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The calculation method makes the ecological impacts of a company’s activities and value chain visible and, thus, enables actions to reduce negative effects. Based on this, the organisation can set a goal for itself and strive for no net loss, a state where the company’s overall operation does not cause any loss of biodiversity.

“The only way to stop biodiversity loss is to make ecological degradation visible and aim at minimising the biodiversity footprint down to zero. The broad range of the S Group’s activities offers us a good starting point for the development of a proper calculation method for biodiversity footprint, which is applicable to various types of companies and organisations,” says Janne Kotiaho, Director of JYU.Wisdom. The project applies the method to the biodiversity footprint of, for example, grocery stores, hotels, restaurants and service stations.

“Our long-term objective is that the calculation of ecological detriments would become mainstream and part of the profit and loss accounts of everybody with accounting obligation,” Kotiaho says.

Loss of biodiversity is not recognised in organisations

Carbon footprint calculation is already an established tool in estimating and decreasing the climate impacts of organisations. In contrast, there is lack of a similar, as widely understood and employed tool for environmental degradation. Loss of biodiversity is not yet recognised as comprehensively in organisations. It is particularly challenging to identify environmental degradation arising from a value chain, for example, from the purchases of products and services.

“In the S Group, we are very happy for this project,” says Nina Elomaa, Senior Vice President, Sustainability at SOK. “Indicators to recognise environmental degradation are needed urgently, so that we can understand the environmental harm of our entire value chain and set objectives to diminish it.”

The production of commodities, such as food and daily consumer goods, is based on land use, which has been identified as the globally most significant direct cause for environmental degradation. Along with the import and export streams of the international trade system, the indirect harmful effects of consumption are distributed across the world, even very far from the actual place of consumption.

Calculation reveals impacts on biodiversity

Alongside with the climate change, biodiversity loss and the deterioration of ecosystems are among the biggest global challenges for sustainability. Solving these issues calls for changes in consumption habits and operation models in all sectors of society. To improve our actions, it is essential to control and decrease detriments, which becomes possible when we know how our biodiversity footprint is formed. Therefore, the sustainability transition of an organisation always starts with the definition of the current situation.

In the calculation model to be developed in the project, the biodiversity impacts of activities are derived using financial accounts. This enables cost-effective calculation especially for the company’s procurement and the entire value chain. The four-year project in collaboration with the S Group and Sitra starts at the beginning of 2022, and it is based on knowhow previously developed and piloted in the Sustainability for JYU project that utilised the accounting of the Ģ��ֱ��.

More information: 
Doctoral Researcher Sami El Geneidy, sami.s.elgeneidy@jyu.fi, tel. +358 40 532 9892
Professor Janne Kotiaho, janne.kotiaho@jyu.fi, tel. +358 50 594 6881

See also the video below where Sami El Geneidy tells about the calculation method for biodiversity footprints: 

All  can be found on the Faculty of Mathematics and Science Youtube channel.