Project: Corporate biodiversity strategy and roadmap
Client: Confidential manufacturing/ extractives company
Location: Global
Objective: To develop a high-level biodiversity strategy and roadmap for a multinational steelmaking company present in over 60 countries. The strategy needed to align with EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requirements, reflect the company’s current maturity in biodiversity risk management, and set out a cost-effective plan for achieving high impact improvements. It also needed to be undertaken rapidly within a 3.5-month period.
Our role: The project involved multiple components, culminating in the final strategy and roadmap output. It started with a desk-based assessment of the company’s worldwide sites to improve understanding of their interface with nature and potentially material impacts, risks and opportunities. Building on their existing biodiversity prioritisation approach, we leveraged our Nature Interface Assessment Tool (NIAT) to strengthen their approach, allowing them to implement a three-tier site engagement strategy based on level of risk and opportunity.
We also undertook a benchmarking exercise, assessing 5 similar companies according to a framework of key biodiversity management indicators to establish how the company compared to peer and leading companies in the sector. In addition, we developed and delivered a series of workshops and interviews with key internal stakeholders from across the company’s worldwide operations, helping to build capacity, raise awareness, and gain insights on key successes and challenges at site level.
Outcome: We developed two reports for the company: an assessment report with results from the site assessment, stakeholder engagement and benchmarking analysis; and the biodiversity strategy report. The strategy recommended 10 key actions across 5 main pillars: Ambition, Governance, Management, Engagement and Capacity Building and was accompanied by a roadmap outlining where to focus attention across a 5-year horizon. The company is now using these reports and recommendations to guide a public biodiversity strategy that will be disclosed through the CSRD.