Measuring your impacts and dependencies on biodiversity

The Platform is leading in the field of assessing methodologies – and related metrics – for identifying, measuring, valuing and disclosing business and financial institution impacts and dependencies on biodiversity. Since 2018, it has published annual reports taking stock of the latest evolutions in the field of biodiversity assessment approaches for businesses and financial institutions.

In its Update Report 3 (2021) the Platform introduced the Biodiversity Measurement Navigation Wheel, a pragmatic decision framework to select the most suitable measurement tool according to business needs.

In the latest Update Report 4 (2022), the range of criteria underpinning the Wheel has been expanded. Its scope has been expanded to cover measurement of ecosystem services. The report provides examples of how to apply the 'good' and 'best' practices included in the Align recommendations on measuring and valuing biodiversity.

Key features of the Biodiversity Measurement Navigation Wheel 2.0 for Business¹ are the following:

It uses 7 main selection criteria: business context, biodiversity pressures, biodiversity ambition, biodiversity scope, metrics, level of efforts, sector (sector is a new criterion compared to version 1.0);
It offers a ‘Fast Track’ approach as it allows for considering multiple criteria at once (e.g. no need to follow a sequential process of ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ questions);
It relies on easy-to-use overview tables full of information on how tools can be differentiated based on specific criteria;
It brings in unique selection criteria such as information on accessibility, costs and efforts and the maturity level of tools based on the application frequency for specific business contexts;
It explicitly highlights the possibility to combine approaches, either sequentially (e.g. from risk identification to deep-dive) or in parallel (e.g. several site level approaches applied to one or more sites making use of different metrics).
It also takes into account the combination of different metrics;
It acknowledges the different perspective of the financial sector and made a start with an adapted version for that sector;
It covers 29 biodiversity measurement approaches; and,
It has been built based on (updated) information from tool developers and on the thorough review of 16 quality reviewed and well elaborated case studies (see Update Report 3).

^{1 The development of the Navigation Wheel is part of a coordinated effort from the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, Capitals Coalition and the EU Business @ Biodiversity Platform. The Biodiversity Guidance Navigation Tool, developed by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative and Capitals Coalition (2021) has integrated the underlying principles and data of the Biodiversity Measurement Navigation Wheel 1.0 (launched as part of the EU Business @ Biodiversity Platform’s Update 3 Report).}

The recently launched Align recommendations for a standard on corporate biodiversity measurement and valuation were designed to support wider reporting, disclosure and target setting initiatives and standards. The recommendations address the need to provide an agreed set of principles and technical criteria setting out ‘what’ elements of biodiversity should be measured and valued and ‘how’ this should be done in different decision-making contexts. They do not describe individual corporate biodiversity measurement approaches, which evolve, to avoid becoming outdated. The new Update Report 4 discusses the current available tools and metrics in relation to the Align recommendations.

Webinar Series

In October 2020, the Methods workstream organised the webinar series “Measuring biodiversity for business and finance.” The series is designed for businesses who want to better understand the latest progress made in the field of biodiversity measurement for companies, including businesses and financial institution representatives, ESG providers, consultants, and NGOs. The recordings of all five webinars are available on YouTube, and more information about each session is available here.

In October 2021, the Methods workstream organized the second webinar series on biodiversity data. The series provided an overview of recent developments in the field of biodiversity data for businesses and financial institutions. The three first webinars presented examples of currently available and well-performing data sources on biodiversity impacts and dependencies, as well as innovative and promising biodiversity data collection techniques. Particular emphasis was put on business applications, e.g., which type of internal decision-making can be supported by which data and which data collection techniques? The final webinar focused on remaining challenges and invited businesses to participate in a debate on how the accessibility, infrastructure and quality of data can be improved. The recordings and presentation slides of the four webinars are available here.

2024 began on a high note with a webinar launching the Thematic Report on Biodiversity Disclosure developed by the EU Business and Biodiversity Platform. This report focuses on biodiversity within the respective disclosure initiatives and highlights the major differences and similarities between 6 biodiversity disclosure initiatives. The presentation slides of the webinar can be found here.

Stay tuned for more!