A new white paper, co-authored by the consulting firm Tunley Environmental and the pharmaceutical company Bespak, argues that companies must move their sustainability efforts beyond a narrow focus on climate-only metrics and programs to also include biodiversity concerns.
“The Implementation of Biodiversity Footprinting: Examining Supply Chains” asserts that biodiversity is important not only to environmental and human health but also to industrial resilience and economic stability. For example, 60% pharmaceuticals originate from biological sources. However, the pharmaceutical industry’s actions often contribute to biodiversity loss—threatening the future supply of these sources—by causing land degradation, overharvesting, pollution, and habitat destruction.
The white paper introduces Supply Chain Biodiversity Footprinting (SCBF), a methodology for quantifying, disclosing, and mitigating the effects that a product or economic activity has on global biodiversity. This involves considering such factors such as land use and land use change (for example going from forest to farmland); eutrophication (nutrient overload in water bodies that can cause algal blooms and oxygen loss); the effects of pollutants on plants, animals, and ecosystems; water stress; and climate-related habitat disruption.
One key metric, according to the report, is “species.yr,” which measures the potential loss of species diversity due to supply chain activities over a year. The metric quantifies the impact on biodiversity from key environmental change drivers (such as habitat destruction, freshwater acidification, climate change impacts, and pollution) as a fraction of species affected annually.
The authors—Tara Garraty, senior scientist and biodiversity lead at Tunley Environmental, and Benedicta A. Bakpa, head of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) at Bespak—say that the methodology can help inform strategic decisions, such as who and where to source from; what materials, tools and processes to use in manufacturing; and where to locate supply chain facilities. SCBF can also support compliance with regulations such as the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and help companies identify where they have the most potential to advance their own environmental goals.
While the white paper focuses on the pharmaceutical industry and includes a case study from Bespak, its principles are applicable for other industries with complex supply chains, such as food, apparel, chemical, and manufacturing.
