Businesses, cities and other organisations depend on healthy ecosystems for raw materials, clean water, fertile soils, pollination, and many other ecosystem services. Yet biodiversity continues to decline, increasing risks across all sectors.
In response, the CircHive project and its partners have developed practical resources to help organisations navigate biodiversity footprinting.
Biodiversity footprinting helps organisations understand their impacts on nature and how these may affect the ecosystem services they depend on.
Helping organisations navigate biodiversity footprinting approaches
The CircHive project has developed two complementary resources. The Biodiversity Footprinting Guidance introduces the main biodiversity footprinting approaches, while the Decision Tree helps organisations identify the approach best suited to their situation.
The Biodiversity Footprinting Guidance is intended for professionals in sustainability, procurement, operations, strategy, and finance. It is designed for organisations at all stages of their biodiversity journey, regardless of their experience with biodiversity footprinting.
Why should organisations care?
The Biodiversity Footprinting Guidance helps organisations understand when and how different biodiversity footprinting approaches can support decision-making. In particular, biodiversity footprinting supports organisations seeking to:
- Identify where their most significant biodiversity impacts occur
- Prioritise where action is likely to have the greatest effect
- Compare different products, suppliers or management options
- Track changes over time as data and assessments improve
- Support sustainability reporting and target setting
No single "best" approach
There is no single "best" biodiversity footprinting approach. The most appropriate approach depends on an organisation's objectives, available data and intended application.
The Biodiversity Footprinting Guidance will be the starting point for organisations to choose the right biodiversity footprinting approach. It explains the three main approaches: input-output (IO), life-cycle assessment (LCA), and natural capital accounting (NCA) and explores how these can be used individually or in combination.
The guidance will explain how each approach works, highlight common pitfalls to avoid, and use practical examples to support organisational decision-making.
In addition, we will launch the Decision Tree, a step-by-step guide on selecting the method and approach that best fits your organisation's needs. Look out for our next article for more details.
Stay in the know
The Biodiversity Footprinting Guidance is one of several resources currently being developed by CircHive to support organisations in integrating biodiversity into their strategies and operations.
Follow BEEHive to stay up to date with the latest project developments, connect with like-minded organisations, and discover new resources as they become available.
CircHive partners and case studiesThe Biodiversity Footprinting Guidance and Decision Tree are a collaboration by CircHive partners. Meet our research and case study partners. Image:
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