The Nature of the TNFD Framework: A Document Analysis
2023
Tarnowski, Tyler Joseph
Large corporations and financial institutions have come to the realization that they can no longer ignore the twin emergencies of nature and climate crises. In this thesis, I investigate the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), a recent market-led initiative developed to take risks associated with the nature crisis into account in financial practices. In particular, I take interest in the TNFD framework. This is a set of digital documents produced by the taskforce containing recommendations on how organizations should disclose their relationship to nature in financial reports with the aim of shifting financial flows toward nature-positive outcomes. I engage with multiple iterations of the framework by way of a document analysis, attending to the practices that enable or are enabled by its key themes and tensions. Using the toolkit of material semiotics and concepts from science and technology studies (STS), I set out to trace how this framework may enable or prevent certain practices at the interfaces between finance and nature. Through an analysis of how the TNFD framework works upon financial practices, I uncover tensions it produces or fails to overcome that stand in the way of finance meaningfully taking nature into account. In doing so, I aim to contribute to the nascent body of work surrounding the TNFD, and to add a perspective about the role of documents to discussions orbiting financial environmental governance.
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