From awareness to action: embedding biodiversity in business with EMAS

As biodiversity becomes an increasingly important business issue, organisations are looking for practical ways to integrate nature into their decision-making. In this interview, Sven Schulz, Programme Manager at the Bodensee Foundation, shares insights based on extensive experience supporting businesses, drawing on examples from Germany that offer valuable lessons for companies across Europe. Whether you are taking your first steps on biodiversity or building on existing efforts, the interview offers practical advice on integrating biodiversity into business practices and decision-making. 

Biodiversity is becoming a strategic issue for businesses. Looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest trends that companies should prepare for over the next 5-10 years?

Biodiversity loss is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Despite declining rates of deforestation in recent decades, biodiversity loss and deforestation are still progressing rapidly. With the projected loss of biodiversity in the next decade, the associated ecosystem services will decline, which will have a growing impact on supply chains. This effect will be exaggerated by climate change, since the loss of biodiversity reduces our resilience to the effects of climate change, which remains one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss. For companies, the bottom line is that they should start to prepare and adapt before biodiversity loss catches up with them.

Many companies are only beginning to assess biodiversity risks. What are the most common misconceptions you encounter, and how can organisations overcome them?

While more and more companies understand the value of biodiversity and the crucial role it plays for their business, the most common misconception we still encounter is that biodiversity has nothing to do with them. This notion is usually quickly dispelled through a structured approach: EMAS is, of course, very well suited to do this. In Germany, we offered a ‘significance check’ (Germany only) as well as biodiversity checks, which go into more detail as part of the Ubi-project.

Once biodiversity has been identified as a priority, what organisational changes are typically needed to embed it into decision-making across different departments?

As always, a strong commitment from top-level management is necessary. They should put biodiversity on the agenda and back up this commitment by providing the required resources. This can include resources to conduct an analysis of the impact and dependencies on biodiversity and the development of the measures to improve one’s biodiversity performance – which might include organisational changes. Very likely, employees will need training to learn how to integrate biodiversity into their field of work. Biodiversity is a cross-cutting issue involving virtually all departments. EMAS-certified businesses are already in a good position to handle this challenge. Their environmental management system provides the organisational structure to analyse the impacts and dependencies on biodiversity, develop and implement measures, and evaluate their success. However, the composition of the environmental management team will have to be reconsidered. It might have to include more departments, since impacts and dependencies on biodiversity can arise in unexpected areas. Many changes are not strictly organisational. Businesses should understand that biodiversity management is never truly complete.

Companies often understand their direct environmental impacts but struggle with impacts further along the value chain. What practical approaches can help them gain better visibility?

Most companies will not be able to identify all impacts right from the start. Thus, they need to prioritise and decide where to focus their efforts. There are tools at their disposal. 

The first step should be the screening of products and their impact. Tools like the WWF Risk Filter Suite and ENCORE allow companies to identify products and commodities that carry disproportionate biodiversity risks. The ‘locate’ step of TNFD’s LEAP methodology is explicitly designed to identify where in the value chain – upstream and downstream – a company interfaces with nature, by overlaying sourcing locations with environmentally sensitive areas. These tools are based on sector analysis and will give companies – especially small companies lacking the resources for in-house deep analysis – an indication of where to concentrate their efforts. At this point, companies will have to engage their suppliers to move from ‘modelled data’ to the concrete impact and establish collaborations to reduce the impact. Additionally, companies can use platforms like EcoVadis, which are designed to support businesses with tracking and evaluating their supply chains. All this will take time and should be viewed as an ongoing process, for which a cyclical environmental management system, like EMAS, is a very good foundation.

Several biodiversity-related frameworks, tools, and initiatives are now available to businesses. How should organisations decide where to start without becoming overwhelmed?

For a general overview, a good starting point is the guidance note on EMAS and Biodiversity (updated in 2023). Exchanging with peers facing similar challenges is also a pragmatic first step, and some industry associations have started sharing this type of information with their members (e.g. most common impacts and dependencies of a sector, reviews of tools, collections of good examples, etc.). Businesses do not need to navigate the growing landscape of biodiversity frameworks and tools on their own. A good starting point is to understand what each framework or tool is designed to do, and which is best suited to your industry, capacity and level of ambition. In many EU Member States, national Business and Biodiversity initiatives also offer support for initial steps. In Germany, for example, the chambers of commerce have established ‘local biodiversity alliances’ that provide orientation for newcomers through available tools and frameworks.  

How can companies measure whether their biodiversity actions are actually making a difference, given that biodiversity outcomes are often difficult to quantify?

Target setting within the framework of an environmental management system will include KPIs that allow companies to assess if a measure was successfully implemented (i.e., if a target was met). The guidance EMAS and Biodiversity includes suggestions for such KPIs and indicators. 

Beyond that, the sheer number of potential indicators is vast. The Task Force for Nature-Related Financial Disclosures found over 3.000 unique state-of-nature metrics. Businesses will have to rely on proxies and a pragmatic approach. One common workaround is to pick pressure-based indicators tied to a company’s material impact (e.g., land take, pesticide load, habitat fragmentation) plus site-level ecological monitoring where the company controls land. The important issue here is transparency: companies should state clearly what they measure and why they chose these indicators. 

For organisations just starting their biodiversity journey, what would you recommend as the first three practical steps?

First, get informed. As mentioned earlier, your peers, industry associations, chambers of commerce and local NGOs are good starting points for gaining an overview of the wide range of biodiversity concepts, frameworks and tools. 

Second, analyse your relationship with nature. Which natural resources does your business depend on? What are your impacts on biodiversity? Many industry associations already provide practical support. For example, the cosmetics industry has published collections of case studies from France and Germany. In Germany, the German Bicycle Industry commissioned a sector analysis that significantly reduces the workload for SMEs carrying out a materiality assessment.

Third: take action. One easy way to get started is by improving biodiversity on your business premises. Often, relatively small changes can deliver considerable ecological benefits while also creating a more attractive environment for employees and visitors. Another practical first step is to prioritise third-party certifications and labels for critical raw materials. For example, buying certified organic raw materials is an easy measure to implement. 

Fourth: share your experience. There is no need for every company to reinvent the wheel. In Germany, NGOs like the Global Nature Fund and Lake Constance Foundation offer pragmatic support for all steps through the “biodiversity-checks”. Similar initiatives are likely to exist in other EU countries. The EU Business and Biodiversity platform could offer some support in finding them. 

How can management systems such as EMAS support continuous improvement, and where do they provide added value compared with a one-off biodiversity assessment?

EMAS is designed to drive continuous improvement and thus gives the necessary incentives to businesses to boost their environmental performance. More broadly, any cyclical management approach supports continuous improvement, an essential feature when addressing biodiversity. First, ecosystems are “living systems” that constantly change and adapt. As a result, the most effective measures to protect and restore biodiversity will also need to evolve over time.  A one-off biodiversity assessment cannot capture these changes. Second, managing biodiversity impacts and the risks associated with biodiversity loss across the whole value chain is an ongoing process. Companies will inevitably face information gaps and varying levels of influence over suppliers and other business partners. Building relationships with suppliers, gathering better local data, and improving transparency all take time. An environmental management system also allows for smarter strategies. One such example is the improvement of the premises: the cheapest way to foster biodiversity on production sites is a good ecological maintenance scheme, which uses natural dynamics on site to improve the ecological quality in the long term. However, this means regular adaptation of the maintenance scheme. One-off assessments can offer a starting point – but will not allow for the efficient and successful implementation of such a “low-input strategy”. 

In our view, management systems such as EMAS do more than support continuous improvement; they provide the organisational framework needed to achieve lasting biodiversity outcomes.