Understand, assess and respond to your biodiversity risks for enhancing resilience
Corporate and portfolio-level screening tool to help companies and investors to prioritise action on what and where it matters the most to address biodiversity risks for enhancing business resilience and contributing to a sustainable future
AJE Group nació como una pequeña empresa familiar en Ayacucho, Perú y hoy es una de las mayores corporaciones peruanas con operaciones en 11 países y un éxito que da trabajo a más de 10,000 familias. AJE se dedica a fabricar y comercializar una gran variedad de bebidas, como cervezas, refrescos, bebidas energéticas, bebidas isotónicas, aguas, jugos y tés. Dentro del modelo la conservación de la biodiversidad o “oro verde” en beneficio de las comunidades es un eje central, reforzando la protección del bosque como parte intrínseca de la recolección de los frutos que componen los distintos productos de la empresa.
“Es importante impulsar una economía de mercado a través de lo que los habitantes del territorio saben hacer: proteger el bosque y recolectar los frutos.“
El Servicio Nacional de Áreas Protegidas (SERNANP) por el Estado Peruano, tiene entre sus funciones la administración de 75 Áreas Naturales Protegidas, que representan el 15% del territorio nacional, con el objetivo de conservar su diversidad biológica. Aproximadamente, al rededor de 90 mil personas viven al interior de ANP y 750 mil personas en las zonas de amortiguamiento.
La estrategia de manejo de recursos naturales implementada, tiene como objetivo regular y formalizar el aprovechamiento de recursos de flora y fauna silvestre, para evitar la sobre-explotación de recursos, evidenciar los beneficios de la conservación y generar bienestar a la población local socia de la conservación.
Más de 2000 familias han formalizado el manejo de recursos asumiendo compromisos ambientales, sin embargo la venta de sus productos está mal pagada en el mercado. Para hacer frente a esto, la SERNANP creó la marca, Aliados por la Conservación con el objetivo de diferenciar estos productos y posicionarlos en el mercado.
Target 15 of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework recognizes the importance of the private sector monitoring, assessing and disclosing biodiversity-related risks, dependencies and impacts. Many businesses and financial institutions are progressing with science-based assessments, targets and disclosures and integrating into strategy, risk management and capital allocation decisions. Developments will continue in response to investor expectations, emerging corporate sustainability reporting regulations in Europe, China and elsewhere and evolving global sustainability reporting standards. Voluntary action is also being encouraged by the disclosure recommendations of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures and the target-setting methods of the Science Based Targets Network. Based on experience supporting the private sector in practice, we identify four critical science and technical advances needed to enable business action at scale and to redirect finance globally to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. First, consensus on indicators and metrics for measuring changes in the state of nature and provision of ecosystem services. Second, access to global, regularly updated, location-specific and consistent nature data. Third, standardized and consistent accounting systems that structure data, support risk management and create accountability at corporate, ecosystem and national levels. Fourth, integrated risk assessment approaches to help corporates, financial institutions, central banks and supervisors to assess nature-related risks.
This article is part of the discussion meeting issue ‘Bending the curve towards nature recovery: building on Georgina Mace’s legacy for a biodiverse future’.
Within this project, multiple supply chains engaged in the Handline and Pole and Line fishery in Indonesia were categorized into a set of generic supply chain types. This allowed us to audit a wide set of supply chain types and create a generic improvement approach for each type. We shared improvement approaches with an entire group of industries engaged in the industry association AP2HI, at present over 20 companies and allow them to independently work towards the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Chain of Custody (CoC) Standard as well as increasing international traceability requirements.
Industries such as mining, forestry, and oil and gas have been trying for years to minimise their environmental and social impacts, but there is a growing expectation from civil society, regulators and investors that companies not only ‘do no harm’, but also make a positive contribution to the environment and society.
In many companies, projects follow procedures to avoid or minimise biodiversity impacts and restore biodiversity or offset impacts when these are unavoidable. This framework, known as the mitigation hierarchy, is increasingly used by companies and governments to improve environmental management and contribute to a net positive impact (NPI) or biodiversity net gain (BNG).
Following a NPI commitment by the mining company Rio Tinto, IUCN worked with the company to develop and trial a review protocol that could track its progress towards reaching NPI at an operational level. This protocol was tested at Rio Tinto operations in Australia, Mongolia and Madagascar.
Eco-Benin believes that business is a key determinant of the usage of natural resources; in 2018, it created a multi-stakeholder platform to motivate business to address its impacts on nature and people. The CSR Café initiative, a periodic event, offers a space for dialogue with NGOs, businesses, and State actors. NGOs help businesses realise their impacts and dependencies on nature, and stress their responsibilities and need for action. Businesses exchange with NGOs on how the latter can support them, present their successful CSR activities, and make commitments to sustainability. For instance, Eco-Benin discussed marine pollution with the Beninese brewery company, SOBEBRA. CSR Café seeks to become a hub where involved actors can find opportunities, inspiration, and expertise for CSR activities. All stakeholders, including State representatives and the public at times, jointly determine the vision, solutions, and actions for this initiative. Ultimately, this led to the Beninese government adopting the CSR Charter.
Growth corridors are regions where natural resource-based industries, such as agriculture and mining, are being developed to boost economic growth. SUSTAIN (Sustainability and Inclusion Strategy for Growth Corridors), an IUCN-led initiative, aims to shape the investment and design of these corridors so that they are environmentally and socially sustainable.
Located in a vast floodplain, Tanzania’s Kilombero district hosts wetlands, waterfalls and iconic wildlife species, such as elephant, hippo, antelope and lion. The mountain rainforests are a vital water source for the surrounding area and its economy. As part of SUSTAIN, the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) is working with one of Tanzania’s biggest rice producers, valley farmers and mountain villages in Kilombero to increase agricultural productivity while conserving forests, water sources and wildlife at a coordinated landscape level. A pillar of the programme is a payment for ecosystems services (PES) scheme.
Amazon indigenous communities have for generations integrated farms and forest to produce an extraordinary diversity of foods, but market and cultural forces are eroding these well-honed systems.
A burgeoning Latin American food movement is creating new opportunities. Relationships between rainforest communities and chefs can help incubate new enterprises and showcase the Amazon, through delicious food, to new audiences and allies.
Canopy Bridge works with a group of more than 25 chefs from Ecuador´s best restaurants, indigenous communities and conservation NGOs to develop value chains for Amazon fresh foods (aquaculture paiche- Arapaima gigas– from Ai-Kofán and products grown by the Kichwa people in highly diversified chakra production units) that have substantial conservation benefits and great culinary potential. Through the establishment of a distribution chain from the Amazon to Quito, these products are now reaching specialty food markets and restaurants on a weekly basis.
The DDCR has implemented a nature-based tourism offering in partnership with seven tour operators which allows over 250,000 visitors to the protected area on an annual basis. Effective planning and implementation of a zonation plan ensure environmental sustainability by limiting areas of environmental impact. Furthermore, each tour operator has an individual route ensuring a premium experience of wildlife in a pristine desert landscape as well as greatly enhancing safety for the visitor.
All visitors to the DDCR pay entrance fees, through the tour operators, which is used exclusively for the management and research requirements of the protected area.
The One Planet Network’s Sustainable Food System (SFS) Programme contributes to a transformation towards sustainable food systems that was called for at the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021. The SFS Programme is a partnership focused on urgent transformation towards sustainable food systems as a critical strategy to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
The SFS Programme has four objectives and five cross-cutting themes to support its goal of accelerating the shift to sustainable food systems. The Programme has developed a range of tools to providing guidance for the transformation to sustainable food systems.
The Biological Diversity Protocol (BD Protocol) provides companies with a standardised accounting and reporting framework to consolidate their biodiversity impact data across value chains and jurisdictions. The BD Protocol assists companies to develop their biodiversity impact inventory and the associated Statements of Biodiversity Position and Performance from site or project management to disclosure.
The BD Protocol is an output of the Biodiversity Disclosure Project (BDP), an effort spearheaded by the National Biodiversity and Business Network (NBBN) of South Africa and managed by the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), in collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders. The BD Protocol aims to support existing impact measurement approaches so that biodiversity impact disclosure becomes comparable across industries and companies.
This paper, produced in 2023, provides recommendations on implementing Target 15(a), especially the way governments can take legal, administrative, or policy measures to:
1) Encourage and enable businesses to regularly monitor, assess, and transparently disclose their risks, dependencies and impacts on biodiversity; and
2) Require all large, and transnational companies and financial institutions do so, including along their operations, supply and value chains, and portfolios. The paper also contains information, resources and capacity-building opportunities, recommendations for businesses to act now on assessment and disclosure, and case studies of government policies and business action on disclosure. The paper focuses on paragraph 15(a) as the most urgent starting point to ensure business and financial institutions are assessing and disclosing nature-related risks, dependencies, and impacts, and that this information is included in all decision-making by the private sector, finance, and governments.
