Our Research

Biodiversity conservation return-on-investment

Due to the limited funding allocated to conservation research, we want to be able to estimate how much it costs to achieve a conservation outcome. Our approach is to develop a science-based framework for decision makers in governments, communities, and companies that can be used to:

1. Identify how operations impact species, aligning with international standards
2. Explore cost effective opportunities for mitigating impacts or promoting additional benefits
3. Describe successes in implementing interventions
4. Verify the resulting biodiversity outcomes

Our prototype tool, the Conservation Investment Tool, allows users to explore how varying hypothetical conservation investment affects biodiversity decline in a given country and how much investment is needed to achieve biodiversity targets under different socioeconomic growth trajectories (gross domestic product or GDP, DPG growth, percentage of agricultural land and agricultural development). We based this tool on a model that predicts improvements in biodiversity loss of a country due to its investment in conservation actions concerning relevant human development pressures (Waldron et al., 2017). Our tool synthesizes estimates of conservation investment globally to allow comparison of conservation budget needs with actual expenditure by compiling conservation cost and benefit data using evidence synthesis methods, and developing guidelines to enable these data to be standardized across projects..

Agroforestry in the Peruvian Amazon

Conservation International Peru leads an Amazon Development Entrepreneurial & Learning Alliance (ADELA) through their Amazon Business Alliance program to accelerate future investment in sustainable development and conservation in Peru. The ADELA demonstrates that risks can be reduced and new revenue streams generated in the agriculture, forestry, and ecotourism sectors in the Peruvian Amazon, which will attract interest from foreign and domestic investors.

The CBO team is building a conservation decision support tool to help identify and map future businesses/landscapes that maximize conservation returns on investment for scaling impact. This decision support tool consists of web-based GIS software that displays optimized regions for investment costs and conservation benefits based on biodiversity cost-benefit analyses. The models are supported by peer-reviewed global, regional, and local biodiversity data.

Additionally, alongside ASU’s Walton Sustainability Solutions Services (WSSS), CBO is developing a customized entrepreneurship assessment and model with programming specific to the region. This will allow stakeholders to have increased knowledge and capacity to continue developing the local green entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Moving from disclosure to impact

To address the challenge of identifying appropriate and rigorous approaches to measuring and reporting on biodiversity, we need to move beyond disclosure to impact. Disclosures alone don’t solve the biodiversity crisis and can be a form of greenwashing. Instead, we need to focus on practical, science-backed actions that deliver real results to enhance biodiversity and reduce impact. Despite the crowded reporting space, the goal remains simple: minimal impact, maximum biodiversity. Clear, focused action can complement reporting, which can be achieved through a decision framework:

1. Analyze the context. How do you define biodiversity? What is the current state of the system and what outcomes are you hoping to achieve? What resources or tools do you have at your disposal?
2. Evaluate potential actions, alternatives, and consequences. This includes compiling data on costs and benefits to identify tradeoffs.
3. Take action, monitor, and learn. This final phase is where reporting comes in

Many companies are compelled to take action, so chose action with impact. Focus on outcomes, not just compliance. As outlined above, decision science offers a framework for optimizing the choice of actions to achieve impact.

Predicting, measuring, and monitoring biodiversity outcomes

This research aims to improve the development and use of monitoring indicators for businesses interested in biodiversity. We will address critical gaps in the assessment of biodiversity outcomes by using local power and water utility provider Salt River Project (SRP) as a case study. We are developing techniques to overcome the lack of standard methods to assess what data and metrics are relevant to the corporate sector for describing biodiversity conservation outcomes and measuring how landscape interventions result in these outcomes. At the end of the project, we will create a generalizable decision framework for companies to engage in sustainable and ecologically responsible interventions with real-world positive outcomes.

We will use quantitative modeling approach(es) to adapt/modify for the SRP context that will measure the biodiversity conservation return on investment (BCROI) of implementing forest restoration actions in terms of contribution towards improvement in conservation status. In doing so, we will progress towards an ability to measure the impacts of ongoing restoration activities in terms of biodiversity values that are of interest to investors and also provide a blueprint for designing a biodiversity impact measurement approach that can help guide others working in this field.

Our work will be informed by and complement current international guidelines and the descriptive biodiversity metrics used and recommended by conservation experts, while also overcoming common limitations that preclude the direct application of existing approaches to projects of this scale. For instance, our approach will be based on location-specific data, enable cross-industry compatibility, and be appropriate for the spatiotemporal scale of the context. The biodiversity benefit measurement approach, once validated, will serve as a tool for community members, researchers, and practitioners interested in conducting similar biodiversity assessments, and will establish guidelines and best practices for quantifying biodiversity outcomes.