Concluding the BRC Plan for Nature Year 1: Nature Strategy & Reporting Roundtable – Key takeaways and next steps

Last week, we hosted our third and final event as part of BRC’s Plan for Nature 24/25 programme, culminating in an in-person Nature Strategy & Reporting Roundtable, delivered in partnership with RSK Group.

The roundtable began with reflections from Government in its role in accelerating retailer action on nature, before moving onto what industry can do to accelerate nature action. Read the key takeaways from the session below.

 

Recap: Plan for Nature 2024/25

BRC and RSK Group reflected on what has been achieved as part of the first year of the Plan for Nature across 2024/25. You can read a recap of the latest updates in the nature policy space and what we’ve done as part of the Plan for Nature in Year 1 here.

Ahead of the Roundtable, we conducted a Nature Maturity Assessment: the first comprehensive survey of the retail industry’s journey to date in the nature and biodiversity space. The survey evaluated the progress of retailer action on nature by assessing the maturity of businesses across nature-related commitments and target-setting; data and disclosures; and strategy and action, and identified the main barriers to action on nature.

You can access the key results of the Nature Maturity Assessment on the event slides. A detailed sub-sector benchmarking of the results will be available in our upcoming progress report on the Plan for Nature 24/25, to be published in the summer.

 

Session 1: Role of Government in accelerating retailer action on nature

Government Green Finance Strategy –Defra

• We heard from Defra on the Government’s green finance agenda, featuring a presentation on the challenges with and opportunities for improving existing and mobilising new private finance flows into nature recovery, and a discussion on how government can support retailers in driving corporate nature funding through the development of nature-related regulation, reporting and finance strategies.

Environmental Improvement Plan and UK Nature Markets – Broadway Initiative

• Broadway Initiative provided an overview of the UK Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), focusing on how learnings from the UK Net Zero Strategy could be applied to implement the EIP as a relevant programme for business action on nature.
• Discussion turned to the present state of voluntary nature markets in the UK, with a consideration of how to ‘de-risk’ nature markets and how to drive business engagement with nature markets as part of the wider business strategy.

Maximising economic sustainability return on investment via partnerships – RSK ADAS

• RSK ADAS reflected on how businesses can most effectively maximise their return on investment for economic sustainability initiatives via the right partnerships across local government and industry bodies.

 

Session 2: Establishing the steps needed from industry to accelerate nature action

Retailer perspective: Challenges and opportunities with developing & progressing nature strategies – Camilla Lawson, John Lewis Partnership, & Afira Akther, Kingfisher

• We heard two invaluable retailer perspectives on developing business nature strategies, gaining an insight into what an established nature strategy can look like for retailers as well as guidance on where to start with drafting a nature strategy for retailers at the beginning of their journeys. Both started from looking at how nature action relates to the ethos of their respective companies, and also from a supply chain resilience perspective.

BRC / RSK Group Nature Strategy Framework: Discussion and next steps

• RSK Group introduced their Nature Positive Plan, a guiding framework for nature strategy and action for the retail industry.
• Participants reviewed the plan and discussed what is most needed to accelerate action on nature. We will be sharing the outcomes in our upcoming progress report on the Plan for Nature 24/25, to be published this summer.

 

What’s next?

1. Plan for Nature 24/25 wrap-up: Final report to be published in Summer 2025: To summarise what we’ve achieved in the first year of our Plan for Nature, BRC will be publishing a report detailing the key outcomes and insights from Y1, including a sub-sector benchmarking of retailer maturity on nature drawn from the results of the  Nature Maturity Assessment.
2. Nature Positive Plan: Development of a retail industry nature strategy framework: RSK Group are using comments from the Roundtable to further develop their Nature Positive Plan, to support retailers on their nature journeys.
3. Plan for Nature 25/26: Kick-off of the 2025/26 agenda in September 2025: Building from Year 1, the Plan for Nature will return in 2025/26 to continue to support retailers understand the importance of nature and biodiversity and catalyse action on nature. More details to come in Summer 2025.
4. Other work on nature: EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) Sprint Group: Contact Sophie De Salis to join the Forest Risk Commodity mailing list and to join the EUDR Sprint Group, currently supporting members to prepare for EUDR.
5. Understanding Nature Reporting: Online workshop for textiles retailers: Hosted in partnership with GFI on Monday 7th July, 2-3pm. Find more details here.

If you have any questions related to nature & biodiversity, please get in touch with Sophie De Salis.