Climate change has long been in focus at the global level - the Paris Agreement's temperature targets provide clear guidance on what businesses should strive to achieve, and several reporting frameworks and regulatory frameworks are in place to manage the climate impact of businesses. Recently, there has been a growing interest in broadening the perspective to include other important environmental issues such as biodiversity and water use.
"Biodiversity has in many cases previously been talked about as a separate issue from the climate issue - now we see a clear trend, rapidly gaining ground, to rather discuss this as one and the same issue, more two sides of one coin," says Martin Hising, Head of Product and Business Information at Metria.
Climate puts pressure on biodiversity and affects conditions for biodiversity
"The obvious interpretation of the problem is that climate is putting pressure on biodiversity and affecting the conditions for biodiversity, but we also see clear evidence of a reverse effect where well-functioning ecosystems and high biodiversity act as resilience to climate change. This is both in terms of lowering their impact, such as effective carbon sinks, but also in mitigating the effects of climate change by offering increased protection against extreme weather in some cases, such as mangrove forests near coasts.
An extended biodiversity index in the context of operational systems
At Metria, we make many deliverables in nature and environment and look forward to offering even more value in this area in the coming years.
We are in the process of developing climate risks as a complement to our real estate information and we also see that we can really offer excellence in nature and environment as a next step to help meet the challenges our customers face.
An extended biodiversity index within the framework of an operational system is high on the priority list for 2023," says Martin.