data jungle adventures

What is business biodiversity footprinting?

Biodiversity footprinting is a tool for multiple stakeholders, including organizations, companies, financial institutions, and individuals, to comprehend and quantify the environmental impacts of their activities on biodiversity.

Why is it important?

Biodiversity footprinting helps organisations understand the impact of their activities on biodiversity. The aim here is to identify specific actions that contribute to biodiversity loss. It also promotes sustainable practices by providing data that can be used to minimize negative impacts on ecosystems. This can lead to more informed decisions that support biodiversity conservation.

Maintaining biodiversity can have significant economic benefits, such as preserving ecosystem services that are essential for agriculture, fisheries, and tourism. Biodiversity footprinting helps safeguard these services. It also contributes to scientific research by providing data on how different activities affect biodiversity, which can lead to new insights and approaches to biodiversity conservation.

According to the Global Biodiversity Framework, companies must disclose their biodiversity footprint, identify the primary drivers contributing to it, and outline their remedial actions to address the issue. For companies operating in the European Union (EU),  the EU Taxonomy and Due Diligence legislation will also require biodiversity-related disclosures.

How is biodiversity footprinting calculated?

The methodology used to calculate biodiversity footprints is often Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). LCA is an established, science-based method to assess the environmental impacts related to a product or service. Four main phases can summarise the calculation method of biodiversity footprinting. 

The four components of the life cycle analysis are goal definition and scoping, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation.

Goal definition and scoping

The first step in an LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) is defining the goal and scope and establishing the study’s purpose and boundaries to ensure consistency. An LCA models the life cycle of a product, service, or system, simplifying complex realities. The key challenge is to ensure these simplifications do not significantly distort the results, achieved by clearly defining the study’s goal and scope. This includes subjective decisions like the reason for the LCA, precise product definitions, and system boundaries, which determine what is included or excluded in the assessment, such as omitting minor ingredients with minimal impact.

Inventory analysis

In the second step, inventory analysis of extractions and emissions, you examine all environmental inputs and outputs related to a product or service. Environmental inputs include raw materials and energy used, while outputs encompass pollutants and waste released. This step involves collecting and accurately modeling data to create a comprehensive life cycle inventory (LCI).

Impact assessment

In this stage, you evaluate the environmental impacts from the inventory analysis to better understand sustainability challenges and inform business decisions. This involves classifying and translating impacts into themes like global warming or human health. The key decision is whether to present integrated results as a single sustainability score or detailed impacts, depending on your audience’s understanding.

Interpretation

The interpretation phase reviews and substantiates the assessment’s conclusions. ISO 14044 outlines checks to validate the data and procedures, ensuring confidence in sharing results and improvement decisions. This ensures that the findings are robust and reliable.

Last words

While the market heads towards an increase in demand for biodiversity footprinting reports, other efforts are being made to meet environmental, social, and governance reporting requirements. How are both intersecting, and where? This is a different subject for a different blog post!!

Cover photo courtesy of Tunley Environmental.