A nature science perspective on biodiversity reporting standards
An inter- and transdisciplinary research approach is key to defining indicators and data requirements for corporate reporting on biodiversity and ecosystem services.
This was unanimously emphasized by the speakers and participants at this year's first workshop on ESG reporting at the House of Finance, a joint event of the House of Finance/CTC, the Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE and FEdA, that took place in the House of Finance on 13 March 2025. Already in December 2024, the House of Finance and SAFE, partners in a memorandum of understanding signed with the ISSB in April 2024, had held a joint workshop addressing the challenges of biodiversity reporting, particularly its complexity and geolocation-specific nature. Richard Barker, a member of the ISSB Board, outlined the ISSB approach to biodiversity reporting and highlighted some general aspects, such as the interdependence of biodiversity/nature phenomena, sector-specific exposure and impact, or the fact that the ISSB as a standard setter focuses on the information needs of investors.
The ecotoxicologists Henner Hollert and Francisco Sylvester, Goethe-University, pleaded for focusing on major drivers of biodiversity loss/ecosystem damage and emphasized the need to assess the role of chemical pollution that has been disconnected so far from research on other drivers of biodiversity loss. Volker Mosbrugger, spokesperson for the FEdA initiative, emphasized that biodiversity should be viewed as an integral part of ecosystem services. He advocated for double materiality reporting, highlighting the need to measure, disclose, and internalize the negative externalities of businesses.
Ulrike Eberle, ZNU – Zentrum für Nachhaltige Unternehmensführung at University Witten/Herdecke, gave an overview of the Bio-Val project as a successful example of transdisciplinary research. This project enabled companies in the food industry to quantitatively assess their dependence and impact on biodiversity and to incorporate the results into their business strategies. Johannes Förster, UFZ Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, also stressed this point. He gave an account of the Bio-Mo-D project as a transdisciplinary effort to insert ecosystem services and biodiversity indicators in corporate and national economic reporting. He underlined that reporting standards should also be seen as an instrument for companies to check and adapt their business strategies.
In the concluding discussion, speakers and participants identified four important focal points for the future work on biodiversity standards: the need for sectoral guidance, a focus on ecosystem services rather than biodiversity per se, the inclusion of chemical pollution as one significant driver of biodiversity loss, and the prioritization of the most urgent biodiversity loss drivers.
