A habitat‐based approach to reporting the direct impacts of an organization on biodiversity

There is a rapidly growing need for efficient but rigorous methods for organizations to assess and disclose their biodiversity impacts. We devised a habitat-based analytical approach for estimating the direct impacts of an organization on biodiversity. In our broad approach, we considered the time series of an organization's spatial footprint and assumed its biodiversity position was the accumulated positive and negative impacts over space and time. We demonstrated the approach by assessing the biodiversity position of CSIRO-Australia's national science agency, which has owned or controlled 50 sites across Australia since 1916, covering >460,000 ha. We applied 3 complementary habitat-based biodiversity indicators (effective habitat area, species extinction risk, and threatened species habitat), all with a fine resolution annual (1987-2023) time series of ecosystem condition as their basis. At the end of the most recent observation year, the CSIRO was in a negative biodiversity position in terms of all 3 biodiversity indicators. Over the time series considered, the activities of CSIRO were estimated to have led to an increase in the extinction risk for all native species by 1.0 species; a reduction in effective habitat area of 11,945 ha and a reduction in threatened species habitat of 22,307 species hectares (i.e., condition-weighted amount of habitat available to threatened species). Although the magnitude of the biodiversity position for CSIRO was strongly influenced by a single very large site (Murchison), the vast majority of the CSIRO sites were also in a negative position when considered separately. We demonstrated how future-looking scenario analysis can be linked with this biodiversity assessment approach, with a single natural regeneration action across the large Murchison site estimated to return CSIRO's biodiversity position close to neutral within 50 years.