Businesses must look beyond carbon as planetary boundaries are breached, new report says

A new scientific report argues that companies focused solely on carbon emissions are missing the bigger picture. The report says businesses must also account for how they depend on and affect other Earth systems, such as water, land, and biodiversity, because those boundaries are also under pressure. A stable state remains possible, but only if the private sector broadens its understanding of environmental risk beyond carbon alone. For carbon market participants, this could signal a shift toward more comprehensive environmental accounting and reporting requirements. Companies may need to track and disclose impacts across multiple planetary boundaries, not just greenhouse gases. That could affect how projects are valued and which ones get financed, especially as regulators and investors start asking for wider sustainability metrics.