Developing a framework for biodiversity footprinting of large companies

Within the scope of environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting, large companies are increasingly required to report on their impacts on biodiversity. Under the European Corporate Sustainable Reporting Directive (CSRD), companies must follow the European Sustainability Reporting Standard E4, which specifies the reporting requirements for biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, due to the complex and multifaceted nature of biodiversity, mapping biodiversity and measuring impacts of large companies on biodiversity remains challenging. Despite advances in remote sensing, life cycle assessment and environmental impact assessment, there is still no broadly accepted and scalable framework for measuring biodiversity impacts. Therefore, a common standard such as the CO₂-footprint for assessing climate change impacts remains elusive. To address this gap, we are developing a framework for assessing the biodiversity footprint of large companies. Our approach combines state-of-the-art remote sensing, artificial intelligence and local biodiversity assessment and is composed of two strongly interlinked modules. In the biodiversity module, field monitoring data and existing biodiversity indices will be combined into an indicator set, which will be used to develop an ecosystem-specific multimetric index. Simultaneously, the remote sensing and AI module will process satellite data and derived remote sensing products to produce a multi-source layer stack that will be fed into a machine-learning model. Both modules will be the foundation for a biodiversity footprint model, which will be trained to predict biodiversity patterns from remote sensing data alone. Ultimately, this model will provide biodiversity mapping on a global scale with high temporal and spatial resolution – without the requirement of field data collection. The biodiversity footprint of a company can then be quantified based on its impacted areas. With this framework, we want to contribute to enabling large companies from all sectors to assess their impact on biodiversity, to monitor the effectiveness of mitigation measures, and to support compliance with biodiversity reporting requirements.