#14 - Align - Best practices for biodiversity measurement & compliance of existing tools

This fourteenth issue of The Nature Intelligence Newsletter showcases some of the outputs of a key initiative for the standardization of biodiversity measurement, accounting and valuation: the European Union (EU) funded Align project. It covers:

• short introduction on the role of Align within the broader biodiversity framework & initiative landscape
• Align's good & best practices criteria for the measurement of species & ecosystems, including a focus on supply chain measurement, and evaluation of how well current tools meet those criteria
• introduction to Align's ecosystem condition guidance
• Align's definition of baseline and reference state

?

Regular readers of the Newsletter may wonder if I stopped posting on Biodiversity credits. Well, not yet, it's just a short break and we'll come back to Biodiversity credits in next issue.

Disclaimer: let me highlight that views are mine and not those of the Align project.

Where does the Align project fit in the broader corporate biodiversity landscape?

Align was a 3 year project launched in March 2021 (its latest outputs should be released soon).

It aimed to develop a generally accepted suite of methods, indicators and criteria for biodiversity measurement and valuation tools and approaches that can be used by businesses and financial institutions

It has thus informed the development of several key frameworks which have emerged in recent years, from the update of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) 's biodiversity standard to the launch of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) 's core disclosure metrics. Its outputs will continue to feed future standardization of biodiversity measurement in the years to come, including through initiatives such as the Ecosystem Condition Protocol .

Good & best practices criteria for biodiversity measurement

The guidelines developed by Align have been used by the EU B@B Platform to evaluate how existing tools currently apply good or best practices to measure biodiversity.

Ecosystem & species measurement

Align first provided some general recommendations on measurement, broken down by type of tools or layers involved.

Focus on measuring impacts and remaining biodiversity at the supply chain level

More detailed recommendations were provided for site-level and supply chain-level measurement and accounting in its general recommendations. Deep-dive reports provided further guidance for site, supply chain and finance (to be published): a future Newsletter issue will explore those.

Let's first focus on general recommendations for supply chain and how existing tools meet them:

An introduction to Ecosystem condition through the Align's business primer

Align provided a deeply-needed focus on Ecosystem condition at a time when no guidance existed for businesses. It facilitated the adoption of Ecosystem condition as a key indicator to monitor in most existing frameworks (see #03 - Ecosystem condition: the indicator to watch for corporate biodiversity performance).

A specific initiative is now preparing to push guidance on measurement & accounting for Ecosystem condition further: the Ecosystem Condition Protocol.

Another benefit of Align: common definitions

Align gathered hundreds of stakeholders coming from very diverse background. Facilitating the communication between ecologists with years of experience in Environmental Impact Assessments at the project level and asset managers who recently discovered biodiversity through their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) lens required providing common definitions of key concepts.

Align succeeded in providing a common language for most key concepts. Let's focus on two of them: baseline and reference state (I encourage you to read the Align recommendations for more), defined in the Align's Ecosystem Condition Business Primer.

The “undisturbed state” is one possible “reference condition” and is used by metrics such as the Mean Species Abundance to define their 100% value (i.e. an ecosystem’s MSA is 100% if its condition matches that of an undisturbed ecosystem).

Other reference condition are considered for other use cases, e.g. historical condition, least-disturbed condition or contemporary condition.

A future issue of the Newsletter will cover the already and yet to be released outputs of Align on specific focus areas (supply chain, site, finance) and topics (Global Biodiversity Framework, Nature Positive measurement).

Please share your thoughts in comments! And please let me know if there is a topic you'd like me to cover in the future!

If you found this issue of the newsletter useful, please remember to subscribe and feel free to spread it by liking, commenting or sharing it (for subscribers receiving it in their inbox, please click on the blue button below to be able to like)!

Disclaimer: all views are mine and do not represent any institution or initiative's.

Access previous issues of the Nature Intelligence Newsletter:

Case studies and examples

#01 - Impacts on ecosystem integrity of a listed equity index assessed for the first time - STOXX600

#08 - Getting inspired: 3 front-runners who assessed their biodiversity impacts at the corporate level

#09 - Ecosystem condition: direct measurement and assessment of regulatory offsets

Ecosystem condition definition and metrics

#02 - All you ever wanted to know about the MSA

#03 - Ecosystem condition: the indicator to watch for corporate biodiversity performance

Biodiversity measurement tools

#04 – Differences between the corporate biodiversity metrics

#05 - Charting path: navigating the biodiversity tool wilderness - part 1 - The compasses

#06 - Charting path: navigating the biodiversity tool wilderness - part 2 - The map

#07 - Charting path: navigating the biodiversity tool wilderness - part 3 - Tools for financial institutions

Biodiversity credits

#10 - Biodiversity credits: definition and main actors

#11 - Biodiversity credits: uncovering the use cases

#12 - Biodiversity credits: deep-dive on use cases, demand and market size

#13 - Biodiversity credits: counterbalancing impacts with clear ecological equivalency rules

Credits: the cover of this issue was made using Bing Copilot Designer.