Climate & Nature: Integrating Risk, Reporting and Strategy
Join session one of the BRC's new Nature Focus Group for expert-led insight on how to integrate nature and climate – spanning risk, resilience, financial materiality, data, reporting, strategy, action and measurement.
This event is exclusive to BRC Retail Members.
Join a new collaborative forum for senior retail sustainability and nature leaders. Hear expert insights, share challenges with peers, and gain practical approaches for advancing your action on nature by integrating with climate, starting with a deep dive across strategy, risk, and reporting.
Why attend this event?
Crack the hard questions together
Work collaboratively with peers through the challenges every retailer is facing, by sharing learnings, showcasing best practice, and aligning where it counts.
Turn insight into action
Learn from leading experts and peers on the focus areas and developments that matter most, and leave each session with something you can put into practice.
Stay ahead of the curve
Get early sight of relevant policy, regulation and reporting through direct updates from BRC and other expert speakers.
Climate & Nature: Integrating Risk, Reporting and Strategy
Every cup of coffee, cotton t-shirt, or wooden furniture item in a British retail store begins with nature.
Nature has climbed the corporate agenda, but its position has shifted. Two years ago, retail leaders treated nature and climate as separate pillars in their sustainability strategies. Borne from this momentum was the Nature Positive Plan, the first nature-focused industry plan to drive targeted action on nature.
But the reality is that climate and nature are inseparable: tackling climate change without addressing ecosystem challenges is only addressing half of the risk.
Nature needs to be integrated into core business strategy, connected to the issues already commanding board attention: decarbonisation, climate risk, and supply chain resilience.
For retailers, several forces are now converging.
Nature and climate risks overlap, and they are materialising now.
Nature-related risk isn’t a future scenario – extreme weather shocks, water scarcity, and land and ecosystem degradation have transformed commodity disruption, food insecurity, price spikes and supply chain volatility from distant hypothetical scenarios into present day commercial risks.
Climate and nature disclosure are board-level concerns.
Assessing the materiality of biodiversity and ecosystems will form an integral part of sustainability reporting under future obligations across the UK and EU. Even with a head start from TCFD reporting, many retailers face a real gap in quantifying financial impacts; strengthening scenario analysis and securing robust Scope 3 and nature-related data across the value chain.
In a challenging business environment, integrated action is more efficient.
Climate and nature share data, drivers, and disclosure pathways; operationalising them together is more effective and more credible for the business than running them as separate workstreams. Bringing climate and nature together in how you holistically manage risk, resilience and strategy.
Agenda
10:00 | Welcome and introduction
Welcome from BRC and Nature Positive, starting with an overview of the Nature Focus Group and a recap on the BRC Plan for Nature programme.
10:10 | Regulatory and reporting update
Horizon scan of where nature will be required in regulation and reporting across the UK and EU, and what businesses must to do prepare.
10:20 | Context-setting: the integration challenge and opportunity
Industry context on the current business challenges with getting started on nature, the commercial, regulatory, reputational and corporate risks presented by inaction, and the opportunity presented by strategic integration with climate.
10:40 | Sub-sector breakout discussions
In-depth breakout discussions across the food/FMCG, textiles & apparel, and platform/GM sub-sectors, to enable sector peers to draw out common challenges, best practice, and areas for alignment.
11:35 | Breakout summary
Facilitators to share key takeaways from the sub-sector breakouts, outlining key areas of cross-industry alignment.
11:50 | Next steps
Looking ahead to what’s next for the BRC Plan for Nature across 2027.
About the Nature Focus Group
The Nature Focus Group is a new, collaborative, pre-competitive, Chatham House forum set to regularly convene senior nature and sustainability leads from across retail sub-sectors to work through these shared challenges – together.
Part of the BRC’s Plan for Nature and facilitated by Nature Positive and ADAS (part of RSK Group).
Register now
If you experience issues with the form, please contact events@brc.org.uk.
In Partnership with
Meet the Speakers
Lou Sherry
Senior Policy Executive - Sustainability | BRC
Lou leads on environmental and ethical sourcing policy and the BRC's Plan for Nature programme.
Jenny Hughes
Associate Director – Environmental Sustainability, Nature Positive
Jenny specialises in environmental sustainability and has over 11 years’ experience delivering assessments, corporate strategies, research and reporting projects.
She has worked with a range of global sectors including manufacturing, consumer goods, development and infrastructure to improve organisations relationships with nature and deliver positive impact for the UNSDGs.
Jenny has experience delivering environmental studies for landscape scale nature restoration in the UK, and is currently advising businesses on double materiality assessments, nature strategies and reporting.
Lauren Bain
Senior Environmental Consultant, Nature Positive
Lauren is a sustainability consultant with a focus on supporting public and private sector organisations to build holistic sustainability strategies, disclose against global ESG frameworks, and understand their impacts and dependencies on nature. She is a certified Green Project Manager with project experience across the UK, US, and Caribbean, and her academic and professional background spans policy, energy, and social impact. Lauren believes strongly that you cannot separate people from planet, so is on a mission to create sustainability projects that deliver value for both.
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