Summary

Businesses impact and depend on biodiversity, either directly through their operations or indirectly through supply chains. Measuring and valuing these impacts and dependencies can reveal unseen business risks and opportunities.

The Center for Biodiversity Outcomes is leading a project to develop a biodiversity supplement for the Natural Capital Protocol. The goal of this effort is for businesses to know how to appropriately assess the materiality of biodiversity to their businesses. When biodiversity is identified as a material issue:

• Biodiversity is addressed in strategic and operational plans;
• Companies systematically measure, value and report on their impacts and dependencies on biodiversity;
• Companies design and implement biodiversity action plans to address their impacts and dependencies;
• Companies embed biodiversity in their corporate strategy, becoming enabled to contribute to the achievement of the Convention on Biological Diversity Aichi Biodiversity Targets and the associated United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.