Why biodiversity matters and how SBTN helps

Biodiversity loss is a material business risk, threatening the essential ecosystem services companies depend on – such as clean water, pollination, and pest management – and threatens value chains and financial performance. Biodiversity is also a topic of growing regulatory and stakeholder scrutiny as companies are expected to understand and act on their impacts and dependencies on nature.

SBTN translates the most up-to-date science into credible actions for companies to address these risks by targeting the main drivers of biodiversity loss including land use change, freshwater pollution, and overexploitation.

In the places where species and ecosystems are most vulnerable, companies set targets to reduce the pressures they cause, and take actions to improve their overall impacts on nature and contribute to reversing biodiversity loss. With SBTN, companies gain a measurable, defensible way to set targets and align to global goals such as the Global Biodiversity Framework.

Biodiversity is a core component of nature, along with the non-living elements (such as the water in freshwater and marine systems, the soil, and the atmosphere). It can be assessed on several different levels (i.e., genetics, species and ecosystems), each intricately dependent on the others, and thus cannot be understood using a single metric.

Therefore, we focus on combinations of indicators which capture the diversity of company impacts on biodiversity, such as land use, conversion of natural habitat, freshwater use and pollution, and wild species harvesting in the marine environment, rather than one aggregate indicator.

How SBTN enables action for biodiversity

SBTN provides the first science-based targets for nature across land, freshwater, and ocean, focusing on the main drivers of biodiversity loss as identified by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) assessment.

They translate this science into actionable targets that help companies reduce harmful impacts and contribute to nature’s recovery.

Our approach helps companies:

Identify areas of ecological importance and vulnerability where company action will have the greatest impact, using biodiversity data.
Improve their overall impacts on nature by setting targets to reduce the pressures they can control, such as land conversion and freshwater pollution, using scientifically defined safe limits.
Develop coordinated strategies to comprehensively manage environmental impacts

Through scientifically grounded and actionable methods, companies can contribute to nature positive outcomes, aligned with global societal goals like the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

Blog post: 5 ways science-based targets for nature help companies act on biodiversity

Driving measurable action on biodiversity (click to enlarge image)

How biodiversity considerations are integrated throughout our guidance

Biodiversity is incorporated in the initial steps of target-setting: the materiality and value chain assessments and the prioritization of target setting in locations of critical importance for biodiversity.

The materiality screening (Step 1a) assesses biological resource use, ecosystem conversion in the company’s activities and sourcing of threatened and trade-regulated species, while the value chain assessment (Step 1b) requires estimation of several biodiversity-related indicators. Examples of indicators include pressures of (terrestrial) ecosystem conversion as well as state of nature indicators such as species extinction risk, species endemism, ecosystem integrity and condition, ecosystem connectivity, nature’s contributions to people (NCP), and delineated areas of biodiversity importance.

Step 2b uses these biodiversity indicators to inform the location ranking that follows through the Step 2c prioritization process, helping to ensure that companies focus on the highest risk locations for biodiversity.
Freshwater targets

Although the Step 3 Freshwater methods do not explicitly cover biodiversity indicators, biodiversity considerations are embedded within the thresholds that inform the target ambition levels for both the water quantity and quality targets. Namely, the quantity targets ensure the maintenance of environmental flows, and the quality targets ensure the avoidance of eutrophication, both of which support healthy ecosystems and the species that depend on them.
Land targets

Our first land targets also support biodiversity by comprehensively addressing land use change and habitat loss, as well as unsustainable patterns and practices of land use, which are among the primary drivers of biodiversity loss globally.

For example:

The No Conversion of Natural Ecosystem targets account for ecosystem integrity and condition in the definition of natural lands, and refer to the importance of different regions, such as in the delivery of nature’s contributions to people, and the preservation of threatened ecosystems and species when determining the target year.

The Land Footprint Reduction targets contribute to biodiversity by increasing the land available to restore natural habitats.

The Landscape Engagement targets afford companies the flexibility to propose and assess the most relevant biodiversity indicators for the local context, for example for ecosystem integrity.

The Land Footprint Reduction targets contribute to biodiversity by increasing the land available to restore natural habitats.
Ocean targets

The ocean targets are the first science-based targets to address direct resource exploitation – the highest impact driver of biodiversity loss in the ocean. The ”Avoid and Reduce Overexploitation target focuses on wild fisheries, helping companies in avoiding sourcing from overexploited stocks and engaging in seascapes and jurisdictions to improve stock health and reduce overfishing.

The stock health indicator of the Avoid and Reduce Overexploitation target measures the effective population size of commercial fish species, and is therefore a direct indicator for biodiversity.

The Protect Structural Habitats target contributes both directly and indirectly to biodiversity by addressing direct pressures like pollution and marine ecosystem use & change while also promoting engaging in improvements to habitat protection and restoration in seascapes and jurisdictions.

The Reduce Risks to Endangered, Threatened, and Protected Marine Species target contributes to biodiversity by addressing the indirect impacts of direct exploitation and marine ecosystem use & change on non-target species that are already threatened, particularly by monitoring indicators of population size and health.
Our strategic focus is on developing further guidance to expand the biodiversity coverage across our target-setting process. This evolution includes expanding our metrics and safeguards to encompass critical issues such as species overexploitation and invasive species, areas where our current methods are evolving based on advancing scientific knowledge.

Potential pathways include, for example:

Changes to the methods for Step 1: Assess and Step 2: Interpret & Prioritize will improve the selection and coverage of biodiversity indicators used in the value chain assessment and in the ranking and prioritization processes. Biodiversity will also play a more important role in determining the landscape selection for the Landscape Engagement target and the model selection to support Freshwater target setting.

Identifying potential negative consequences on biodiversity between existing SBTN targets in order to safeguard biodiversity benefits and prioritise response options with multiple benefits

Targets mirroring the Landscape Engagement target may be developed soon for both the freshwater and ocean realms. In the medium to long term, SBTN will explore issues such as ecosystem fragmentation and connectivity for both freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as invasive species, particularly in the freshwater and ocean realms.

Developing new targets on pressures not yet covered by SBTN

Developed by the SBTN community, a foundational position paper sets out how science-based targets for nature contribute to biodiversity outcomes today and where the approach can evolve over time. It explains how SBTN’s pressure-based, place-specific methods translate biodiversity loss, from a material business risk, into decision-ready priorities for action. It also dives into key topics including coverage across land, freshwater and ocean, the role of state-based targets, and future opportunities to strengthen biodiversity outcomes.

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