Just 9% of the world’s largest companies with a major impact on biodiversity – in areas such as food, beverages, tobacco, apparel, chemicals, construction, energy and mining – use biodiversity indicators, a new study from Lund University in Sweden has found.
According to the study, Biodiversity at risk when businesses rely on narrow indicators, which was published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, only eight of the 89 major companies assessed reported using biodiversity indicators to inform their decisions, while only two said that they used more than one indicator.
Biodiversity indicators
“Different indicators measure different aspects of nature,” commented William Sidemo Holm, researcher. “Our results show that no single biodiversity indicator provides a complete picture. Companies that rely on only one indicator may therefore make decisions that protect one biodiversity value while damaging another.”
The researchers conducted analyses comparing four different indicators, and found that they often produced different assessments of the biodiversity importance of certain geographical areas. For example, while one indicator might suggest that an area is of little importance from a biodiversity perspective, another may view it as highly significant.
“If companies want to understand and report their impact on biodiversity accurately, they need to use several indicators rather than a single measure,” Holm added. “Indicators can play a crucial role in informing decisions that affect biodiversity, but there is still considerable room for improvement in how they are used today.”
Recommendations
The researchers highlighted seven recommendations for improving the development and use of biodiversity indicators:
- Use multiple biodiversity indicators to capture different aspects of biodiversity and avoid overlooking important values
- Use more than one indicator per biodiversity aspect when possible, reducing bias from specific datasets or methods
- Use composite indicators cautiously, mainly as an initial screening tool; rely on individual indicators for important decisions
- Assess biodiversity at the ecoregion level, not only globally, to recognise important biodiversity in less species-rich ecosystems
- Develop new indicators for underrepresented biodiversity dimensions, such as genetic diversity and ecological connectivity
- Improve taxonomic coverage, especially for plants, fungi and invertebrates, which are currently underrepresented
- Combine biodiversity indicators with assessments of future human pressures, such as projected land-use change, to better inform business decisions
Lund University’s study forms part of Mistra BIOPATH, a research programme examining how biodiversity can be incorporated into corporate strategies and financial decision-making. Read more here.
