THE Federal Government has thrown its support behind an international program, which is aiming to create a framework for lenders to assess the nature-related risks and opportunities in the activities they fund – with beef on the early list of industries in its sights.

Earlier this week, the Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures released a series of broad recommendations for its developing guidelines.

The Federal Government assisted in the early development of the framework, doing a series of case studies with beef, salmon and cotton being one of the three agricultural commodities it looked at.

The Framework is now ready for voluntary adoption.

Many of Australia’s big agricultural lenders are part of the program, including the Commonwealth Bank, Rabobank and the National Australia Bank. Meat & Livestock Australia is also on the list of organisations involved.

The main goal of the taskforce is to shift “global financial flows away from nature-negative outcomes and toward nature-positive outcomes.”

Asked if it is likely to end up becoming legislation for Australian producers, a spokesperson for the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water said it was unclear.

“It’s too early to talk about the possibility of TNFD-aligned reporting being made mandatory in Australia,” the spokesperson said.

“Work needs to be done to create a regulatory and information environment that enables meaningful reporting.”