Figure 2: The four modules of the WWF BRF tool

Biodiversity-related risks arise from companies’ dependencies and impacts, in combination with importance and local and global state of biodiversity integrity. As the importance and state of biodiversity integrity can vary across the location of company sites, the assessment of biodiversity-related risks, response options and progress need to be location-specific as well (see Figure 1). Understanding and addressing biodiversity-related risks is vital for companies and financial institutions but is challenging as location-specific data is necessary (SBTN, 2020a; TNFD, 2022b). Without location-specific biodiversity (i.e., data on the importance and integrity of biodiversity) and company data (i.e., location of company sites, industry classification and business importance of the site), it is difficult for companies and financial institutions to fully understand their biodiversity-related risks and prioritise areas for action. Such an analysis requires a tool that can analyse the relevant and available spatially explicit biodiversity data and link it to the company locations.

Responding to this need, WWF has launched the Biodiversity Risk Filter (BRF), building on WWF’s longstanding expertise and experience with the Water Risk Filter (WRF).

The following sections describe the objectives and deliverables, the scope of the WWF BRF and the structure of this methodology documentation.

Figure 1: Biodiversity-related risk assessment as a combination of the location of corporate activities and the importance and state of biodiversity integrity

IMPACTS AND DEPENDENCIES ON BIODIVERSITY

Different corporate activities are impacting biodiversity and depend on ecosystem services to different degrees.

STATE OF BIODIVERSITY

Biodiversity is extremely location specific. In order to assess biodiversity risk for any location, one needs to assess different aspects of biodiversity accross the globe.

BIODIVERSITY RISK RATINGS FOR COMPANY LOCATIONS

To assess biodiversity, information on impact/dependency on biodiversity and the state/pressures biodiversity is facing at a specific location need to be combined.