recently, an intergovernmental, science-policy group known as IPBES, produced a Business and Biodiversity assessment, detailing recommendations for action by government, business and civil society.
Though the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) do not refer to nature or climate, the UNGPs provide under Principle 12 that businesses must avoid causing or contributing to adverse impacts on all human rights, including the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Furthermore, under frameworks like the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D), companies will be expected to conduct due diligence that integrates environmental and human rights impacts. Recognising this and the link to the CBD, an emerging regulatory landscape should lead to a convergence over time.
What companies should be doing
Companies should consider acting now as the enabling environment for integrated work on nature and human rights emerges. Among the steps forward-leaning companies might pursue include:
- Strategy and leadership at the board level help a company understand how its operations depend on and impact biodiversity, and how management is addressing the intersection of these risks with human rights.
- Policies and procedures addressing the company's reliance on natural resources, embedding both biodiversity protection and community rights into supplier codes of conduct.
- Additional controls where higher risk situations are present, such as shifting sourcing away from high-conservation-value areas or modifying operational processes to reduce water and soil impact.
- Monitoring potential biodiversity impacts through localised data, spatial mapping, and grievance mechanisms that are accessible to communities whose livelihoods depend on the surrounding ecosystems, and initiating reviews when concerns are identified.
- Stakeholder engagement focused specifically on Indigenous Peoples and local communities, ensuring their right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent is respected in land-use decisions.
- Investing in financing instruments and schemes such as biodiversity credits that help protect watersheds, shorelines and forests, ensuring the ecosystem services upon which businesses depend.
- Due diligence that integrates TNFD’s due diligence framework (the LEAP framework) with HRDD practice, which can help companies put processes in place for the human rights and environmental due diligence required under the CS3D. Recently, UNDP developed a training facilitation guide that connects HRDD practice with biodiversity-focused due diligence.
There is little time to lose. It is high time for companies to align their human rights and nature agendas – for their own and their stakeholders’ benefit - and not least, for nature itself.
Sean Lees was GBI’s Regional Strategic Partner from 2021 until 2026.
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