About ELLA
Fostering collaboration with the business sector in lake and wetland regions
Companies have a considerable ecological impact on lakes and wetlands through the entirety of their functions, from their sourcing activities to transport or infrastructure. It is therefore of great importance to make the business sector aware of their effects, but also dependencies on freshwater ecosystems and their biodiversity and to work together to develop more sustainable practices
> Biodiversity Check as a Tool for Managing Businesses Impacts on Biodiversity
The Biodiversity Check was developed in 2010 to provide an initial orientation for assessing the biodiversity impacts of a company or individual corporate divisions. The check consists of an analysis of the risks for impacts on biodiversity, a participatory process with the company representatives and the development of recommendations for a Biodiversity Action Plan. The Biodiversity Check covers all the relevant areas of a company’s functions and value chain, from its strategy and management, to product development and production, to sales and marketing. This tool works with the information provided by the company as well from suppliers, local NGOs, open source databases, and studies and research results. This process includes legal requirements and recognized standards.
After undergoing the Biodiversity Check, the companies receive a report with the results of the analysis and proposals for an action plan that includes targets and measures to reduce risks and negative impacts, tailored to the company and its divisions. With the results of the Biodiversity Check, companies can initiate targeted measures to reduce negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems, or avoid them in the first place. This not only benefits nature, but also reduces risks, helps secure raw materials on the long term, reduces costs, increases employee motivation and contributes to fulfilling due diligence and legal requirements.
As an effective tool, the Biodiversity Check has been implemented with companies for more than 10 years. The aim of ELLA is to continue improving the methodology and to adapt it to lake regions, with a special interest on the agricultural, tourism and fishing sector.
You can also learn more about Business and Biodiversity visiting:
> Investing in Wetland Restoration through Carbon Insetting Projects
ELLA has also worked intensively on identifying collaboration options with companies to promote wetland restoration through Carbon insetting and water footprint compensation projects. Wetlands have a great potential to store carbon and so contribute to the mitigation of climate change impacts. Companies have to recognize their responsibility to compensate their GHG emissions and water use and ELLA aims to motivate them to engage in wetland restoration to achieve this.
You can read more about this in our:
If you are interested in learning more about business and biodiversity in Europe, please visit:
PLEASE CONTACT:
Global Nature Fund
Fritz-Reichle-Ring 4
78315 Radolfzell, Deutschland
gattenloehner@globalnature.org
Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CINEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
