NAT.A05.ED Circular and Nature-Positive Transition Mitigation Hierarchy
About the data
This metric was designed by The World Benchmarking Alliance, more information can be found here. Sources and Alignments for each indicator can be found here as well as the scoring guidelines here
The World Benchmarking Alliance's Nature Benchmark measures and ranks the world's most influential companies on their efforts to protect our environment and its biodiversity.
This metric relates to the Indicator: The company's business model embeds circularity and follows a pathway that aligns with nature's full recovery by 2050.
Rationale: Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse is one of the top five threats to humanity (WEF, 2020). Over half of the world's GDP is dependent on ecosystem services, and it has been estimated
that nature-positive actions could generate up to USD 10 trillion. There is an urgent need to act by adopting circular and nature-positive business models with a mitigation hierarchy approach at their core. This profound change in the way business interacts with nature is required in order to stabilize biodiversity in the decade to 2030, allow for the recovery of natural ecosystems in the next 20 years and achieve net improvements by 2050 (CBD, 2021).
Methodology
WBA analysed all publicly available group-level disclosure in English on the applicable group website, which was predominantly annual reports and sustainability reports. Draft assessments were then sent to each company inviting them to provide feedback. This feedback could include additional publicly available group disclosure published. These were then reviewed and finalised. Final assessments were then shared with each company before being published online.
For this metric the company must show a decision-making framework involving a sequence of steps starting with the avoidance of impacts, followed by the minimization of inevitable impacts, on-site restoration and finally, where feasible and necessary, biodiversity offsets. Evidence must be provided of both clear targets and that the mitigation hierarchy is applied systematically.
Keywords: ‘No Net Loss' (NNL), ‘Net gain' (NG), “Net Positive Impact” (NPI), biodiversity strategy, biodiversity plan, SBTN, CBD, Aichi Targets, science-based, net positive, nature positive, Global Biodiversity Framework.