The Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT) Alliance has released guidelines to support companies in corporate disclosures that are aligned with the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) recommendations and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standard.
The Disclosure Preparation Report drafted by the organisation outlined its two-step approach to assess whether, and to what extent, companies’ operation sites impact biodiversity-sensitive locations.
In the first stage, sites are categorised into ‘sensitive’ and ‘not sensitive’ based on their overlap with areas listed in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the World Database on Protected Areas, and the World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas.
Then, sites assessed as sensitive are assigned a score on a none-to-high scale to determine which ones pose the highest risks to the environment.
Scores are influenced by the site’s proximity to a key biodiversity area (KBA) or protected area (PA), and take into account a buffer zone that varies depending on the type of operation:
- 5 kilometres for offices, warehouses, and low-input agriculture
- 10 km for high-input agriculture, onshore wind, construction, and terrestrial oil and gas
- 20 km for offshore wind, marine oil and gas, and hydropower
- 50 km for mining
Criteria used to assess the biodiversity significance of each location. Source: IBAT
“Companies should engage with stakeholders at the specific site to identify if they have assessed whether the nearby protected areas or KBAs are impacted by operations,” said the guidelines.
“If, through on-the-ground surveys, users can validate that nearby protected areas and/or KBAs are not impacted by operations, then the site may no longer be deemed to be a potential priority.”
IBAT said its approach fits into the TNFD’s LEAP approach, which provides structured guidance on how to identify, manage, and disclose nature-related issues across four phases – locate, evaluate, assess, and prepare.
The newly released guidelines also aim to help companies meet TNFD’s requirement to provide “a description of how the organisation has defined sensitive locations, with reference to the tools, data sources, and indicators and metrics used” and “a description of the process followed to identify priority locations for disclosure”.
Furthermore, IBAT’s assessment aligns with two disclosure requirements – ‘identification of biodiversity impacts’ and ‘sites with biodiversity impacts’ – within the GRI 101 biodiversity standard released earlier this year, the report said.
IBAT is an alliance between the UN Environment Programme, BirdLife International, the World Conservations Monitoring Centre, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and Conservation International.
Last September, it partnered with impact data and analytics provider GIST Impact to help investors better understand how their investees’ activities affect biodiversity.
By Sergio Colombo – sergio@carbon-pulse.com
** Click here to sign up to our twice-weekly biodiversity newsletter **
