Biodiversity for Companies

Biodiversity is a prerequisite for life, economy, and business. Biodiversity refers to the variety among ecosystems, species, and within species. Biodiversity loss leads to a weakening of diversity, resulting in uniformity across ecosystems, species, and genes.

Mitigating companies’ biodiversity impacts is important for both the preservation of diverse nature and the safeguarding of business conditions. All business activities have negative impacts on nature, either directly from their own operations or at least through their value chain. Every organization is also, at least indirectly, dependent on diverse nature and the ecosystem services it provides.

Legislation increasingly requires businesses to mitigate biodiversity loss

Businesses’ biodiversity impacts are regulated internationally, in the EU, and in Finland. The regulatory environment is based on the UN Biodiversity Convention, updated in 2022, which requires large and multinational companies to measure and report their value chain’s biodiversity impacts, dependencies, and risks.

At the EU level, the CSRD Sustainability Reporting Directive, ESRS reporting standards, and the CSDDD Corporate Responsibility Directive mitigate business-induced biodiversity loss.

In Finland, businesses are guided by laws such as the Nature Conservation Act (updated in 2023) to reduce their environmental impacts. International frameworks like SBTN and TNFD also drive efforts to mitigate biodiversity loss.

From biodiversity dependencies and business risks to opportunities

Biodiversity loss significantly threatens our living environment and also changes the operating environment of companies. The change shapes the strategies and business models of companies, extending to value chains from the procurement of raw materials, products, and services to customers and end-use.

The change also creates new business opportunities. By taking into account biodiversity, companies can respond not only to increased regulation but also to the growing responsibility requirements of stakeholders. In the best case, new business opportunities that take into account biodiversity can be found and a competitive advantage can be achieved.

Understanding the connections of a company’s operations to biodiversity and biodiversity loss at different stages of the business value chain is essential to reduce harmful environmental impacts, avoid business risks, and exploit business opportunities.

Ecobio – your expert partner in biodiversity

Ecobio’s biodiversity expert services are intended for organizations that aim to succeed in the future by managing their environmental impacts and risks, developing their business to take into account biodiversity, and meeting the expectations and requirements of their customers, investors, and other key stakeholders, as well as legislation.

Depending on the company’s industry, impact area, size, and legislative requirements, the approach to biodiversity can vary from determining materiality to calculating the biodiversity footprint and from redirecting strategy to financial reporting.

Ecobio’s biodiversity team consists of sustainable development experts with solid experience in corporate biodiversity work and environmental impact assessments. Their background includes  environmental and natural resource economics, global sustainability, biology and geography.

Ecobio offers both company-specific and site-specific biodiversity services. In our work, we use UN, EU, and Finnish guidelines as well as international and national guidelines and recommendations published for various purposes. The implementation method includes the work of Ecobio’s experts and, if desired, interactive teamwork with the customer.