A resilience approach to corporate biodiversity impact measurement

Abstract

Measuring biodiversity impact is attracting corporate attention as firms face increasing scrutiny over the ongoing sixth mass extinction of animals. Extant approaches to measurement are relatively nascent and do not directly address the dynamic complexity that can cause abrupt ecosystem change. Measurement approaches largely overlook when transformational change may occur and how changes to biodiversity may influence its likelihood. We posit that corporate biodiversity impact measurement can be advanced by incorporating resilience thinking from the natural sciences.Resilience thinking can refocus measurement on how biodiversity contributes to an ecosystem's capacity to adapt to disturbances and avoid sudden, transformative change. We propose a set of seven key mechanisms that can inform measurement development across three biodiversity attributes: abundance, composition and distribution. To conclude, we discuss opportunities for accounting researchers to advance corporate biodiversity measurement approaches connected to ecosystem resilience.

Integrating biodiversity into financial decision‐making: Challenges and four principles

“…The ambition to improve understanding, common language and data to integrate biodiversity impacts and dependence for financial decision-making has sparked much research for valuing biodiversity, for example, through ecosystem services evaluation or natural inventory evaluation-both of which "are limited in how they address change dynamic in ecosystems" (Kennedy et al, 2022). It has also led…”

“…Various attempts have been made to understand this relationship in scholarly, regulatory, and industry circles: the literature analyzes transmission channels from environmental degradation, including biodiversity loss to macro‐economic and to micro‐economic risks (Calvet et al, 2019; Seidl et al, 2020; Vaissière et al, 2020); others evaluate macro‐prudential risk through biodiversity loss (Mathilde et al, 2021) and capital at risk for financial institutions (Ascui & Cojoianu, 2019). The better understanding of the relationship between biodiversity and financial risks has sparked the development of disclosure frameworks to better measure dependency and impacts on nature in academia (Jones & Solomon, 2013; Kennedy et al, 2022), and in practice, for example, through the Task Force for Nature‐relate Financial Disclosure (TNFD) (2020). Academic and gray literature has also aimed to understand solutions to manage biodiversity resources, for example, through governance mechanisms for sustainable management of natural resources, particularly in smaller communities through common pool resources (CPRs) (Dietz et al, 2003; Ostrom, 2009), and to mobilize private finance to protect biodiversity, for example, “The Little Biodiversity Finance Book” first published in 2012 (Parker et al, 2012).…”

“…between biodiversity and financial risks has sparked the development of disclosure frameworks to better measure dependency and impacts on nature in academia (Jones & Solomon, 2013;Kennedy et al, 2022), and in practice, for example, through the Task Force for Nature-relate Financial Disclosure (TNFD) (2020). Academic and gray literature has also aimed to understand solutions to manage biodiversity resources, for example, through governance mechanisms for sustainable management of natural resources, particularly in smaller communities through common pool resources (CPRs) (Dietz et al, 2003;Ostrom, 2009), and to mobilize private finance to protect biodiversity, for example, "The Little Biodiversity Finance Book" first published in 2012 (Parker et al, 2012).…”

Embracing change in tandem: resilience and sustainability together transforming supply chains

“…, 2022). Further, Wieland (2021) claims that new resilience-related narratives need to be introduced within the “new normal” that is emerging in the wake of the pandemic, which includes reflections on the climate and biodiversity crisis, themes that are interchangeable with the sustainability narrative (Kennedy et al. , 2022).…”

“…Whilst SCRes and sustainability have been researched together (Chowdhury et al, 2021;Negri et al, 2021), the extant literature simply identifies a positive relationship without explaining the nature of this relationship (Eggert and Hartmann, 2022;Sauer et al, 2022;Negri et al, 2022). Further, Wieland (2021) claims that new resilience-related narratives need to be introduced within the 'new normal' that is emerging in the wake of the pandemic, which includes reflections on the climate and biodiversity crisis, themes that are interchangeable with the sustainability narrative (Kennedy et al, 2022). It is therefore argued here that there is a research gap for SCRes studies to develop new insights to elaborate theory that more closely explains how sustainability capability leads to social-ecological resilience and specifically follows a transformative approach.…”