Use nature data to guide regenerative action

Natura is a Brazilian beauty and personal care company whose business model is based on the sustainable use of biodiversity, relying on socio-biodiversity supply chains across Latin America, especially in the Amazon region. The company needed a systematic and scientific-based method to identify where nature-related impacts, dependencies, risks and opportunities were most material across direct operations and the value chain, and to translate this evidence into priorities for sites, sourcing, packaging, water resilience, suppliers and risk management. (1)

Location of the initiative: Brazil and Latin America, covering direct operations and upstream and downstream value chains.

The company applied the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures' Locate, Evaluate, Assess and Prepare approach, known as LEAP, to make its relationship with nature measurable and manageable.

The work covered 23 operational units and 425 raw materials. The assessment considered 2023 as the base year and was performed from 2023 to 2025. It used internal management data and public data reported annually, in addition to secondary data available in public databases and tools suggested by the TNFD framework itself.

It took into consideration location data in order to prioritize the most material locations in which the company's main impacts and dependencies were estimated and prioritized, connecting the corporate biodiversity footprinting, integrated profit and loss analysis, and life-cycle information.

Biodiversity impacts were compared using square kilometers of mean species abundance per year, or km2.MSA.year. Integrated profit and loss analysis translated natural capital impacts for society into monetary terms. (1)

The results informed the company's Nature Transition Plan and internal Nature Action Plan. They shaped priorities for critical supply chains, direct operations, packaging, water resilience, supplier engagement and nature-related risk management. (1)

Sustainability Impact

Climate

The assessment does not quantify a Scope 1, 2 or 3 greenhouse gas reduction attributable to this assessment.

Nature

The assessment identified 17 nature-priority operational sites from 23 assessed, 198 priority raw materials from 425 assessed, and five operational units for biodiversity management plans. It also identified land use as the most material pressure in the biodiversity footprint. Land Use (part of Land/freshwater/ocean use change) refers to the use of a given area for purposes such as farming, construction, and industry, while maintaining the characteristics of the land and its cover relatively constant during the period. It is different from Land Change, which refers to the intentional alteration of the area's properties - that is, changing one type of use or cover into another (for example, transforming forest into pasture). (1)

The company's analysis found that one kilogram of plant-based raw material from certified socio-biodiversity chains had approximately 100 times lower impact on nature than one kilogram acquired in the conventional market. (1)

Positive impact projects linked to the assessed value chain reported:

• DENDÊ AFS: 4 km² of degraded land transformed into agroforestry systems, generating an estimated positive impact of 2.6 km².MSA.year;

• CARBON OFFSETING: about 1,428.2 km² of forest conserved through certified carbon projects;

• INSETTING (CARBONO CIRCULAR): about 24 km² conserved through a carbon insetting project, with an estimated 11.7 km².MSA.year of avoided negative impact compared with a business-as-usual scenario; and

• SOCIO-BIODIVERSITY CHAINS: 22,771 km² of Amazon rainforest conserved across socio-biodiversity chains, with an estimated 85 km2.MSA.year of avoided negative impact compared with a business-as-usual scenario. (1)

Figure 1: Corporate biodiversity footprint by value chain segment

Figure 2: Corporate biodiversity footprint by pressure

Natura's biodiversity footprint analysis compared impacts using km².MSA.year and showed that land use was the most material pressure. The analysis also found that plant-based raw materials from certified socio-biodiversity chains showed around 100 times lower production impact than conventionally sourced ingredients.

Social

The assessment reinforces that the community-based socio-biodiversity supply chains model is very beneficial to reduce impact on nature by strengthening traceability, certification, supplier training and long-term engagement with cooperatives, smallholder families and communities. In this process within the Amazon region, the company impacts 46 communities and 11,000 families. In 2025, more than US$12 million was designated for those communities. (1)

Business Impact

Benefits

The work improved the company's ability to decide where to act first across operations, sourcing, packaging, water and suppliers. The assessment enabled the company to prioritize the implementation of a Water Stewardship strategy, a process already in progress in 2026. It also influenced the decision to increase from 6 to 13 the number of defined critical supply chains. For these chains, the company has goals for full traceability, seeking to eliminate deforestation and the conversion of ecosystems, and adopting regenerative practices by 2030. It also helped connect nature data to corporate governance, integrated reporting and the company's long-term regenerative business vision.

Costs

The main resource requirements included internal staff time, the cost of engaging an external consulting firm, supplier-data collection, traceability improvements, biodiversity and life-cycle assessment tools, and coordination across sustainability, procurement, operations, risk, finance and reporting teams. Costs can be reduced by starting with the most material sites and value-chain segments, using proxies where primary data are unavailable, and progressively replacing them with more granular data.

Impact Beyond Sustainability And Business

Co-benefits

The approach supports greater coordination between nature, climate and human-rights priorities and can strengthen long-term relationships with suppliers and socio-biodiversity partners. (1)

Potential Side-Effects And Trade-Offs

Climate mitigation and biodiversity measures can create land-use trade-offs. Natura addresses these through integrated climate and biodiversity assessments, prioritizing alternatives that avoid natural-habitat conversion, use already modified areas and follow the mitigation hierarchy. Data confidentiality and limited traceability can also constrain analysis, particularly for fragrances, synthetic ingredients and packaging disposal. (1)

Typical Business Profile

• Sectors: beauty, personal care, consumer goods and other sectors dependent on biological raw materials, land, water or packaging;

• Functions: sustainability, procurement, operations, risk, finance, product development and reporting;

• Maturity: companies moving from nature assessment or disclosure preparation into transition planning and implementation;

• Geography: most relevant where operations or sourcing interact with location-specific ecosystems and socio-biodiversity supply chains.

Approach

1. Define the decision and scope. Set the business decisions the assessment must inform and cover material direct operations plus relevant upstream and downstream activities.

2. Locate nature interfaces. Map operational sites and raw-material origins using company, supplier and geographic data. When primary data is not available, the use of secondary data was allowed. When location was not possible, materials were considered only from the Evaluate phase.

3. Evaluate impacts and dependencies. Use recognized qualitative tools and operational data to identify potential pressures, dependencies and ecologically sensitive locations. Some of the datasets used for this analysis combined supplier data and secondary research with the company's geographic information system, ENCORE, the Union for Ethical BioTrade Risk Database and the Corporate Biodiversity Footprint.

4. Quantify material impacts. Apply biodiversity footprinting and relevant life-cycle data to compare pressures across operations and value-chain segments.

5. Assess value, risks and opportunities. Use integrated valuation and risk criteria to connect nature-related findings with business value, trade-offs, exposure and opportunity.

6. Prioritize sites and materials. Rank locations, raw materials and value-chain issues based on materiality, sensitivity, severity, likelihood and the ability to act.

7. Validate findings. Review assumptions, proxies, confidentiality constraints and data gaps with internal functions and suppliers.

8. Translate results into action. Use priorities to shape site biodiversity plans, sourcing standards, packaging, water resilience, supplier engagement, transition planning and enterprise risk management.

9. Improve data over time. Create a roadmap to strengthen traceability, supplier information, life-cycle inventories and post-consumer data, replacing proxies progressively.

Stakeholders Involved

• Project leads: the Sustainability team coordinated the assessment, data integration and transition-planning outputs.

• Company functions: Procurement, operations, risk management, finance, product development, reporting teams and governance bodies supplied data, validated findings and integrated priorities into decisions.

• Main providers: Technical partners and data providers supported geospatial screening, biodiversity footprinting, life-cycle data and valuation methods.

• Other stakeholders: Suppliers, critical supply-chain partners, cooperatives, smallholder families and communities supported origin data, traceability, validation and implementation of sourcing actions.

Key Parameters To Consider

• Data availability, granularity and confidentiality, including the role of modelled data and proxies;

• Traceability of raw-material origins, synthetic ingredients, fragrance components and packaging disposal;

• Availability and regional suitability of biodiversity, land-use and life-cycle datasets;

• Supplier readiness to provide information and participate in recurring engagement and training;

• Ability to connect assessment outputs with procurement, governance, reporting, enterprise risk management and investment decisions;

Implementation And Operations Tips

• Engage procurement teams and suppliers early because origin and process data determine the quality of value-chain analysis;

• Combine qualitative screening with quantitative footprinting and valuation tools;

• Document assumptions and create a roadmap to improve traceability and replace proxies;

• Maintain cross-functional ownership of data collection, validation and application.

External Links

• Natura Nature Transition Plan

• Natura Biodiversity Policy

• Natura Climate Transition Plan

• Natura annual reports and ESG databooks

• TNFD guidance on the LEAP approach

Source List

(1) Natura Nature Transition Plan, including the LEAP assessment, Corporate Biodiversity Footprint, positive-impact project results and implementation lessons.