I am extremely grateful for my experience with our client during the Sustainable Investing Consulting Research course. Since my background is mostly at the UN and NGOs, this was one of the first times I applied a corporate lens to nature-related impact measurement. Thanks to this project, I’ve gained valuable insights from diving deep into the state of biodiversity reporting. One of the most eye-opening aspects of this project was collecting data on biodiversity from the ESG and sustainability reports of 200+ companies. I initially thought that no company would ever have substantial reporting metrics on biodiversity disclosed in their reports. I expected the results to be much more vague. I assumed some companies would mention their intention to avoid sourcing products from protected areas or simply make the link between pollution from emissions to nature loss.
To my surprise, many multinational corporations report on their goals to protect or restore biodiversity, their impact on nature, and the impact of nature loss on their operations (double materiality) much more than I previously thought. Analyzing the data, it gave me so much hope to realize how much companies rely on the topic standards on ESG and specifically on biodiversity. Now, I am truly excited for the upcoming frameworks on nature-related targets and disclosures (SBTN and TNFD) to come out with updated versions. Of course, we still have a long way to go in terms of standardization. Some companies did not report on nature-related risk or impact at all. My team noticed that this depends on the sector, which opens up the conversation further on developing sector standards. Now my team and my client are much more aware of the gaps and emerging opportunities to contribute to this research.
This client project was extremely important for my professional development. I have started to connect the dots between the importance of my work in science at an environmental NGO and my course learnings on the financial and corporate sector engagement. My external work involves measuring the prioritizing areas for protecting and managing biodiversity. This requires tools that measure species diversity, ecosystem services, and ecological integrity, all of which are extremely difficult to assign a use-value to. However, this is exactly what certain corporates and consulting firms are trying to achieve as they develop their ESG reports. Even with inexact science and lagging policy, I aspire to connect these two worlds. For me, this project was the first step in mapping what needs to be done in order to connect ecology to standards to reporting to corporate action.