It's official: Biodiversity loss is a threat to UK national security

This opinion piece first appeared on the Business Green website on 9 February 2026.

The UK government’s latest national security assessment, for the first time, outlines biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse as national security threats with highly significant implications across society. Nature Positive Associate Director Tom Mason emphasises that the potential socio-economic implications are significant, and it is important that businesses evaluate how such a future scenario will impact their business model and strategy.

Seven out of nine planetary boundaries breached

The assessment, released on 20 January, reinforces what those of us working in the sphere of nature risk and impacts already knew, and should make the severity of the threat clear to those who did not. The level of confidence in these key judgements underscores the need for governments and the private sector to address the drivers of nature loss now. The credible national security threats outlined present an alarming and highly challenging future scenario not only for the UK, but for the entire world. We know that degradation is severe, ongoing and in some regions, worsening, but confidence and certainty around when ecosystems may collapse and irreversibly change is low.

Seven out of nine planetary boundaries – the systems that support life on earth – have already been breached, which reduces our room to manoeuvre and our ability to effectively halt and reverse decline. Once breached, planetary boundaries and critical ecosystems will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to restore. This will be compounded by cascading risks of resource shortages, price instability, food shortages, social unrest and conflicts over basic natural resources, which will not make for a conducive environment for undoing the damage.

Alignment with WEF Global Risk Report

The release of this assessment coincides with the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Risks Report, which for yet another year reiterates the consensus among business leaders and subject matter experts that biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, natural resource shortages and critical changes to earth systems are the most severe long-term socio-economic risks. While recognition of the long-term threat is important, what appears to be lacking is any highly effective, coordinated short-term prevention and mitigation at a global scale. In WEF’s Global Risks Report, biodiversity loss only barely makes it into the top ten short-term risks, and that is down to recognition by leaders and experts under the age of 30.

How we see businesses are already preparing for such a future

In recent months, Nature Positive, an RSK Group company, has been helping businesses spanning the finance, insurance, construction and consumer goods sectors to undertake nature scenario planning using the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) nature scenarios (figure 1). TNFD’s nature scenarios outline four futures that span the axis of moderate to severe nature loss and effective to ineffective (aligned/misaligned) transitional drivers including policy, data, targets and stakeholder attitudes and actions toward nature.

More than 40 respondents working in sustainability, procurement, finance, risk management, operations and product design and engineering provided their opinions and justifications about the current and future status of physical and transitional risks to their businesses. When asked about their present day perceptions, the majority of respondents felt that the “back of the list” scenario was a realistic representation of the world today.

• 82% perceive nature loss as minimal and not experienced by the business today.
• 89% think that global regulation does not support halting or reversing of nature loss.
• 92% think global nature targets are ineffective, and not widely known.
• 71% see that suppliers or customer engagement on nature is lagging.

However,

• 65% see imminent reputational risks related to worsening impacts and fragile dependencies on nature.
• 67% think that further nature loss will happen rapidly within the next 2–5 years.

Irreversible nature of long-term risks

Despite widespread acceptance that the speed of change is rapid, and that nature and ecosystems are in decline, there is a certain blindness to the severity and potentially irreversible nature of these long-term risks. This is primarily because many businesses are not experiencing timber, pulp or cotton shortages in their supply chains; flooding and drought risks are not felt within their operations or by their primary suppliers; asset values have not decreased, insurance premiums have not increased; and no additional capital expenditure to mitigate or reverse the impacts has been required.

But the speed of collapse is critical, and is the aspect with the greatest uncertainty. When scenario workshop participants were asked to rate the severity of nature loss 20 years from now, >65% of participants rated it to be severe. In future scenario discussion, “go fast or go home” and “sand in the gears” were considered the only future scenarios that made sense for the most effective business continuity planning. Accepting this framing enabled rapid action planning and identification of some fundamental changes to business models, production processes and operational forecasts.

What’s next

The UK government’s national security assessment makes clear the challenge. The answers are not simple and require multilateral cooperation across all sectors of the global economy – especially challenging, given current geopolitical tensions. However, we see that businesses are becoming keenly aware that despite political challenges, the long-term impacts of nature loss are actual, drawing closer and demanding action. The government report outlines the reasonable worst case scenario, and we advise businesses to evaluate how their business model fits into a future with such risks. They should also identify what specific actions, adaptations, strategies and plans need to be drawn up to ensure long-term business resilience in the event that these predictions for nature, climate and people are realised.