Deriving impact factors from the GLOBIO model to support the impact assessment of global value chains

Assessing the impacts of global value chains on biodiversity and ecosystem services is essential for achieving the targets set by the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. In particular, Target 15 calls on businesses to assess biodiversity-related risks and impacts, while Target 16 focuses on enabling sustainable consumption. Several biodiversity impact assessment methods exist that allow practitioners to measure impacts from a life-cycle perspective (e.g., ReCiPe or LC-Impact). However, these methods are limited because they rely on a single biodiversity metric: the potentially disappearing fraction of species (PDF). Moreover, a globally consistent impact assessment method for ecosystem services is still lacking.

Here, we present two new sets of impact factors derived from the GLOBIO model. The first set consists of intactness-based biodiversity impact factors (IBIF), and the second set consists of ecosystem services impact factors (ESIF). The IBIF dataset provides a consistent set of country-level impact factors for five environmental pressures: CO₂ emissions, NH₃ emissions, NOₓ emissions, land use (urban land, cropland, pasture, forest plantations, and mining areas), and roads. IBIF used the mean species abundance (MSA) metric and includes impact factors for vascular plants, warm-blooded vertebrates (birds and mammals), and both groups combined. MSA is a dimensionless metric between 0 and 1 where 1 denotes a species assemblage that is fully intact and 0 indicates that all species of the original assemblage are extirpated. The ESIF dataset provides a consistent set of country-level impact factors for one pressure, land use, covering four ecosystem services: pollination, pest control, soil erosion regulation, and carbon storage.

Together, these datasets enable a consistent assessment of the biodiversity and ecosystem-service impacts associated with global value chains when combined with environmental-pressure (inventory) data. They can support businesses in evaluating biodiversity impacts for emerging nature-related disclosure frameworks (e.g., TNFD, CSRD) and align with Target 15 of the GBF. In addition, they can help policymakers identify distant drivers of biodiversity loss (e.g., consumption and international trade) and take the necessary actions to mitigate them.