New Innovation Challenge Puts Nature Intelligence in the Hands of Small Businesses

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), Conservation X Labs (CXL), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) announced the official opening of the Nature Intelligence for Business Grand Challenge, a global competition to accelerate solutions that help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) better assess and act on their nature-related issues.

The challenge will award $100,000 in funding and additional incentives that will advance the development and deployment of solutions that deliver actionable insights—or nature intelligence—about how businesses interact with nature based on the TNFD's LEAP (Locate, Evaluate, Assess, and Prepare) assessment approach. The winning teams will gain the opportunity to work directly with CXL, TNFD, UNDP, and other partners to scale and globalize their solution, putting it into the hands of businesses worldwide.

Businesses of every size depend on nature to thrive—whether through natural resources like water and fertile soils, ecosystem services such as pollination, or protection from risks like flooding and wildfires. Yet ecosystems are deteriorating, and biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history. Managing interactions with nature is not only essential for the health of the planet but also for ensuring the future financial resilience of businesses and investment portfolios of all sizes. Tools like TNFD's LEAP approach now give companies a structured way to understand their dependencies and impacts on nature, along with the risks and opportunities that flow from them. Actionable, insight-based nature intelligence is a critical new requirement for all businesses and key to building resilient supply chains.

While more companies are beginning to integrate nature intelligence into their decision-making, a critical gap remains: SMEs. SMEs are the backbone of global supply chains, representing 90% of businesses and more than half of global employment, yet they often lack the expertise, infrastructure, and capacity to understand nature's relevance to the future resilience and success of their business. Unlocking this capacity is vital. By equipping SMEs with the tools and insights they need, we can enable businesses to better manage their relationship with nature and drive resilience, innovation, and nature-positive outcomes worldwide.

"The TNFD has instigated this Grand Challenge because we recognize that small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of the global economy and critical across global supply chains. With regulators, investors and downstream customers all seeking more information on their environmental impacts and dependencies, it is essential that SMEs have access to technology tools that can help them understand and respond to their nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities. Making nature intelligence accessible at scale will unlock avenues for resilience and profit, so we're calling on entrepreneurs and tech firms to come forward with solutions to help SMEs better assess and act on their nature-related issues," said Tony Goldner, Chief Executive Officer of the TNFD.

"SMEs are a critical part of our global economic systems that need to transition from nature negative to nature positive. Equipping them with actionable insights about how their businesses interact with nature, or 'nature intelligence', is a vital key to unlock these shifts to sustainability at scale and to where it matters most," said Marcos Neto, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director of UNDP Bureau for Policy and Programme Support.

Alex Dehgan, Co-Founder and CEO of Conservation X Labs, added: "In a global economy, supply chains are complex and involve thousands of suppliers extending deep into the realm of nature. Through this challenge, we seek to find ways to harness innovation to make TNFD's LEAP process easier for every small and medium enterprise to better understand their impacts and dependencies on nature and potential risks and opportunities to their business. That will help SME owners manage the resilience of their own business and participate in global supply chains."

Submissions are now open and will be accepted through Monday, November 24th, at 11:59 EST. The winners will be announced in April 2026.

For more information, visit: https://www.nature-intelligence.org.

Media Contact:  
Christopher Moyer
Director of Strategic Communications and Marketing
Conservation X Labs 
[email protected] 

About TNFD: The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is comprised of 40 business and finance leaders from around the world and was launched in 2021 with the support of the G20. TNFD provides recommendations and guidance for market participants and other stakeholders about how nature beyond climate should be assessed, managed and reported. It has built a global movement of support and action, including 620 organisations and over USD 20 trillion in assets under management (AUM) now committed to reporting their nature-related issues aligned with the TNFD recommendations published in September 2023. The TNFD recommendations build on the previous approach and recommendation of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and are aligned with the impact standards of the GRI, the European Union's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the sustainability reporting standards of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).

About CXL: Conservation X Labs (501c3) is a nonprofit innovation organization dedicated to addressing the underlying drivers of human-induced extinction. We do this by harnessing technology, entrepreneurship, and open innovation to transform how conservation's biggest challenges are solved. We have completed 19 global prizes and challenges, supported 177 game-changing innovations, deployed monitoring tools tracking over 270 species, and helped expand protection to 325,000 hectares of critical habitat. By breaking down silos and championing collaboration, we build bold solutions that deliver measurable impact for people and nature.

About UNDP: UNDP is the leading United Nations organization fighting to end the injustice of poverty, inequality, and climate change. Working with our broad network of experts and partners in 170 countries, we help nations to build integrated, lasting solutions for people and planet. Learn more at www.undp.org/nature or follow @UNDP. 1 UN Plaza, New York, NY 10017 | www.undp.org

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