Nature Information Pathways for corporate sustainability reporting

The recent adoption of EU directives on nature has spurred the creation of numerous sustainability reporting databases and tools. However, a truly holistic approach to managing biodiversity data, calculating indices, and reporting impacts remains absent. Reporting on biodiversity and site-level impacts in a spatially explicit manner is particularly complex for businesses, raising concerns about the reporting burden while simultaneously highlighting the untapped potential of open remote sensing data. 

Within the Horizon Europe project A-Track, we are developing a common data structure designed to facilitate and harmonise naturerelated information for businesses. Our work investigates the structuring of public nature data according to the principles of the System of Environmental Economic Accounts Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA), and its alignment with the E4 requirements on biodiversity and ecosystems from the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), as well as with State of Nature metrics from the Nature Positive Initiative (NPI). The overarching aim is to create businessrelevant metrics that can bridge scientific frameworks and corporate reporting needs. 

We demonstrate the generation of such metrics through example cases in the mining and agricultural sectors, illustrating how extent and condition indicators can be derived for small private sites using public Earth Observation (EO) data. These examples also consider applications within product life cycle management, where biodiversity impacts are often overlooked. We delve into the methodological challenges of integrating heterogeneous datasets, ensuring spatial resolution is sufficient for site-level reporting, and creating a set of metrics that sufficiently reflects ecological processes while remaining practical and understandable for users. 

Finally, we identify the key requirements for a common data structure that enables the effective use of public data in private sustainability reporting. We highlight current gaps where available public data cannot provide reliable estimates, and assess the opportunities this presents for developing innovative methods of valuing nature with open data. By advancing harmonised approaches, we contribute to reducing reporting burdens while enhancing the credibility and comparability of biodiversity metrics across sectors.