Corporate biodiversity reporting and indicators : situation analysis & recommendations

Some companies are currently required by French legislation to include information on biodiversity in their reports, the aim being to inform their stakeholders about the company’s commitment to biodiversity conservation. However, these reporting documents vary in content, form and method, and some companies admit that they have difficulty writing their biodiversity reporting documents. This study is thus designed to improve companies’ biodiversity reporting methodologies and approaches. It starts off by clarifying the meaning of the expressions “biodiversity reporting” and “biodiversity indicators”. It then draws up an exhaustive list of the legal provisions that French companies should apply with regard to the communication of information on biodiversity. The study then discusses them main biodiversity reporting documents at different scales and presents recommendations given certain international and national reference frameworks. In the last part of this document, the IUCN French Committee provides advice on how to write a high-quality biodiversity report. Applicable to all countries, legal contexts and industry sectors, it covers both the scope of biodiversity reporting documents and the subjects that should be dealt with.