What we are building before COP17
Four public instruments, one rule book, and a date. A short note on what Biodiversity Economy will publish between now and 19 October 2026.
COP17 opens in Yerevan on 19 October 2026, a little over a month from the date of this note. During the COP the ISSB is expected to publish the exposure draft of its nature-related disclosure standard. That is the day nature becomes an accounting line item for most of the world's listed companies, and it is the day we launch.
Here is what will be public by then.
The Nature Ticker
It is already running on our home page: what the world finances against nature and for it, at the honest average rate, since the page was opened, since the start of the year, and against what is needed by 2030. Every constant comes from a published source, and the sources are on the page. At launch the Ticker becomes an embeddable widget, free to any site, with the constants and sources served alongside the numbers so that every figure can be audited by whoever quotes it.
The Nature Quadrant
Every large listed company placed on two axes: how much it depends on nature, and how much it does to nature. Four regions with plain-English names. A fund appears as a cloud of its holdings. The Quadrant is the map that everything else is drawn on, and it is designed to be shared, so it will export as an image with its source line intact.
Nature Balance Sheets
One page per company. What it takes from nature, what it does to nature, what it discloses, and what that is worth at risk, the Extinction Discount. The first hundred, covering the largest companies in the world and every company in the JSE Top 40, are published at COP17. Five hundred by December. Every company receives its scores and the data behind them ten working days before publication, with a right of reply.
Fund Truth 2026
Every fund and ETF sold with "biodiversity", "nature" or "natural capital" in its name, rated on what its holdings do to nature rather than on what the marketing says. The report is published during COP17. Right-of-reply letters go to fund managers by 1 October.
The rules
Three rules apply to all of it. Ratings are never for sale, and advisory clients are scored by the same pipeline as everyone else. The method is public: version 1.0 is published with the launch, and every change after that is logged. Every figure has a parent: a source and a date, on the page, or it does not get published.
Between now and then
The BE Brief starts before the launch: one chart, one number, one argument, on Thursdays. Notes like this one will appear here as the work lands. The counters keep running.