Businesses have a major role in delivering transformative change to implement global policy goals and frameworks such as the goals and targets under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement. The IPBES’ methodological assessment of the impact and dependence of business on biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people strengthens the knowledge base to support efforts by business towards the implementation of these goals and frameworks. This presentation gives an overview of the key messages from the assessment and the knowledge gaps identified. The assessment categorizes the dependencies and impacts of business and financial institutions on nature, reviews and critically evaluates approaches for measurement of impacts and dependencies of businesses on biodiversity and discusses how such information can be used to improve outcomes for biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people. It also discusses the role of multiple actors (i.e. businesses, governments, financial institutions, civil society and Indigenous Peoples and local communities) in creating an enabling environment. The key messages synthetize and bring insight to the knowledge assessed throughout the report’s six chapters: 1) Setting the scene; 2) How does business depend on biodiversity?; 3) How does business impact on biodiversity?; 4) Approaches for measurement of business dependencies and impacts on biodiversity; 5) Business as key actors in transformative change: options for action; 6) Creating an enabling environment for business: options for action by governments, the financial system and other actors. The information about impacts and dependencies gathered in the assessment can help guide businesses and enable reporting, transparency, decision-making and actions, which can lead to improved outcomes for biodiversity and businesses. The assessment can also help bring clarity to potential conflicts and relevant gaps in approaches for measurement in the context of different activities and sectors.
How to cite: Jones, M., Polasky, S., and Rueda, X.: The key messages of IPBES’ methodological assessment of the impact and dependence of business on biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-802, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-802, 2026.
Businesses across sectors and scales are fundamentally dependent on biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people, yet these dependencies remain unevenly understood, measured, and incorporated into decision-making. This paper synthesizes emerging methods and approaches used to identify, characterize, and assess business dependencies on biodiversity, drawing on the analytical framework developed for Chapter 2 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services assessment (IPBES) on business and biodiversity. We review a diverse set of existing qualitative and quantitative approaches, including natural capital accounting, ecosystem service assessments, supply-chain mapping, risk screening tools, and corporate disclosure frameworks, and compare their underlying assumptions, data requirements, and conceptual framings of nature–business relationships. We conducted a literature review of papers covering a wide variety of sectors including agriculture, fisheries, and forestry.
Building on this review, we develop a typology of business dependencies that accounts for differences across sectors, business sizes, and positions within value chains. The typology highlights dependencies on biodiversity and ecosystem functions, as well as interdependencies mediated through social, economic, and institutional contexts. Particular attention is given to how dependencies vary spatially and temporally, and how they intersect with other societal objectives such as climate mitigation, food security, and livelihoods, giving rise to synergies and trade-offs.
The analysis further examines methodological and practical challenges in characterizing dependencies, including data gaps, scale mismatches, uncertainties, and the risk of oversimplification in decision-support tools. The chapter examines challenges associated with characterizing dependencies, including data gaps, scale mismatches, and uncertainty in linking ecological change to business risk. Finally, we discuss the implications of different approaches for decision-making by businesses, financial institutions, governments, consumers, and civil society, emphasizing how improved understanding of biodiversity dependencies can inform risk management, strategic planning, and policy design. By clarifying commonalities and differences across existing approaches, this paper contributes to a more coherent and actionable foundation for integrating biodiversity considerations into business and financial decisions.
How to cite: N. Egoh, B., Schaafsma, M., Duan, H., Hochard, J., Joo, W., López Cubillos, S., Paspaldzhiev, I., Prodanova, H., Willemen, L., Koh, N. S., and Lankia, T.: IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment. Chapter 2: How does Business depend on biodiversity?, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-990, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-990, 2026.
Understanding how businesses generate, amplify, or mitigate pressures and impacts on biodiversity is essential for enabling transformative change toward the 2050 Vision of “Living in Harmony with Nature.” Drawing on insights from Chapter 3 of the upcoming IPBES Business & Biodiversity Assessment, this contribution synthesises the main aspects, impact types, and pathways through which business activities affect biodiversity directly or indirectly across sectors and value chains. It outlines how different forms of economic activity shape ecological outcomes and why a clear grasp of these relationships is central to designing effective interventions. The session highlights the distinctions between direct and indirect drivers of biodiversity loss and shows how businesses—depending on their sector, operational model, and geographic footprint—can exert pressures on biodiversity at multiple scales.
A key takeaway is the recognition that business impacts are rarely isolated. Instead, they are embedded in complex, interdependent networks of supply-chain relationships and cross-sectoral linkages. These impacts vary widely, ranging from highly visible direct pressures to diffuse indirect effects that accumulate over time. They also interact with differing production profiles—from small and informal economic activities to large-scale formal operations—shaping biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people in both positive and negative ways.
Insights from the assessment also make clear that major challenges persist. Significant data and methodological gaps continue to limit the field, resulting in inconsistent and fragmented impact metrics that hinder a full understanding of who, what, and where biodiversity is affected. Nonetheless, there is strong consistency in identifying that primary sectors, particularly extractive industries, remain those that most substantially affect biodiversity, with their impacts reverberating across upstream and downstream supply chains globally.
Overall, this chapter underscores the need for cross-sectoral, science-based approaches that can identify leverage points capable of meaningfully reducing biodiversity pressures. Such approaches provide a critical foundation for coordinated, whole-of-society efforts to bend the curve of biodiversity loss.
How to cite: Panwar, R., Mandle, L., Kohsaka, R., Johnston, M., Romero, C., Bull, J., Oguge, N., Crona, B., Chetty, K., Chelangat, S., Avila-Ortega, D. I., Gennet, S., and Atta, H.: Business impact on biodiversity, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-581, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-581, 2026.
Chapter 4 of the IPBES report “Business and Biodiversity Assessment” is called “Approaches for measurement of business dependencies and impacts on biodiversity” and is addressing and summarizing the existing approaches for measuring business dependencies and impacts on biodiversity. Based on extensive analysis of existing work and intense discussions in the working group, five method families for measuring business-biodiversity interactions have been identified: participatory methods, location-based observations, spatial analysis, life-cycle approaches, and ecological-economic modelling. There is no universal tool for businesses, as the most appropriate method depends on decision context (from portfolio to site level assessments) and purpose, with inherent trade-offs between coverage, accuracy, and responsiveness, which requires explicit acknowledgment.
While important first steps, current biodiversity metrics remain incomplete and uncertain. This work analysed different metrics and their use for business and biodiversity assessment, including species-assemblage metrics, ecosystem extent/condition metrics. While top-down approaches such as life-cycle assessment (LCA) and Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional Input–Output (EE-MRIO) models support corporate decisions, they sacrifice accuracy and omit local specificities and social values, and specifically Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC) aspects. Bottom-up methods (observations, participatory approaches) excel at local planning but is not applicable for large scale corporate assessments. The chapter also addresses some cross-cutting issues, such as scenario assessment and highlights the challenges and needs for such assessments.
Finally, we identified important knowledge gaps and implementation hurdles / drivers and conclude that Integrating metrics and values of nature in business accounting and reporting systems is crucial.
In summary, the presentation will disclose the key message that are provided by chapter 4 and will highlight and discuss the most important findings. Within the wider session on the IPBES report, which covers Chapters 1–6 and cross-cutting synergies / trade-offs, Chapter 4 focuses on what measurement methods exist, what they can and cannot capture, and where key knowledge gaps remain.
How to cite: Kulak, M., Brooks, S., Pavani, B. F., Feger, C., Zanetti, E. A., Verones, F., Lee, H., van Oorschot, M., Pfister, S., Nemecek, D., and Bedford, J.: From the IPBES Business and Biodiversity report: Approaches for measurement of business dependencies and impacts on biodiversity, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-1006, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-1006, 2026.
The IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment (to be published in February 2026) represents a two-year effort of 80 experts representing diverse regions, sectors, and disciplines, to synthesise current knowledge on how businesses, including financial institutions, impact and depend on biodiversity and how these relationships can be measured in consistent, transparent, and scientifically grounded ways. It also identifies a broad range of options for businesses of all sizes, sectors, regions, and activities, as well as other actors across society, to act in support of transformative change and contribute to global frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. In this session, we will discuss key findings from Chapter 5, which focuses specifically on businesses’ roles and responsibilities, their motivations and barriers to action, and the options for action available to them to directly support the achievement of global biodiversity goals. The chapter provides an overview of how companies understand their biodiversity impacts and dependencies, the internal and external incentives that shape their decisions, and the practical steps they can take to contribute to limiting the extent of their impacts and dependencies, while also supporting nature recovery. The report, and this chapter, also outline a long list of gaps in theory, methods and evidence that currently hinder robust, evidence-informed business action on biodiversity. We will present and discuss these gaps, including perspectives from business, indigenous and local communities, and other audiences on which gaps matter most for improving practice, and how partnerships, pilots, and targeted research could help advance this work and strengthen real-world implementation. We will seek to gather additional input from participants at this session. Our goal is to ensure that the scientific community addresses the most relevant research questions and provides knowledge that directly informs and enables action on biodiversity sooner rather than later.
How to cite: Von Hase, A., Sonter, L., Nguyen, T., Enrici, M.-H., Lasmana, F., Adam, J., Lutti Hummel Wicher, N., Howard, P., Jamil Husain, H., P Fabregas, T., Dickinson, S., and Barbosa, O.: Business Roles, Responsibilities, Options for Actions, and Evidence Gaps: Insights from Chapter 5 of the IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-613, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-613, 2026.
The IPBES methodological assessment of the impacts and dependencies of business on biodiversity aims to support efforts by businesses to contribute to the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity and the Convention on Biological Diversity objectives by strengthening the knowledge base on the impacts and dependencies of businesses on biodiversity. This includes strengthening the knowledge base among key players — people and organizations who both can influence and become affected by decisions — to boost collective expertise, insights and information. As key players, we consider governments, the financial system, and other actors, considered to be civil society, including consumers, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Recognising that businesses operate within larger societal and legal contexts and that there is no one-size-fits-all approach, the assessment describes potential options for how these actors may use measures of dependence and impact to promote and evaluate businesses actions and performance and help achieve the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity. Transformative change will be needed to change the existing enabling environment for businesses and to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. Transformative change is system-wide therefore to achieve it requires a whole of society and whole of government approach that engages all actors and sectors in visioning and contributing collaboratively to transformative change. This presentation summarizes the various actors that can create an enabling environment, why they are essential in supporting measures of impacts and dependencies by businesses, and what the options for action by these actors are that can support business efforts. For all actors, the following categories of enabling conditions are considered: 1) legal and regulatory 2) economics and financial 3) norms and values, 4) technology and data and 5) capacity and knowledge. Finally, we present the assessment’s vision of how the options for action by these actors can come together to change the existing enabling environment to one which supports transformative change by businesses.
How to cite: Leach, K., Loyola, R., Chatwin, A., van Leenders, C., Mukumbuta Guillemin, I., Park, M. S., Syed Hazari, S. M., Yiu, E., Prodani, K., Rabeschini, G., and Vera Paz, A.: Options for action by governments, financial institutions and civil society to create an enabling environment, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-457, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-457, 2026.
