Nature Positive – Opportunities for Utilities (Part 2)

The health of our society fundamentally depends on the health of the natural world. However, biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history and biodiversity loss is recognised as one of the top three global risks to society over the next ten years. Nature conservation is now a core strategic risk management issue alongside climate change. An international agreement is now in place to identify the changes that are required, of which Australia is a signatory. Called ‘The Biodiversity Plan: For Life on Earth’, it sets clear global targets for the sustainable use, restoration, and conservation of biodiversity by 2030, including disclosure of biodiversity impacts. The term ‘Nature Positive’ is closely aligned with the goals of The Biodiversity Plan and refers to the concept of reversing the decline of nature by 2030. Biodiversity disclosure frameworks are emerging that support businesses to understand and reduce their impacts on biodiversity, often applying methods of Life Cycle Analysis. Nature Positive accounting has been proposed as a method to target net-positive biodiversity outcomes from an organisation’s operations. Yarra Valley Water have embarked on a journey to understand their own nature-related impacts, dependencies and opportunities, and how they could respond to these. The previous paper (Part 1) focused on their landholdings. Here we report on the Life Cycle Analysis carried out across their operations and supply chains to assess their biodiversity footprint and identify further opportunities to meet local and global biodiversity restoration needs in addition to operational requirements. A key finding was that equivalent environmental impacts from biodiversity loss are significantly larger than environmental impacts from greenhouse gas emissions. The methodology presented is replicable for a range of industries and will also contribute to potential nature-related disclosure reporting.