About the data
The WBA Nature Benchmark measures and ranks the world's most influential companies on their efforts to protect the environment and its biodiversity, tracking how companies are reducing their negative impacts on nature and contributing to the protection and restoration of ecosystems, aligned with the goals of the Global Biodiversity Framework. The 2026 edition assessed 750 companies across multiple sectors including agro-food, forestry, building, tourism and the blue economy. The benchmark is developed in close collaboration with an Expert Review Committee and partners including GRI, SBTN, and TNFD, with a methodology designed to incentivise companies to understand where nature-related risks are highest and act to halt damaging trends, while keeping human rights and social impacts at its core.
More information can be found here.
More information can be found here.
Methodology
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
(IPBES) Global Assessment has estimated that 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with
extinction. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) finds that more than a quarter
of all assessed species are threatened. There is thus an ever-growing need for companies to report
progress on halting biodiversity loss, despite the challenges of measuring biodiversity impacts.Companies must report on how it applies the mitigation hierarchy or “SBTN’s Action Framework: AR3T” at locations with potential impacts on nature. General statements that the mitigation hierarchy or AR3T framework was applied are insufficient to meet this element. Concrete information for how each step was followed is needed.
The **mitigation hierarchy** includes the following steps:
**Avoid **Impacts: Implement strategies to avoid impacts where possible. This might involve altering project designs, changing locations, or modifying operational practices.
**Minimize** Impacts: For impacts that cannot be avoided, develop and implement management measures to minimize their extent, duration, and severity. e.g. Preventing the spread of invasive alien species.
**Restore:** Where impacts occur, take actions to restore biodiversity through rehabilitation or restoration of habitats to their natural state.
**Offset**: As a last resort, compensate for any residual impacts by supporting biodiversity offsets that provide ecological benefits equivalent to those lost. Offset is not accepted for this element.
**SBTN’s Action Framework: AR3T** includes the following steps:
**Avoid** impacts: Prevent impacts from happening in the first place or eliminate the impacts entirely.
**Reduce** impacts: Minimize impacts without necessarily eliminating them.
**Regenerate**: Take actions designed within existing land uses to increase the biophysical function and/or ecological productivity of an ecosystem or its components, often with a focus on a few specific ecosystem services or nature’s contributions to people
**Restore**: Initiate or accelerate the recovery of an ecosystem with respect to its health, integrity, and sustainability, with a focus on permanent changes in state
**Transform**: Take actions contributing to system-wide change, notably to alter the drivers of nature loss, e.g. through technological, economic, institutional, and social factors and changes in underlying values and behaviors
(IPBES) Global Assessment has estimated that 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with
extinction. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) finds that more than a quarter
of all assessed species are threatened. There is thus an ever-growing need for companies to report
progress on halting biodiversity loss, despite the challenges of measuring biodiversity impacts.Companies must report on how it applies the mitigation hierarchy or “SBTN’s Action Framework: AR3T” at locations with potential impacts on nature. General statements that the mitigation hierarchy or AR3T framework was applied are insufficient to meet this element. Concrete information for how each step was followed is needed.
The **mitigation hierarchy** includes the following steps:
**Avoid **Impacts: Implement strategies to avoid impacts where possible. This might involve altering project designs, changing locations, or modifying operational practices.
**Minimize** Impacts: For impacts that cannot be avoided, develop and implement management measures to minimize their extent, duration, and severity. e.g. Preventing the spread of invasive alien species.
**Restore:** Where impacts occur, take actions to restore biodiversity through rehabilitation or restoration of habitats to their natural state.
**Offset**: As a last resort, compensate for any residual impacts by supporting biodiversity offsets that provide ecological benefits equivalent to those lost. Offset is not accepted for this element.
**SBTN’s Action Framework: AR3T** includes the following steps:
**Avoid** impacts: Prevent impacts from happening in the first place or eliminate the impacts entirely.
**Reduce** impacts: Minimize impacts without necessarily eliminating them.
**Regenerate**: Take actions designed within existing land uses to increase the biophysical function and/or ecological productivity of an ecosystem or its components, often with a focus on a few specific ecosystem services or nature’s contributions to people
**Restore**: Initiate or accelerate the recovery of an ecosystem with respect to its health, integrity, and sustainability, with a focus on permanent changes in state
**Transform**: Take actions contributing to system-wide change, notably to alter the drivers of nature loss, e.g. through technological, economic, institutional, and social factors and changes in underlying values and behaviors
License
Topics
Framework Mappings
Value Type
Category
Options
Yes
No
Assessment
Steward Assessed
Report Type
Aggregate Data Report