Measurement of biodiversity performance by businesses and financial institutions is rapidly gaining attention. We are facing a global biodiversity crisis which requires urgent action from all players in society, including the private sector. Awareness is growing rapidly and many initiatives promoting the role of businesses and investors in halting the loss of biodiversity and even in restoration are developing, which is extremely hopeful. In parallel, there is a growing demand for more transparency in business performance with regard to biodiversity. This, in turn, drives standardisation of reporting and disclosure. In the light of these developments, it is essential that companies have access to credible biodiversity measurement methods and metrics.

Given the sudden explosion of many different biodiversity measurement approaches and metrics, the EU Business & Biodiversity Platform in 2018 started with a systematic independent assessment of these approaches. It immediately became clear that there was a huge interest from many sides. For the first time a comparative analysis was made, resulting in a much better overview of similarities and differences. One of the key findings was that different types of business applications and different organisational focus areas require different biodiversity measurement approaches. This year, the sample of investigated methods and frameworks was increased from 10 to 14 and forces were joined with the Aligning Biodiversity Measures for Business (ABMB) initiative, led by UNEP WCMC and funded by the Boticário Group Foundation. By means of several technical workshops and technical subgroup discussions, a major step forward has been made. The main conclusions of the 2019 assessment of biodiversity measurement approaches are structured according to the following 4 themes:

• Selecting a suitable biodiversity measurement approach 
• Boundaries and baselines
• Data and metrics
• Disclosure