Ecosystems

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework

Agreed upon at the 15th meeting of the Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, this global framework sets out to preserve and restore nature, protect biodiversity, prevent extinction of species, ensure sustainable use, and promote fair and equitable benefit sharing. It contains four ambitious goals for 2050 and 23 interim targets for 2030 that depend on collaboration between industries and governments at all levels.

Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)

Established in 2012, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is an intergovernmental organisation that was created to  "strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being, and sustainable development." They are a knowledgeable and reputable source for content that will support your understanding of nature's contributions to human well-being.

The IPBES produces assessments on specific themes and issues at both the regional and global levels; supports policy development; builds capacity and knowledge for participating member states; provides tracking to show the impact of their knowledge materials on decision-making; and engages in communications, outreach, and awareness-building on key ecosystem-related topics.

The IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

This report is the first ever intergovernmental global assessment on the status and trends of the natural world; their direct and indirect causes; the social implications of these trends; and the actions that can be taken to ensure nature is conserved, restored, and used sustainably. The assessment presents a comprehensive analysis and synthesis of scientific publications, indigenous knowledge, and local knowledge to highlight the impact of biodiversity and ecosystem services on human well-being and the effectiveness of responses, including the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and its Aichi Biodiversity Targets.

The summary for policymakers would be of particular value to directors, or to sustainability change agents for the creation of learning materials.

The Convention on Biological Diversity

The Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD) aims to provide a global framework for biodiversity action. The CBD has three main goals: conserving biodiversity, achieving the sustainable use of its components, and fairly and equitably sharing the benefits arising from genetic resources. The CBD brings together the Conference of the Parties (COP) every two years to review progress, adopt programs, and provide policy guidance. Among their achievements is the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, which provided an overarching biodiversity framework for the entire UN system and all partners involved in policy development. This plan includes the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, which were established in an effort to protect and conserve the biodiversity that underpins global food security, health and clean water.

The CBD website is a rich source for learning materials on biodiversity indicators and required actions; primer guides on the Aichi Biodiversity Targets; information on national biodiversity strategies and action plans; and more.

The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing

The Nagoya Protocol is an international agreement which aims at sharing the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources in a fair and equitable way. Supplementary to the Convention on Biological Diversity, it was developed to create greater legal certainty and transparency for both providers and users of genetic resources by establishing more predictable conditions for access to genetic resources, as well as helping to ensure benefit-sharing when genetic resources leave the country providing the genetic resources.

What Is The Mitigation & Conservation Hierarchy?

This framework from the Conservation Hierarchy outlines four steps (refrain, reduce, restore, and renew) that can be implemented to help businesses advance nature-positive outcomes. The steps can be implemented via two pathways: the mitigation hierarchy, for mitigating future negative impacts, and the conservation hierarchy, for delivering additional conservation potential. The framework is based on the well-established 'mitigation hierarchy' for addressing impacts on biodiversity, and moves beyond it by recognising the need to address past, indirect, and diffuse negative impacts on biodiversity and by combining impact mitigation and proactive conservation. Understanding and implementing this framework is an important starting point for any business that is committed to addressing its direct and indirect impact on nature.

The IUCN Red List Index

Established in 1964, the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species is the world's most comprehensive information source on the global extinction risk status of animal, fungus, and plant species. The index shows trends in overall extinction risk for species, and is used by governments to track their progress towards targets for reducing biodiversity loss. It is also used to guide scientific research, inform policy and conventions, influence resource allocation, and inform conservation planning.

The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures

Reversing global nature loss depends on a shift in global financial flows away from nature-negative outcomes and toward nature-positive outcomes. This depends on large and small businesses across supply chains, financial institutions, and industries of all types collectively identifying, assessing, managing, and disclosing nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities. Towards meeting this inter-industrial challenge, the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) was established in 2021 in response to the growing need to factor nature into financial and business decisions.

The TNFD has developed a market-led, science-based risk management and disclosure framework for organisations to report and act on evolving nature-related risks and opportunities. The TNFD has also developed a Knowledge Bank that features a curated collection of the latest external resources and market insights on nature-related risks and opportunities.

The Nature of Risk

Scientific consensus is growing around risks to business from the loss and degradation of nature. This report and framework from WWF builds on existing natural capital and climate-related risk frameworks, and will help you understand the extricable link between nature- and climate change-related risks. This resource also includes a set of case studies featuring businesses facing the consequences of nature-related risk.

Climate Risk Assessment for Ecosystem-based Adaptation: A guidebook for planners and practitioners

This guide is a good starting point if your organisation is looking to preserve at-risk natural spaces from climate change impacts. The guide focuses on ecosystem-based adaptation, which involves the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services to help communities adapt to the negative effects of climate change and to reduce their risk to environmental hazards. This handbooks will help you to perform sound assessments of climate risks for social-ecological systems, and provides guidance on how to systematically consider ecosystems and their services as both a driver of risk (when function is reduced) and as an opportunity for risk reduction and adaptation. This document introduces key concepts and methodological steps relevant for ecosystem-based adaptation; identifies potential adaptation measures; and explains how to perform related planning and use risk assessments for monitoring and evaluation.

ENCORE (Exploring Natural Capital Opportunities, Risks, and Exposure)

ENCORE (Exploring Natural Capital Opportunities, Risks, and Exposure), a free tool from the Natural Capital Finance Alliance, can help you to visualise how your business may be exposed to accelerating environmental change. The tool provides a snapshot of the dependencies and impacts for a wide range of sub-industries and processes, and includes fact sheets and maps to help you understand the links between business activities and nature.

Nature Benchmark

The Nature Benchmark measures and tracks corporate performance towards a nature-positive future and ranks keystone companies on their efforts to protect biodiversity and the environment. Created by the World Benchmarking Alliance, the benchmark provides publicly available, evidence-based insights into how the world's most influential companies are contributing to the preservation and regeneration of nature. The Nature Benchmark specifically reviews the policies and practices of companies spanning a range of industries with a particularly significant impact on nature: metals and mining; food and agriculture; construction and engineering; construction materials and supplies; containers and packaging; paper and forestry products; pharma and biotech; tyres and rubber; apparel and footwear; and chemicals.

Valuing Nature: The case for nature-related assessment and disclosure

This report by the SustainAbility Institute and the Capitals Coalition builds a case for nature-related disclosure and provides a roadmap for how businesses can approach it. The report unpacks new nature frameworks; connects the Capitals Coalition’s Natural Capital Protocol with the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosure's (TNFD) beta framework; and outlines a set of nature-related actions that your company can and should take today. This is a good resource for preparing leaders and boards to make clear, consistent, and timely nature-related disclosures upon the TNFD's launch.

Roadmaps to Nature Positive

This series of roadmaps produced by WBCSD can help you understand how to credibly take action that supports nature. It consists of one foundational roadmap for all businesses, and additional roadmaps for key sectors such as agriculture, forests products, buildings, and energy. These resources are aligned with leading sustainability frameworks and can support companies in developing science-based targets for nature, reporting against the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and taking priority actions in line with the Global Biodiversity Framework, which calls for stopping or reversing nature loss by 2030. This guidance will be most useful to sustainability and supply chain teams.

Nature Risk Profile

This guide from UNEP was created to support the financial sector with measuring and addressing nature-related risk. The guide outlines a methodology and provides scientifically robust and actionable sustainability analytics that can help you to assess your company's impacts and dependencies on nature.

Climate and Nature: A Route to Mutual Acceleration

This briefing sheet from the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) can help you understand how necessary, joint action on nature and climate can be scaled up. It outlines six critical actions for business, financial institutions, and governments, addressing policymaking, finance, business strategy, behaviour change, collective resource management, and value chains. This brief will be most useful to sustainability practitioners across sectors, and especially as a primer for senior leaders.

Guidance on engagement with Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities and affected stakeholders

This comprehensive guide from the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) can help ensure that your approach to nature-related issues is informed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. It explains how to meaningfully engage with stakeholders and rightsholders affected by your operations and value chain. It outlines an engagement process that includes identifying who to engage, reviewing existing standards and regulations, mapping relevant stakeholders, understanding modes and principles of good engagement, and monitoring. This detailed guidance also helps you to align with TNFD disclosure standards. It will be most useful to sustainability and community relations teams.

Handbook for Nature-related Financial Risks: Key concepts and a framework for identification

This handbook from the University of Cambridge Institutite for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) explains how nature loss is a risk to financial institutions. Created to help financial practitioners with limited prior knowledge of biodiversity loss, land degradation, and other ecosystem-related sustainability topics, it provides an overview of key terms and concepts and features a framework for identifying various nature-related financial risks (as well as relevant physical, transition, and liability risks). This is a good starting point for practitioners who want to better understand how to embed nature-related financial risks into strategy and decision-making.

Nature Strategy Handbook: A practical guide for business

This concise and practical guidebook from It’s Now for Nature can help you develop and publish a nature strategy that contributes to the health and resilience of the natural world. The guide is structured in line with ACT-D High-Level Business Actions on Nature (Assess, Commit, Transform and Disclose). For each of these actions there are guiding questions, recommendations, and resources to enable development of a nature for strategy. This resource will be most useful to sustainability practitioners seeking to reduce their organisation’s negative impacts on nature while boosting resilience and long-term businesses value.

Strengthening Synergies: How action to achieve post-2020 global biodiversity conservation targets can contribute to mitigating climate change

Climate change and biodiversity decline are fundamentally connected, and therefore addressing these intersecting crises will require the development and deployment of nature-based solutions. This primer will help you to understand the role that achieving biodiversity conservation targets can play in reducing emissions to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement. The report looks at the carbon stocks associated with areas identified as possible priorities to meet proposed global biodiversity conservation targets.

Nature Map Explorer

Using the best available scientific data, Nature Map Explorer provides a set of integrated global maps on biodiversity and ecosystems services that will help you to explore, visualise, and understand the geographic context of various ecosystem services and the impacts of human activities on them. The map features layers such as terrestrial habitat types, human impact on forests, species richness, and areas of global significance for conservation, and can support your efforts to design and implement policies and initiatives aimed at limiting biodiversity loss and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The Vitality of Forests: Illustrating the Evidence Connecting Forests and Human Health

This resource from WWF can help you to understand how forests and human health influence each other, and well as how conservation, protection, and restoration of the world’s forests is crucial to safeguarding and promoting human health and managing climate change and biodiversity loss. Synthesising key research, the report explores five categories of potential interactions between forests and human health: noncommunicable diseases like cancer and diabetes, environmental exposure, food and nutrition, physical hazards, and infectious diseases. It also identifies major information gaps and highlights paths for environmental and health sectors to collaborate.

This report does a great job of explaining the importance of forests beyond their recreational, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity conservation potential, and will be of benefit to any professionals in sustainability, community relations, procurement, resource management, and beyond who are working to address deforestation.

IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions (1st edition)

This global standard for nature-based solutions (NbS) is a hands-on tool that can help you deploy NbS in a consistent and credible manner. The standard consists of eight criteria and 28 indicators designed to create a common understanding of best practices for tracking, measuring, and verifying NbS. For each criterion there is guidance and a case study. This resource will be most useful to those involved in planning, investing in, and supporting large- and small-scale interventions, such as sustainability, finance, strategy, and R&D departments.

The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review

This global review on the economics of biodiversity calls for changes in how we think, act, and measure economic success in order to protect and enhance our prosperity and the natural world. The review thoroughly explains the foundation of the biodiversity crisis, and includes key recommendations for reversing the human-caused decline in biodiversity, such as expanding and improvement of protected areas; increased investment into nature-based solutions; the creation or improvement of policies to eliminate damaging consumption of natural assets; the incorporation of natural capital accounting; and proper valuation of ecosystem services into all national accounting systems. This comprehensive deep-dive is a key reference point for sustainability professionals that want to account for nature in decision-making.

Living Planet Index

The WWF's Living Planet Index (LPI) is a measure of the state of the world's biological diversity based on population trends within the animal kingdom. Adopted by the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD), this resource provides data a variety of sources for thousands of species. Whether you are evaluating current or future potential strategic risks from biodiversity decline, or simply seeking to build your understanding of the state of biodiversity, this resource is a good starting point to build your knowledge of systemic pressures and threats to biodiversity, socioecological trends, and other insights on how "conservation intervention" can promote species recovery.

A Simple and Visual Definition of Biodiversity

This article written by the Network for Business Sustainability explains the three levels of biodiversity (genetic, species, and ecosystems) in simple terms, and illustrates the importance of biodiversity with a coral reef ecosystem case study. This explainer will be most useful to business leaders and to anyone interested in clarifying basic nature concepts.

Biodiversity Risk Filter

Joining the Water Risk Filter in WWF's Risk Filter Suite, the Biodiversity Risk Filter was created to help you understand, explore, assess, and respond to biodiversity risks across your operations, value chains, and investments. This free tool uses 50 annually-updated data layers that collectively provide a global, holistic picture of biodiversity-related risk. This includes information on species and ecosystems, protected areas, and the most important pressures on biodiversity such as deforestation, habitat destruction, pollution, and land use change.

A Biodiversity Guide for Business

This report from WWF can help you to identify, assess, and address biodiversity risks and opportunities that come from conserving, using, and restoring biodiversity in a sustainable way. It highlights the impact that industries such as agriculture, extractives, land development, and energy production have on biodiversity, as well as their dependencies on robust and resilient biodiversity and ecosystems. The guide also provides a biodiversity stewardship approach to help you get started. 

Business for Nature

Business for Nature is a global coalition that brings together businesses and conservation organisations to advance corporate actions and government policies that reverse nature loss. They have outlined four high-level business actions that your business can take to signal that it is making meaningful contributions to creating a nature-positive world. They also provide case studies; resources to support nature-related advocacy and communications; and summaries of new and relevant frameworks, conventions, agreements, and more. Business for Nature is a good starting point for leaders and sustainability professionals who want to better acquaint themselves with nature-related policy trends, corporate actions, and talking points.

Nature in the balance: What companies can do to restore natural capital

This resource can help you to better understand the scope and scale of actions that corporations must take to protect, manage, and restore nature, thereby preserving Earth as a "safe operating space for humanity." The report outlines the case for a nature-positive approach to business; outlines the actions required to live within the planetary boundaries, and the outcomes it would achieve; and identifies key opportunities that specific industries must seize to reduce their impacts on nature. It also provides a four-step roadmap for action, including credible investments, initiatives, and innovations that companies can pursue to achieve nature-positive commitments.

Global biodiversity is in crisis, but how bad is it? It’s complicated

This article is a good primer on the pace and severity of biodiversity decline and the impacts this decline is having on our world. The article explains the concept of a global threshold for biodiversity loss; the concept and importance of genetic diversity; the realities of regime shifts; and the importance of radical action to preserve the remaining integrity of our biosphere.

Taking a Credible Position on Nature

There is growing pressure on companies to publicly acknowledge the unprecedented nature loss we face, and what they plan to do to address it. To help them do so, we reviewed over 1,000 statements on nature loss, biodiversity, and ecosystem stewardship from a wide range of geographies and industries, and identified examples of how companies are explaining the issue of nature loss, linking the issue of nature loss to their strategy, and clarifying their commitments to protect and restore nature. We hope this guide is helpful to you in articulating your own credible position statement on protecting and restoring nature.

Science Based Targets

Building on the momentum of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) is a collaboration of 45+ global non-profits and mission-driven organizations working together to develop guidance to set science-based targets for all of Earth’s systems. Science Based Targets has created a five-step target-setting framework that helps you to assess; interpret and prioritise; measure, set, and disclose; act upon; and track your science-based goals. They have also created sector-specific guidance and target monitoring for companies and financial institutions.

At present, Science Based Targets helps companies to develop their goals based on the latest science: SBTi specifically focuses on GHG emission reduction goals, and SBTN specifically focuses on nature positive goals, with target-setting guidance for land, biodiversity, and freshwater. Their respective websites provide comprehensive resources, cases, and support for taking credible action.

Guidelines for planning and monitoring corporate biodiversity performance

These practical guidelines from the IUCN can help business of all types develop strategic plans to manage their biodiversity impacts. It uses a four stage approach, including understanding your companies impacts; developing your strategy and goals; identifying a set of meaningful biodiversity indicators; and creating a plan to monitor performance. This is a good resource for sustainability teams, managers, and other professionals whose responsibilities include strategic planning and biodiversity-related reporting.

Setting robust biodiversity goals

The global biodiversity framework (GBF) that is being developed under the Convention on Biological Diversity intends to ensure that by 2050 humanity is 'living in harmony with nature'. However, the authors of this paper argue that the draft goals and targets - as they are currently articulated - do not specify explicit, measurable goals that can credibly achieve this outcome. This paper makes the case for distinct outcome goals for species, ecosystems, and genetic diversity, and it outlines seven general principles to underpin smart and effective net outcome goal-setting. These principles can help you to better understand the benefits and shortcomings of broad "net outcome" goals (such as "no net loss") and can support your process for creating and implementing credible biodiversity goals.

Healthy ecosystem metric framework: biodiversity impact

A growing number of companies have expressed the need for clear, standardised 'healthy ecosystem' metrics to demonstrate their progress towards reducing their impact on nature. To help business leaders and sustainability change agents take action on ecosystem decline, the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Learning has developed a framework that provides a credible, science-based starting point for measuring ecosystem impacts from a contextual perspective. The metric provided is based on the impact of a company upon the quality and quantity of biodiversity, soil, and water, with clear information on how the metric was conceived and how it could be used.

A Cross-Sector Guide for Implementing the Mitigation Hierarchy

This guide from the Cross Sector Biodiversity Initiative and The Biodiversity Consultancy clearly defines the four steps of the mitigation hierarchy (avoid, minimize, restore and offset) and their application with regard to managing biodiversity throughout the life cycle of an extractive project. The guide offers practical measures for predicting and verifying biodiversity conservation outcomes over time, and provides insights into recording and comparing mitigation-related costs. If you are seeking to learn about the mitigation hierarchy and to understand your options for mitigating impacts from a contextual perspective, this guide is an excellent starting point.

Beyond 'Business as Usual': Biodiversity Targets and Finance

This report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Natural Capital Finance Alliance (NCFA) was created to highlight the need for banks, insurers, and investors to set strong biodiversity targets. This resource can help you to understand why nature is important to financial institutions; which sectors have the greatest impact and dependence on biodiversity; and how to use this knowledge to inform biodiversity target-setting.

From Commitments to Action at Scale: Critical steps to achieve deforestation-free supply chains

The CDP is a not-for-profit charity that runs the global disclosure system for investors, companies, cities, states, and regions to manage their environmental impacts. In addition to their work on carbon and climate change, they have created a range of resources to help your company take action on deforestation. Their Global Forests Report is a good resource for helping change agents understand the scale, scope, and rigour of actions required to tackle deforestation so that they can better summarise and translate these findings for executives and boards. Building off previous CDP and Accountability Framework Initiative (AFi) analysis, this report highlights areas of progress and gaps in performance and provides insights that can help your company learn from the progress of industry peers. Each section of the report summarizes key elements of the Accountability Framework’s Core Principles and guidance followed by corresponding analysis of company performance using CDP data.

No net loss and net positive impact approaches to biodiversity

The objective of this report from the IUCN is to learn from the experiences of the extractive and infrastructural sectors and to propose an organizing framework for applying No Net Loss (NNL) & Net Positive Impact (NPI) approaches in other business sectors. Although written with the agriculture and forestry sectors in mind, this report will help you to understand the mitigation heirarchy and the ambiguity around NNL and NPI definitions and impact goals. The document also provides a framework for applying a Net Positive Impact approach, with step-by-step scenario schematics (including visuals) that will help you to better understand the applicability of the mitigation hierarchy to your organization's work.

Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool

This tool from the IBAT Alliance will improve your decision-making and access to markets by growing your understanding of local, national, and regional biodiversity risks and opportunities. IBAT provides comprehensive risk reports with data from the World Database on Protected Areas, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and the World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas; combined, this information provides a comprehensive risk 'map' that will help you to align with international best practices. Although IBAT has a sliding subscription scale, there is an introductory option with free access to visual data maps and country profiles, as well as pay-as-you-go reports.

Corporate Action on Nature Loss: Key Trends

Nature is disappearing, harming people and business. In this blog, we explain what you need to know about nature loss, the TNFD, and taking credible action to protect and restore nature.

The Accountability Framework

This framework from the Accountability Framework initiative (AFi) features twelve core principles for building, strengthening, and supporting ethical supply chains. These principles serve as a guide for companies and others in setting, implementing, monitoring, and reporting on effective goals and commitments on deforestation, ecosystem conversion, and human rights in ethical supply chains. AFi has also developed operational guidance to help you put the core principles into practice; a self-assessment to help you with benchmarking your goals, policies, and practices against the framework; and other related tools and guides.

Deforestation-free finance: a guide on tools and frameworks for financial institutions

This report from WBCSD can help you understand how banks and investors can avoid financing deforestation. The report provides an overview of three key frameworks for assessing and disclosing deforestation risk exposure in your investment and lending portfolios, and reviews the assessment and data collection tools you can use to support this work. It also highlights tools for aligning with important global frameworks for nature, such as the Taskforce for Nature-Related Financial Disclosure (TNFD) and the Global Biodiversity Framework. This report will be most useful to sustainability practitioners working in the financial sector who want to quickly identify resources to support deforestation-free finance.

Forest Pathways Report 2023

At the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) A global goal was set at the 20212 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. This comprehensive report from WWF can help you understand why we are off track from that goal and how we can get back on track. It provides an analysis of deforestation and restoration trends and proposes a blueprint of essential measures to save forests by 2030. Beyond sustainability, this resource contains important insights relevant to supply chain management, public and community relations, and strategy.

The State of the World’s Forests 2022

This report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation will show you how we can work with forests to help address the climate and biodiversity crises. It outlines three interrelated pathways. They are stopping deforestation and maintaining existing forests; restoring degraded lands and expanding agroforestry; and rethinking how we can use forests resources sustainably. The report demonstrates the feasibility and benefit of these pathways and outlines some of the steps both private and public sector can take toward them. These insights will be most useful to procurement and supply chain managers whose value chains rely on the ecosystem goods and services of forests.

The Forest Transition: From Risk to Resilience

Forests are gaining increasing attention for their central role in the resilience of our global economy. This report from CDP can help you understand the importance of addressing deforestation for your business. It explores deforestation risks, current progress on eliminating deforestation, and the essential actions companies need to take to remove deforestation from within their supply chains. It will be most useful to sustainability and supply chain management teams, especially those working in industries with ‘hidden dependencies’ on forests, such as chemicals, retail, and consumer goods.

Deforestation Monitoring and Response Framework

The Forest Positive Coalition has created a framework to proactively monitor and address deforestation and peat non-compliances. The framework is a living document, and it aims to create a more efficient and effective approach for dealing with non-compliance with 'No Deforestation or Peat Development' commitments. It has two sections: guidance on minimum requirements for monitoring, and a response framework that clarifies roles and responsibilities across the supply chain.

Although the scope of the monitoring is for palm oil only, the learning outcomes will be shared for other commodities across the Forest Positive Coalition members.

Deforestation Scorecard: Assessing Corporate Action on Deforestation Amid Growing Regulatory Risk

Ending deforestation is necessary to meet net zero targets, and yet commodity production continues to drive forest loss. In response, regulations are rapidly evolving, creating transition risks for businesses worldwide. This report from Ceres can help you mitigate this risk. It demonstrates what a robust no-deforestation policy looks like, and features a Deforestation Scorecard that examines no-deforestation policies on four measures: cross-commodity coverage, geographic coverage, the presence of a time-bound commitment, and the target deforestation cutoff date. It also uses this scorecard to assess the deforestation policies of 53 large companies. This resource will be most useful to supply chain management, legal, and enterprise risk teams.

Why are Tropical Forests Being Lost, and How to Protect Them

This resource is a good primer on global forest loss trends; signs of progress against deforestation; and the most effective actions for ending deforestation by 2030 - particularly political and financial levers.

Why Preserving Forest Integrity Is As Vital As Preventing Deforestation

This quick read from the World Resources Institute can help you to understand the importance of forest integrity, which refers to the health of standing forests, including their ability to store carbon and protect biodiversity. This article explains the concept of forest integrity; identifies the greatest threats to forest integrity; explains where forest integrity is most at risk; and identifies actions required to protect high-integrity forests and restore other forests.

Global Forest Watch

This online platform provides data and tools for monitoring forests, and will help you to access near real-time information about where and how forests are changing around the world. The maps features allow you to visualise and analyse historical trends in tree cover loss and gain since 2000, view land cover, and toggle for various country-specific climate and biodiversity factors. This tool may be particularly helpful to sustainability, oversight, and procurement professionals who are responsible for monitoring illegal deforestation, defending land and resources, and ensuring commodities are sustainably sourced.

Investor Guide to Deforestation and Climate Change

This introductory guide from Ceres can help you to understand and act on deforestation-driven climate risks across your portfolios. It features a framework to help investors understand and engage on deforestation-driven climate risks across portfolios. It also outlines key expectations that investors should be looking for in corporate climate and deforestation commitments, and provides example questions for company and sector engagements.

Biodiversity Loss and Land Degradation: An Overview of the Financial Materiality

This brief from CISL explains biodiversity loss and land degradation, why they matter, the financial implications of such decline, and methods for quantification. This brief may be a helpful primer for executives and board members who want to better understand how to prioritise these issues and to determine the cost of inaction.

A Buyer's Guide to Natural Climate Solutions Carbon Credits

This guide produced by the Natural Climate Solutions Alliance, WBCSD, and BCG is designed to help companies select and procure high-quality carbon credits on the voluntary carbon market. It focuses specifically on natural climate solution (NCS) credits, which are intended to support carbon reduction while also providing co-benefits for communities and biodiversity. Going step-by-step, the guide outlines how to integrate NCS carbon credits into your climate strategy. This includes setting procurement criteria, finding sources, purchasing, and reporting credible claims. The guidance will be most useful to sustainability and procurement teams.

Biodiversity Finance Reference Guide

The IFC has developed this guide to help you to better understand project eligibility criteria for biodiversity finance, as well as some of the more common project types. The guide builds on the Green Bond Principles and the Green Loan Principles and highlights different types of investment projects, activities, and components that help protect, maintain, or enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as promote the sustainable management of natural resources. This is a good resource for identifying opportunities to address the key drivers of biodiversity loss in your production practices; to integrate nature-based solutions into their operations; and to develop nature conservation activities.

The PBAF Standard

Developed to address gaps within the financial sector, this standard by the Partnership for Biodiversity Accounting Financials (PBAF) can help you to understand the biodiversity-related information lenders and investors may expect you to disclose. It includes two assessments: the first provides guidance on assessing the biodiversity impacts of loans and investments, and the second outlines how to assess a financial institution’s dependencies on ecosystem services. The standard will be most useful to sustainability, communication, and finance professionals.

Making Nature Markets Work

This landmark report by the Taskforce on Nature Markets can help you understand how nature-conserving behaviour can be incentivised through global markets. The report covers the rise of nature markets, their dangers, and their potential. It also makes 7 major recommendations to harness their power to support the transition to a post-carbon economy. The economic shift this report urgently calls for makes it particularly relevant to decision-makers, especially heads of finance and supply chains.

Biodiversity Offsets: A User Guide

The mitigation hierarchy holds that avoiding, minimizing, rectifying, and reducing impacts to the natural environment are all preferable to offsetting, but there are situations where biodiversity offsets are a necessity. This guide from the Convention on Biological Diversity will help you understand when to consider using offsets, and explains the core principles and limits of offsetting.

A Practical Guide to Insetting

Insetting refers to a company offsetting its emissions through projects that avoid, reduce, or sequester carbon within its own value chain. It is an opportunity for businesses to link emissions and carbon sequestration to their sourcing landscapes. This guide from the International Platform for Insetting shares insights and provides recommendations that will help you to transform your supply chain for a resilient, regenerative, net zero carbon future that values and protects nature. The guide was created specifically for insetting practitioners and stakeholders that want to learn more about the concept, and it highlights lessons and opportunities for realising the full potential of insetting.

Exploring Design Principles for High Integrity and Scalable Voluntary Biodiversity Credits

This working paper from The Biodiversity Consultancy can help you understand what makes a high integrity biodiversity credit. The paper outlines the potential for voluntary biodiversity credits to support a nature-positive future, explains how integrity is defined, and explains the risks to credit integrity. It also proposes twelve principles for credible biodiversity credits and a flexible measurement framework. This is a valuable resource for those making decisions related to investing in biodiversity through credit purchase, or the development of biodiversity insetting projects across the value chain.

Biodiversity Credit Markets: The role of law, regulation and policy

This paper from Pollination and the Taskforce on Nature Markets can help you understand what policies are needed for voluntary biodiversity credits markets to reach their potential. The paper explores the role of law, regulations, and policy; the different market types; lessons learned from biodiversity offset schemes; emerging biodiversity credit markets; and policy tools for scaling biodiversity credit markets. The implications of the recommended policy changes will be most relevant to sustainability and enterprise risk teams.

The Rights of Nature: Developments and implications for the governance of nature markets

This paper from the Taskforce on Nature Markets can help you understand the emerging perspective that nature has fundamental rights and human beings have the legal authority and responsibility to enforce these rights on nature's behalf. It traces how this trend is being expressed in environmental law and the implications for nature-linked markets, including within nature credits and soft commodity markets. This paper points to a paradigm shift that will be most relevant to sustainability and legal practitioners.

Harnessing Biodiversity Credits for People and Planet

This paper from NatureFinance, Carbone 4, and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) can help you understand the biodiversity credit markets' key challenges and solutions. The first section covers how five key challenges can be addressed to ensure high-integrity supply, scaled demand, and equitable distribution of benefits. The second section offers a roadmap to scale up these solutions and financial flows into biodiversity markets. The guidance will be most useful to sustainability and finance departments interested in recent trends and perspectives on biodiversity credits.

Biodiversity Credit Alliance

The Biodiversity Credit Alliance (BCA) was created to bring clarity to the development of a credible and scalable voluntary biodiversity credit market. This paper from the BCA can help you understand the essential role of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) in biodiversity projects and the biodiversity credit market. It provides an overview of the emerging biodiversity credit market; explains the rights of Indigenous Peoples and how credit markets benefit from involving IPLCs; and puts forth an initial list of ideas for how credit buyers and policymakers can ensure IPLCs' rights and benefits are respected. This guide will be most useful to sustainability practitioners seeking to purchase high-quality biodiversity credits.

Accounting for Natural Climate Solutions Guidance

Natural climate solutions have been recognised as key levers in mitigating the negative impacts of climate change, with ~12% of global impacts from GHG emissions coming from land use and land-use changes (LULUC). To support you in calculating, accounting for, and reporting on LULUC-generated GHG emissions, the Accounting for Natural Climate Solutions Guidance from Quantis delivers a robust methodology to embed land-related emissions in corporate and product footprints, which can be used for setting science-based climate targets. Additionally, the supporting Annex document provides detailed information on the scope of the proposed methodology, including technical instructions, context, debated challenges, and limitations, as well as references.

Aligning Accounting Approaches for Nature

This project by the Capitals Coalition can help you standardise natural capital accounting practices. The project has produced a series of guides with the aim of developing a generally accepted suite of methods, indicators, and criteria for biodiversity measurement and valuation tools and approaches for businesses and financial institutions. These resources include a business primer on assessing the overall quality of an ecosystem; guidance for measuring and valuing biodiversity at the site level and across supply chains; and recommendations for a standard on corporate biodiversity measurement and valuation. These guides will be most useful to sustainability practitioners and finance teams interested in natural and multi-capital accounting.

Decent Work in Nature-based Solutions

This new biennial report from UNEP, ILO, and IUCN anticipates that the scaling up of funding for nature-based solutions (NbS) will create significant new employment globally. It aims to initiate systemic engagement around understanding the socioeconomic impacts of NbS-related work. The report provides context on the estimated scale of job creation and how Just Transition strategies can be integrated to ensure decent work. Sustainability and supply chain management teams may find it particularly useful as expectations grow for the private sector to play a much greater role in funding NbS through supply chains and investments.

Nature Risk Rising: Why the Crisis Engulfing Nature Matters for Business and the Economy

This report, the first in the World Economic Forum's 'New Nature Economy' report series, will help you to better understand the dependency and impact of business on nature. The report uses a simple three-stage breakdown: 1) acknowledging and explaining the crisis of biodiversity decline, 2) identifying material risks, and 3) managing material risks. This report explores the scale and urgency of the biodiversity decline emergency and the drivers of nature loss, and provides a helpful fit-for-purpose framework for managing nature-based risks.

Biodiversity: where the world is making progress – and where it’s not

This short article is a good starting point for understanding the status of biodiversity and global efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity decline. It provides a high-level summary of successes and shortcomings, and may help business leaders otherwise unfamiliar with the issue to learn of the forces driving biodiversity decline and the actions required by government and industry to effect positive change.

Global Biodiversity Score: Accounting for positive and negative impacts throughout the value chain

This tool can help you to evaluate the impact of your activities and investments on biodiversity. It establishes a biodiversity footprint measure expressed in an aggregated metric that represents ecosystem integrity, and uses the concept of Scope (similar to climate emission assessments) to break down impacts from across the value chain. This reference tool will be especially beneficial to sustainability professionals that want to improve the credibility of their nature-related commitments enhance their company's efforts to protect and restore biodiversity.

The IPBES Assessment Report on the Sustainable Use of Wild Species

Billions of people benefit daily from the use of wild species for food, energy, materials, medicine, recreation, inspiration, and more. 50,000 wild species meet the needs of billions of people worldwide, and more than 10,000 wild species are directly harvested for food. This report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) can help you to understand how the global biodiversity crisis threatens the contributions of these species to humanity, and provides insights, analysis, and tools to establish more sustainable use of wild species of plants, animals, fungi and algae around the world.

This report identifies five broad categories of ‘practices’ in the use of wild species: fishing; gathering; logging; terrestrial animal harvesting (including hunting); and non-extractive practices, such as observing. For each practice, it then examines specific ‘uses’ for these materials; identifies trends and drivers of change; explores policies, practices, and tools to effect positive change; and examines a range of possible future scenarios for the use of wild species.

Biodiversity Risk: Legal Implications for Companies and their Directors

Businesses face real and potentially significant material risk from biodiversity loss. This report from the Commonwealth Climate and Law Institute (CCLI) can help directors, investors, accountants, procurement professionals, and legal professionals to assess biodiversity dependencies and impacts and to better embed these factors into strategy and disclosure processes. The report explains how directors may face the risk of liability for a failure to consider biodiversity risks in governance and disclosure, and provides a jurisdictional spotlight on duties of care. The guide also provides key questions board directors should ask to ensure they are meeting their duties to the company.

The State of the World's Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture

This comprehensive guide from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations presents the first global assessment of biodiversity for food and agriculture worldwide. The report draws on information from 91 country reports to provide a description of the roles and importance of biodiversity for food and agriculture, the drivers of change affecting it, and its current status and trends. It describes the state of efforts to promote the sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity for food and agriculture, including through the development of supporting policies, legal frameworks, institutions and capacities. It also explains the needs and challenges of future management of biodiversity for food and agriculture. This resource is an excellent starting point for change agents to build their awareness and understanding of the vital importance of biodiversity to global food systems.

Bending the Curve of Global Freshwater Biodiversity Loss: An Emergency Recovery Plan

This paper outlines six priority steps for restoring biodiversity in rivers, lakes, and wetlands. These steps address improving environmental flows; improving water quality; protecting and restoring critical habitats; improving fisheries management; managing invasive species; and restoring waterway connectivity. The practical steps and examples described may be useful to a range of departments that can play a role in restoring ecosystems, including strategic planning, procurement, and sustainability.

The Sustainable Use of Natural Resources: The Governance Challenge

This brief from the International Institute for Sustainability Development (IISD) is a good primer on the key natural resource management topics. It explains key trends in natural resource use; key actions required to support resilient systems; and the pressing need for inclusive governance and transformative change.

Natural Capital Protocol Toolkit

Developed by WBCSD, this toolkit is directed at businesses who need help with measuring specific aspects of natural capital, such as waste or water, and who want to understand which natural capital measurement tools are available and how they differ. This online resource consolidates all of the tools, methodologies, and approaches of the Natural Capital Protocol, and provides a standardised, international framework for conducting natural capital assessments. This is a helpful resource for learning which tools to use for measuring and evaluating, and when.

Standard on Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Use of Natural Resources

This standard from IUCN is can help you to better understand the minimum requirements for avoiding risks to biodiversity. Although the standard is dated, its recommendations remain a good starting point on the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources.

The secret world beneath our feet is mind-blowing – and the key to our planet’s future

Healthy soil is essential for healthy plant growth, human nutrition, and water filtration, but what exactly is soil? This fascinating article from George Monbiot can help you to understand the complexity and significance of soil; the consequences of our agricultural practices on soil health, and how they are contributing to a looming (and global) food crisis; and the actions and innovations required to restore, preserve, and advance good soil health.

Ecosystem-based planning

This article from the Xaxli’p Community Forest can help you understand what it means to manage land using an ecosystems-based approach. It explains the essential guiding principle of "What happens to one happens to others” within the context of ecosystem-based conservation planning processes. These insights will be most useful to those involved in land management directly or indirectly through supply chains.

IPBES Invasive Alien Species Assessment

This resource from the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warns that over 37,000 alien species have been introduced by human activities to regions and biomes around the world, with significant impacts on biodiversity, ecosystems, communities, and economies. It assesses the array of invasive alien species and their effects; analyses the extent of threats towards specific categories of ecosystem services and biodiversity; highlights trends and identifies key drivers of the introduction and spread of invasive species; and more.

Although this was created with policymakers in mind, this is a good resource for helping sustainability change agents to learn the extent of invasive alien species impacts on their industry and beyond.

Invasive Alien Species

This brief from the Biodiversity Consultancy can help you to understand what invasive species are, how an invasion happens, and how to manage invasive species. It also includes best practices for industry, in alignment with International Finance Corporation lending policies.

Global Invasive Species Database

This searchable database is a good source of expert information on alien and invasive species that are negatively impacting biodiversity. Managed by the Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG) of the IUCB Species Survival Commission, the database covers all taxonomic groups from micro-organisms to flora and fauna.

Restoring Ecosystems Through Invasive Species Control: Methods for Preventing, Monitoring, and Eradicating Invasive Species on Corporate Lands

This white paper details the key methods corporations can use to manage invasive species, enhance native habitats, and support surrounding communities. The paper uses case studies to highlight a six step approach that includes prevention, monitoring, control, restoration, education, and collaboration. This paper is a good introduction for executives and change agents to the key components of invasive species control.

Guidance Note for Pest Management Planning

This resource from IUCN is a helpful starting point for organizations drafting their first invasive species management plan. The note also provides a list of helpful reference points for specific pest management guidelines.

Guideline for Invasive Species Planning and Management on Islands

This comprehensive guideline will specifically benefit businesses with operations and projects on island territories. The guideline includes a 3-part checklist on the foundations, information and prioritisation, and management action, as well a detailed how-to, which includes advice for engaging with the community, writing an invasive species strategy and action plan, and translating the plan into action.

Leading a Sustainable Land Use Transition

This CEO briefing explains how unsustainable land use is threatening the health of the planet, its people, and economies, and explains the patterns of behaviour contributing to this issue. It explains how it is crucial for the business community to contribute to positive solutions, and highlights some of the key actions that industries can undertake to lead the transition. This primer is a good starting point for introducing business leaders to the topic of land use and the role they can play to creating sustainable built environments.

Global Land Outlook: Land Restoration for Recovery and Resilience

This comprehensive guide from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification can help change agents, policy advocates and lobbyists, and corporate strategic planners to understand the rationale, enabling factors, and diverse pathways by which land degradation can be reduced and reversed. The guide is divided into three parts: Land In Focus examines the current global land use system, including its status, dynamics, trajectories, and the consequences for people and the planet; Restoration Around the World highlights and explores the range of land restoration activities currently happening around the world; and Framing the Land Restoration Agenda demonstrates the feasibility and applicability of different pathways to recovery and resilience.

Landscapes for Life: Approaches to landscape management for sustainable food and agriculture

Every business, knowingly or otherwise, shapes the land beneath it and around it. If you are looking to achieve a better understanding of the positive impacts your company can have on the land, this guide from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provides summary information on a range of best-practices for land use, including territorial developlment, forest and landscape restoration, and integrated peri-urban systems. The document also includes a variety of short case studies highlighting FAO approaches in action.

Environmental Impacts of Food Production

Over the last few centuries, wild habitats such as forests, grasslands, and shrubbery have been transformed by humanity to create space for agriculture. In fact, as explained in this comprehensive article, half of the world's land is now used for agriculture. This resource features charts, table, and summaries to highlight the environmental impacts of food and agriculture, such as their impact on greenhouse gases, land use, freshwater use, eutrophication, and biodiversity. It also highlights a range of solutions for reducing these impacts. This resource may help you to better understand how the land footprint (and their distribution) differs between food types, and to identify areas where your business can directly or indirectly intervene to support positive change.

Restoring Forests and Landscapes: The key to a sustainable future

The Bonn Challenge and New York Declaration on Forests’ goal of restoring 350 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 could yield up to $9 trillion of net economic benefits, not to mention the incalculable value from vital ecosystem services restored, but how do we get there? This report from the Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration (GPFLR) emphasises the need for bold restoration targets to achieve the objectives of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. It provides facts and figures that will help you to understand the damage from degradation; the benefits of restoration; and brief case examples to highlight what restoration in action looks like.

InfoFLR

This resource from IUCN is a good source for news, resources, and updates on forest landscape restoration (FLR) around the globe, and will help you to build your knowledge and understanding of FLR trends in a specific region. InfoFLR has created detailed nation profiles that include discrete country-specific information, national domestic targets, and details and status updates on restoration policies and programs.

A Global Standard for the Identification of Key Biodiversity Areas

This guidebook from IUCN sets out globally agreed criteria for the identification of Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) worldwide. The standard establishes a science-based, threshold-informed process for KBA identification, and will help you to grow your understanding of why particular sites are especially important for preserving vital biodiversity, as well as how to identify vulnerable and at-risk ecosystems.

Guidelines on Business and KBAs: Managing Risk to Biodiversity

This report builds on IUCN's global standard for the identification of Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) and provides recommendations that will help your business to manage its direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts on KBAs. The guide explains how KBAs are identified and provides an overview of how the guidelines can be applied in different contexts. This report will be particularly useful for business professionals whose work is related to designing, implementing, and reviewing risk and impact mitigation standards.

The Protected Areas Benefits Assessment Tool

This practical tool from WWF can help you understand how to collect information on the benefits protected areas. It provides an introduction to protected areas, and explains how why and how to use the PA-BAT assessment tool. The tool is designed to be used with stakeholders to identify the values that should be prioritised in protecting natural spaces and the range of benefits that this protection provides. It can also be used to guide future monitoring and assessment. This tool will be most useful to protected area managers, sustainability practitioners focusing on biodiversity, and community relations managers.

The frontline of conservation: how Indigenous guardians are reinforcing sovereignty and science on their lands

Indigenous land defenders often patrol large tracts of land and coast that don't otherwise receive sufficient monitoring from governments. This fascinating article from the Narwhal highlights how Indigenous guardians are leading efforts to catch poachers, document species, and save lives along the coast of British Columbia - all while filling major gaps in knowledge and conservation. This resource can help you to understand the immense (and unique) value that Indigenous communities provide towards protecting natural spaces, and the importance of supporting these efforts as well as Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.

This Canadian river is now legally a person. It’s not the only one.

This article from National Geographic can help you understand the novel and increasingly important concept of legal rights for nature. It begins with an example of a Canadian river that has been granted legal personhood, which means it has been appointed a guardian who will advocate on the river’s behalf and protect it from human impacts. The article explains how legal rights for nature bridges Western and Indigenous legal systems and reconceptualises the relationship between people and rivers or forests. It also explains how non-extractive industry such as tourism can support reconciliation and become an alternative income source for local communities in protected areas. These insights may be most useful to sustainability and community relations teams interested in learning how legal rights for nature may affect their operations and value chain activities.