Biodiversity Assessmeent and Risk Management

iodiversity is the foundation of the global economy. The World Economic Forum has estimated that more than 50% of global GDP is dependent on nature, biodiversity, and the services it supports. At the same time there is a growing collective awareness of the systemic crisis manifesting as climate change and biodiversity loss. The degradation of nature and biodiversity, and actions aimed at conserving, restoring, and sustainably using them present significant risks and opportunities for business, finance, and society, both now and in the future. Despite their economic and financial importance, few organizations have been systematically assessing and disclosing their biodiversity-related issues dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities). In the past, this has been
largely due to lack of requirements from governments and market regulators as well as limited availability and understanding about biodiversity-related tools and data. This is rapidly changing – a number of jurisdictions have or are developing nature-related reporting standards and regulations, and also the landscape of nature-related tools, metrics and data is also advancing.

This training course is vital to all those involved in environmental sustainability work in their companies and who need to be aware how their company can address biodiversity issues. The course will provide participants an overview how a company can develop its approach on biodiversity. The course will especially develop broad understanding how to identify and assess a company’s impacts and dependencies on biodiversity as well as its biodiversity risks and opportunities.

The training will be conducted with participatory training methods including interactive presentations and discussions, team exercises, and parking lot for questions from participants. Besides the presentations, the training materials include examples of useful tools and sources of additional information.