Deadline: 24-Nov-2025
The Nature Intelligence for Business Grand Challenge is a global initiative designed to unlock nature-related assessments for small and medium enterprises worldwide.
The central focus is to advance innovations that make nature-related assessments more accessible and actionable for SMEs, enabling them to understand and act on their nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities, and to meet their operational circumstances. The Challenge seeks practical solutions that empower SMEs to overcome constraints such as limited capacity, lack of technical knowledge, language barriers, insufficient infrastructure, limited digital literacy, inadequate data, inconsistent connectivity, limited valuation of nature intelligence, and the complexity of assessments. Innovations should employ TNFD’s LEAP approach—Locate, Evaluate, Assess, and Prepare—to help SMEs integrate nature intelligence into their operations. Solutions should be intuitive, require minimal training, be available in multiple languages, provide actionable outputs, be usable out of the box with minimal set-up, operate in low-connectivity environments, and be accessible via smart devices or open business models for broad adoption. The Challenge incentivizes audacious yet practical tools, digital platforms, and processes that synthesize reputable nature data, harness automation, and simplify collection, management, interpretation, and reporting of nature intelligence.
The Nature Intelligence for Business Grand Challenge is implemented by Conservation X Labs in conjunction with the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with funding from the Government of Germany’s International Climate Initiative. Participating innovators may benefit from global recognition, press coverage, mentorship, technical and business assistance, access to a coalition of partners, preferred market access, and opportunities for collaboration. SMEs represent 90% of businesses and more than 50% of worldwide employment, yet they face unique challenges in accessing reliable nature intelligence—a gap this Challenge aims to address through targeted support and awards. A total prize pool of USD 100,000 is available, including testing stipends and development grants for finalists and winners.
For more information, visit Conservation X Labs.
