Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SUSTAIN (Strengthening Understanding and Strategies of business To Assess and Integrate Nature)
Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2024-02-29
further develop the existing knowledge base on business dependencies and impacts to drive better corporate and financial decision-making regarding biodiversity and ecosystem services, and reduce resulting financial risks.
SUSTAIN will support businesses through these different steps under three inter-linked work streams:
1. Development of tools, methods and knowledge products to support target actors.
2. Raising awareness among, and educating, target actors.
3. Engaging with and linking to the existing landscape of initiatives related to business, finance, and biodiversity
The key objectives are:
• To develop a database outlining the dependencies and impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services of businesses which functions across all economic sectors and across the value chain;
• To develop methods that economic actors can implement to reduce biodiversity-related risks and increase opportunities, and identify suitable indicators to be used to monitor progress;
• To develop a toolbox to measure, assess and monitor the impacts and dependencies of business on biodiversity; and
• To promote business cases that contribute to the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and promote public accountability by informing regulatory agencies,
financial institutions, producers, retailers and consumers.
Leading private sector frameworks, standards and coalitions for assessment and disclosure of nature-related risks, such as TNFD and SBTN have already started exploring how the updated ENCORE knowledge base developed through Work Package 1 could be integrated into their tools and guidance. The research team is also in touch with several research projects expected to leverage the updated database for further academic or industry analyses, including studies led by WEF, OECD, Finance for Biodiversity, and Nature Finance. While we do not yet have evidence of the updated ENCORE knowledge base improving understanding and awareness of how business depend, we have anecdotal evidence of interest in the updates from business, finance and regulators and positive feedback on the updates through the industry expert review.