Procurement experts have long used carbon reduction as the main metric for assessing sustainability. Yet achieving true resilience requires more than simply cutting emissions. Today, the greatest threats to supply chain stability and long-term corporate value stem from ecosystem degradation, biodiversity loss, and the decline of natural systems. In response, companies are adopting nature-positive procurement strategies that drive economic growth while restoring and renewing the environment.
The Nature Conservancy’s Beyond Carbon-Free framework urges organizations to go beyond net-zero goals and create benefits for both people and nature. Focused on communities, conservation, and climate, it helps buyers support protecting habitats, improving community health, and achieving climate goals—promoting a nature-positive approach that strengthens ecosystems and encourages inclusive growth.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) explains that a nature-positive direction means shifting business practices so ecosystems recover rather than decline. It prioritizes regeneration—restoring landscapes, replenishing biodiversity, and ensuring natural systems can continue to support people and industries. It emphasizes the vital role ecosystems—such as stable biodiversity, clean water, and fertile soils—play in the long-term survival of businesses.
Adopting a nature-positive approach for procurement teams entails incorporating these dependencies into sourcing choices. Organizations may increase supply chain resilience and support an economy that replenishes rather than depletes the natural systems that support growth by selecting suppliers and commodities that maintain ecosystem integrity.
Understanding the links between supply chains and nature is the first step. The Ten Tests for Nature Strategy report from McKinsey & Company (2024/2025) urges companies to evaluate how their operations depend on and impact natural systems. The report emphasizes that biodiversity strategies cannot sit apart from climate action—aligning them creates efficiency, reduces trade-offs, and strengthens long-term resilience.
Additionally, new measurements are needed to integrate natural elements into purchasing decisions. The Capitals Coalition’s Align Project helps organizations place measurable value on elements like soil health, water availability, and biodiversity. This allows procurement teams to compare ecological impacts alongside cost and quality instead of treating them as invisible or secondary. This perspective requires considering long-term ecological impacts in addition to price and quality in a procurement setting.
Another crucial element is supplier collaboration. The CDP Supply Chain Report shows that, for many companies, the environmental impacts tied to suppliers far exceed those from in-house operations—often by over ten times higher. This makes supplier engagement essential to meaningful sustainability progress. By conserving ecosystems, implementing sustainable production, and encouraging circular practices, the research highlights the need for businesses to extend their environmental attention beyond climate change to encompass forests, water, and biodiversity. Engaging suppliers and taking action along the value chain are necessary to achieve this, particularly as new environmental requirements take effect.
Policy support is also important. According to the OECD’s 2025 study on biodiversity-positive incentives, payments for ecosystem services, biodiversity subsidies, and credit schemes are examples of results-based and performance-linked strategies that can make environmental protection a central component of business decisions. By paying suppliers for quantifiable ecological improvements, these procurement rules can help mainstream biodiversity throughout supply chains.
Nature-positive procurement is not only ethically just, but it also makes excellent commercial sense. Regenerative farming, ecosystem restoration, and investments in soil health can create new markets, foster community trust, and attract investors who respect resilience and long-term sustainability.
As the World Economic Forum notes, integrating ecology into urban planning helps create thriving, resilient environments. Likewise, when procurement embeds nature-positive principles into supply chains, it protects the natural resources essential to sustaining industry and long-term growth.
Procurement leaders who adopt this perspective shift from controlling costs to creating value. They position their businesses as leaders in sustainable growth, foresee legislative changes, and future-proof their supply networks against ecological shocks. Carbon targets are complemented rather than replaced by nature-positive procurement strategies.
Carbon neutrality is still important, but it’s not the whole story. Giving back to nature more than we take is the topic of the following chapter. Nature-positive procurement is not a goal for the future.