The loss of biodiversity is increasingly seen as a material risk for companies — US$ 44 trillion due to environmental degradation, which represents 50% of global GDP. Private companies will play a fundamental role in reducing direct impacts on biodiversity and improving practices to maintain conservation by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity. But how to measure this impact?
To discuss the topic, CEBDS, in partnership with CDP América Latina, organized the workshop Metrics for Measuring the Impacts of Brazilian Companies on Biodiversity, this Thursday. At the Workshop, the scope of the study and indicators related to biodiversity to be used in evaluating the contributions of the business sector to maintaining biodiversity were presented, bringing discussions inspired by the Post-2020 Global Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Objective of Sustainable Development 15 – Life on Earth (SDG 15).
Of the 20 Biodiversity goals established in 2010 to be met by this year, none were achieved. The race is now on to achieve the post-2020 Global Framework goals.
The opening of the workshop was made by CEBDS Biodiversity technical advisor Henrique Luz, who gave a general presentation of the issue of biodiversity in Brazil and showed how the topic must be addressed urgently by the private sector. Then, Rodrigo Cassola, from UNEP – WCMC (UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre), listed some ways to measure damage and gains in relation to biodiversity.
“Biodiversity is a multiple concept and it is very difficult to have a single metric to measure a company's performance in relation to biodiversity,” he explained. “The current numbers are alarming: 25% of the world's species are threatened to some degree. Furthermore, 1 million species are at some type of risk. It is important for companies to be able to measure performance, to avoid or monitor risks.”
According to Rodrigo, among the next steps for 2021 are the creation of guides for specific sectors; work towards creating standardization to measure impacts and dependencies; and how to formalize the contribution to the processes of the Convention on Biological Diversity, at COP15.
Isabele Goulart, forest analyst at CDP América Latina, analyzed how companies associated with CEBDS have been contributing to global biodiversity goals. A questionnaire with 40 questions, distributed in ten groups, was sent to the companies that agreed to participate in the study. Among the participating companies, 40% has actions to recover areas and biomes; 40% also have protected areas in their areas of operation. And 40% also surveys threatened or endemic species. Based on this data, goals will be set for the short and medium term.
