Her Excellency Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, President of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), has joined the Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) as Co-Chair.
Ms. Al Mubarak, who also serves as the UAE Climate Champion for COP28, will be working alongside David Craig, founder and CEO of Refinitiv, one of the largest data and technology platform providers to financial markets operating in over 160 countries. Ms. Al Mubarak is replacing Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment).
The TNFD was launched in June 2021 with the support of the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group and financial support from governments and philanthropic foundations. The 40-member taskforce has developed a set of disclosure recommendations and guidance for business and finance to assess, report and act on their nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities. Following the release of the corporate reporting recommendations in September 2023, the TNFD is now focused on encouraging voluntary market adoption. It is also supporting efforts to address the knowledge, capacity building and data needs of market participants.
Elected IUCN President in 2021, Razan Al Mubarak is the first woman from the West Asia region to lead the organization in its 72-year history and its first Arab president since 1978. As the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP28, she has global business and finance engagement, advocating for a more integrated and holistic approach to practical action on climate change with nature at its heart.
In her new capacity as Co-Chair, Ms. Al Mubarak will help lead the Taskforce’s efforts to embed the TNFD recommendations in the global corporate reporting architecture aligned with the commitment of over 190 governments around the world to Target 15 of the Global Biodiversity Framework.
“I am honored to be stepping into the role of Co-Chair of the TNFD at this critical juncture. COP28 highlighted that business and finance now accept that climate change and nature loss are not separate challenges, but inextricably linked as integrated planetary systems. We can’t get to net zero without nature,” she said.
Businesses and financial institutions of all sizes across all sectors and geographies need to start managing their interface with nature as their most important supply chain and value creation partner.”
David Craig, who has served as Co-Chair since the TNFD was established in June 2021, has welcomed Ms. Al Mubarak to the Taskforce and thanked Elizabeth Mrema:
“I am delighted to welcome Razan to the TNFD as my Co-Chair for this next phase of TNFD’s mission to align to global reporting standards and build market confidence and capabilities to take action in the face of accelerating nature loss. As was the case with Elizabeth Mrema’s leadership of the CBD Secretariat and her stewardship of the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework throughout the first phase of our work, the TNFD will benefit from Razan’s lifelong commitment to conservation and biodiversity and her global leadership and tireless advocacy at the nexus of climate and nature challenges as President of the IUCN and as COP28 Climate Champion.”
