Corporate Fields of Action
Fields of action can be identified and set by analysing where a company’s activities have either direct or indirect influence on biodiversity. The spatial relation to biological diversity is intuitively connected to the sites and facilities field of action. Corporate activities influence biodiversity in other ways though as well.
Sites and Facilities
The construction and use of office buildings, production halls or car parks change the existing habitat and affect biodiversity. This applies to both manufacturing and service industries. The area used by the fishing, farming and forest industries is included in the list of sites. Facilities can be greenhouse gas sinks or sources. For instance, if a wetland is to be used as a company site and is drained and dried, greenhouse gases will be emitted into the air. Similarly, clear cutting a section of forest destroys a natural CO2 sink. In the initial transformation of raw materials to useable construction materials, extracting rock from quarries or ploughing grasslands heavily impact plant and animal habitats.
Best Practice Examples: TUI – Environmentally friendly construction at the Robinson Club
Through regional-specific design and ecological pest controls at hotel facilities, Robinson is contributing to the protection of native animal and plants species at its various vacation destinations.
Best Practice Examples: Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance – Green oasis on the rooftop in a megacity
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance constructed a rooftop garden on top of its head office in central Tokyo. Comprising over 7000 m² of green space, the garden provides a safe place for wild birds and is integrated in an ecological network of green public areas.
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co., Ltd.
Best Practice Examples: Axel Springer – Environmental ground care protects biodiversity and lowers maintenance costs
Axel Springer showed that economics and ecology are not mutually exclusive when they redesigned the company grounds at their printing facility in Ahrensburg. An award-winning renaturation programme lowered the maintenance costs while increasing the ecological value of the grounds.
Axel Springer AG
Product Design
Depending on product or service design, the final product will have a greater or lesser impact on biodiversity. Negative impacts can be reduced in a number of ways, including changing the service design or by substituting, reducing and recycling materials used in the production. Positive effects can also be created by using raw materials in products that contribute to the conservation of biological diversity, such as the use of older types of grain or juices from traditional mixed-crop orchards. This creates the possibility for innovation and product differentiation in market competition.
Product design can also be more than eco-design, especially when it is a part of “cause-related marketing,” a method that enables the manufacturer to combine products sales with donations for specific projects. Consumer protection aspects can also be combined with biodiversity protection.
Best Practice Examples: TUI – Environmentally conscientious travellers participate in volunteer vacations
The emotional character of biodiversity offers a great opportunity for businesses. For example, in the i-to-i trips offered by TUI, guests wanting to combine travel with a commitment to the environment or social issues can participate in volunteer trips and become actively involved in wildlife conservation projects protecting turtles or elephants.
Best Practice Examples: Sumitomo Trust and Banking – Development of financial products considering biodiversity
Sumitomo Trust & Banking has launched a loan product that applies a preferential lending rate to enterprises with a high environmental rating. This rating is based on a bank analysis that includes biodiversity as a criterion. Furthermore, Sumitomo is scheduled to launch the new Sustainable & Responsible Investment (SRI) fund of Japanese equities, which only includes shares in companies taking care of biodiversity.
Best Practice Examples: Mori Building - Green structuring of public places
In the Toranomon and Roppongi areas of Tokyo, Mori Building is remediating intensively used land. With the concept “life surrounded by nature in the heart of the city” the Japanese company creates public areas and green spaces, revitalizing nature in the city by providing native species with natural vegetation. This project was the first in Japan to obtain the highest possible rating in the Japan Habitat Evaluation and Certification Program (JHEP).
Personnel
A sustainable biodiversity management system will be all the more successful when the employees are convinced of it and are allowed to actively take part in achieving its goals. They are the ones who are taking the decisions on a day-to-day basis and who are implementing management strategies.
In addition, employees volunteering time help protect biological diversity. When the necessary structures are created and volunteer programmes are promoted, it can strengthen employee corporate identity.
Best Practice Examples: UPM-Kymmene – Biodiversity training
In order to conserve and increase biological diversity in the company’s own forests, this Finnish forestry company has developed a global biodiversity programme. This programme involves training for all woodcutters and forest managers, focusing on what makes a habitat valuable, how it can be protected and how this can take place as part of a sustainable forestry management programme.
Best Practice Examples: TUI – Environment-related training for tourism managers
A continual education topic at TUI is the “Environment”. With a permanent employee training program, the TUI tourism managers receive training about environmental and species protection activities at the company.
Best Practice Examples: Mars Inc. – Employees as “sustainability messengers”
Educating the employees to be messengers for sustainability is one of the Mars’ goals in addition to creating a sense of environmental responsibility. Together with the classic location and process-related aspects, employees learning about the global linkages as relates to raw materials procurement, focussing especially on cocoa.
Supply chains, commodities and materials
The types of commodities and raw materials used also impact biodiversity. For example the acquisition of minerals, energy, agricultural products, fish, wood, medicinal herbs or plants – genetically modified or not – impacts regions that often do not belong to the businesses benefiting from them. Such unintended consequences can be reduced or avoided altogether by implementing the appropriate supply chain management. The supply chain management is the starting point for regulating extraction methods as well as the quantity and quality of purchased materials. Similarly, this approach is applicable to the service sector. To a great extent this industry also uses raw materials such as paper and goods whose production can positively or negatively impact biodiversity.
Best Practice Examples: Sekisui House Ltd. – Indigenous plants for humans and animals
Sekisui House Ltd. promotes the “Gohon no ki” gardening concept, which is designed to help maintain ecosystems by planting indigenous trees to attract local wildlife. Planting trees not only improves the aesthetics of the property, but it attracts wild birds and butterflies - creating a small ecosystem. This supports a network for interacting with the surrounding natural environment and has a positive effect on the quality of life for the local residents.
SEKISUI HOUSE, Ltd.
Best Practice Examples: Weleda – Supply of sustainable raw materials
This producer of medicines and natural cosmetic products extracts its herbal raw materials largely from controlled organic cultivation or from certified wild plant collecting and integrates nature-orientated elements into its cultivable land. In order to ensure a long-term supply of wild plants, Weleda promotes the conservation of natural habitats through extensive care.
Best Practice Examples: Otto Group – Supply chain management
The Otto Group shows how commercial enterprises can have a positive impact on raw material production. For example, the company promotes the sustainable production of cotton in Africa by controlling its product line and ecologically managing their supply chain. In addition, for the production of furniture, the Otto Group procures its wood using a strategy that hinders the use of endangered wood species and timber illegally logged from forests.
Additional information about Supply chains, commodities and materials
Production and manufacturing processes
Resource consumption and emissions, such as waste water, airborne pollutants or greenhouse gas, are generally hazardous for biological diversity. Therefore, optimising production processes is usually an effective contribution to protecting biodiversity. Improved process design can also reduce the necessary net input of raw materials and energy, often resulting in lower production costs.
Best Practice Examples: Audi AG – Lowering water use
Water is essential for life – and it is a scarce good. In order to decrease the use of water, Audi recycles 96% of the water needed in its plant in Ingolstadt. It also gathers rainwater in underground cisterns and collecting tanks, which, over the last 20 years, has lowered the amount of water required per auto by almost 70%.
Best Practice Examples: Saraya Co., Ltd. – New processing technique leads to better, more biodegradable products
Saraya, a Japanese producer of hygiene products, developed a new fermentation process to fabricate surfactants from sustainable palm oil. The process allows the production of detergents which have better degradability than conventional market alternatives. This results in sustainable cleaning agents with less environmental contamination.
Best Practice Examples: Native Organics’ new production systems increase the biodiversity on their sugarcane farms
As a Brazilian producer of organic sugar, Native Organics developed a new production system, based on “green” cane harvesting in contrast to traditional burnt cane harvesting. Together with organic cultivation the new system leads to biodiversity levels 23 times higher than in conventional sugarcane farms.
Native Organics
Additional information about Production and manufacturing processes
Transport and Logistics
Transporting raw materials and manufactured products as well as business travels leads to the emission of greenhouse gases and dust. Transportation infrastructure can fragment habitats, reducing their functionality and impeding natural genetic exchange. Furthermore, increasing goods transportation enables non-native species to invade new habitats, thereby displacing species native to the area.
Best Practice Examples: HiPP GmbH & Co. KG – CO2 accounting analysis of the whole product cycle
An example of a sustainability indicator is a company’s CO2 footprint, which HiPP has introduced for its baby food product, “Pure Early Carrots”. They used the following indicators in their calculation: raw material production, the availability of adjuvants and packaging, energy consumption in production, transport, the use by the customers as well as disposal or recycling of waste. This forms the basis for carrying out a CO2 accounting analysis of the whole product cycle.
