The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has launched a new practical guide designed to strengthen corporate biodiversity disclosures, as the latest assessment from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services warns that ‘business as usual’ is accelerating nature loss and calls for transformative change in corporate behaviour.
Titled Decoding biodiversity impacts: A practical guide to corporate reporting with the GRI Standards, the resource is available as a free download and provides detailed guidance on implementing the GRI 101 Biodiversity Standard. It combines technical insights on applying the Standard with signposts to additional resources and support, alongside four case studies from GRI Community members that illustrate how organisations are approaching biodiversity disclosures in practice.
According to GRI, the guide demonstrates how companies can assess biodiversity impacts across operations and regions, integrate nature-related information into governance and decision-making processes, make use of location-specific data to better understand dependencies and impacts, and address data collection challenges across supply chains. At a time when biodiversity reporting is gaining increasing traction among businesses globally, the publication seeks to show what credible and decision-useful disclosures look like and how assessing impacts on nature can build trust while informing actions to address related risks and opportunities.
Cristina Gil White, Chief Engagement Officer at GRI, said that as transparency expectations around biodiversity intensify, the key question for companies is no longer whether to report, but how to do so credibly. She added that the perspectives and learnings in the e-book demonstrate that, empowered by the GRI 101 Standard, effective and decision-useful corporate reporting on nature is achievable, and that translating commitments into action is essential to drive change and build trust.
The guide comes ahead of the implementation of GRI 101: Biodiversity 2024, which becomes effective for all GRI reporting from 1 January 2026. The Standard sets a global benchmark for disclosing impacts on nature, replaces GRI 304: Biodiversity 2016, and has been published in 11 languages.
The launch follows the 12th plenary session of IPBES, held in Manchester, United Kingdom. On 9 February, IPBES published its Business and Biodiversity Assessment Report, approved by representatives of 150 governments. The report finds that companies often bear little or no financial cost for their negative impacts on biodiversity and outlines 100 actions required from businesses, governments and other stakeholders to address systemic nature-related risks.
Together, the IPBES findings and GRI’s new guide signal intensifying expectations around biodiversity transparency and a broader shift towards more robust, standardised and accountable corporate disclosures on nature.
