Three recommendations for policy makers to enhance corporate biodiversity measurement. - Global Balance

Globalbalance supported the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation in their recently report ‘Biodiversity Measures for Business: Corporate biodiversity measurement, reporting and disclosure within the current and future global policy context’. The report looks at the current status of biodiversity reporting requirements and policies, examines emerging approaches to biodiversity measurement and considers how these approaches can contribute to tracking against global goals such as those under discussion in the post 2020 global biodiversity policy framework within the Convention on Biological diversity.

Three areas of action for policy makers to incentivise business uptake of these new approaches and encourage more standardised corporate biodiversity performance measurement and reporting:

1. Build business awareness of the value of biodiversity and how to measure impacts and dependencies, encouraging the uptake of emerging biodiversity measurement and disclosure approaches by business
2. Ensure a business-relevant post-2020 global biodiversity framework, considering how proposed goals, targets and indicators for the framework apply to the private sector, and engaging it in their development and formally acknowledge the key role of business and financial institutions in implementing the framework
3. Require mandatory corporate biodiversity performance disclosure, providing explicit guidance on biodiversity measurement and valuation within existing mandatory and voluntary reporting requirements and encourage business-finance-government collaboration on business measurement and reporting of biodiversity performance.

These actions are considered essential to hold businesses to account for negative impacts on biodiversity and recognise their contributions to a nature positive economy.

Download the full report