IBAT and the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR)

January 27, 2022 /3BL Media/ - The Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT) is the world’s most authoritative biodiversity tool, developed and maintained by Birdlife International, The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, UN Environment Programme - World Conservation Monitoring Centre and Conservation International. IBAT currently supports 10,000 users across 150 companies around the world to perform biodiversity assessments and screen the risk of impacting biodiversity across their portfolios or operations

The European Union’s new Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) came into effect in March 2021. The SFDR sets out progressive disclosure obligations around biodiversity (among 43 mandatory items) for asset managers and other financial actors. Over the next two years, companies will need to drastically enhance their understanding of biodiversity across both the entity and product levels.

The first aspect of biodiversity disclosure focusses on biodiversity and ecosystem preservation practices. This includes disclosing:

1. Share of all investments in investee companies that do not assess, monitor or control the pressures corresponding to the indirect and direct drivers of biodiversity and ecosystem change

2. Share of all investee companies that that do not assess, monitor or control the pressures corresponding to the indirect and direct drivers of biodiversity and ecosystem change

The new IUCN STAR Metric, is available through IBAT as a screening report, which will enable users to identify specific actions in specific places that have the potential to quantifiably benefit globally-threatened species. Use of STAR can enable investee companies to assess, monitor or control their contribution to pressures on biodiversity. Investors can thereby evaluate the extent to which investee companies have complied with the requirement through their use of STAR to assess, monitor or control their contribution to pressures on biodiversity.

The second aspect of SFDR disclosure is around natural (Threatened) species and protected areas:

1.Share of investments invested in investee companies whose operations affect IUCN Red List species and/or national conservation list species

2. Share of investments in investee companies with operational sites owned, leased, managed in, or adjacent to, protected areas and areas of high biodiversity value outside protected areas

As the sole data provider of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, World Database on Protected Areas and World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas (i.e. areas of high biodiversity value) for commercial users, IBAT is uniquely positioned to inform companies around this item of disclosure. IBAT users can generate bespoke reports to screen specific projects and download raw data for additional in-house analyses.

For more information about how IBAT can help your business, please contact ibat@ibat-alliance.org