Biodiversity benchmark pilot key results

We are losing biodiversity rapidly: the WWF Living Planet report concludes that one million species are threatened with extinction. Moreover, 81% of European protected habitats have a poor or bad conservation status.

As such, we have studied how Dutch financial institutions and companies approach the topic of biodiversity, identifying the main challenges and good practices. For three years, VBDO has also had biodiversity as a central topic in our AGM engagement project. During those years, we found that companies are increasingly aware of the link between business and biodiversity but struggle with including biodiversity in their business practices.

In order to increase transparency and practices of European companies on biodiversity, we developed the Biodiversity & Business Benchmark, in cooperation with PwC.

Over the last months, we have done extensive desk and literature research and consulted with different stakeholders, including companies, knowledge institutions, government organisations, and civil society organisations, to create a methodology that aligns with existing and upcoming regulations and international agreements. Moreover, we have executed a pilot where we tested the draft benchmark questionnaire by assessing 15 companies based on publicly available information.

This benchmark will assess companies on the following four pillars, in line with the CSRD:

• Business model and strategy: is biodiversity a material topic, and did the company identify biodiversity-related risks, impacts, dependencies and opportunities?
• Policy: has the company translated biodiversity risks, impacts, dependencies and opportunities into effective policy?
• Actions and implementation: does the company identify and implement biodiversity-related key actions?
• Targets and metrics: has the company set effective targets, tracked its effectiveness and taken accountability?

Furthermore, the leading principle of this benchmark is the five most significant drivers of biodiversity loss:

1. Land and sea use change
2. Overexploitation of organisms
3. Climate change
4. Pollution
5. The introduction of invasive species

The first, key results of the pilot are now available.