Tools for Measuring Corporate Impact on Ecosystems

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* Article: Measuring Corporate Impact on Ecosystems: A Comprehensive Review of New Tools”, a December 2008 report from Business for Social Responsibility (BSR).

URL = http://www.bsr.org/reports/BSR_EMI_Tools_Application.pdf

Description

Discussion

John Thackara:

"The Stern Review, and TEEB, provide new ways to measure the ecological impacts of economic activity on a large scale.

New tools are also nearly ready to help individual companies measure the impact of their day-to-day operations on ecosystems.

These tools are likely to be used, because companies anticipate increasing and more precise monitoring – not only of any pollution they might cause, but, more broadly, for positive or negative impacts on ecosystems in areas where they operate, or obtain resources.

Companies face not just regulation but indirect pressure, too, from investors, insurers, activists, employees or neighbourhood communities.

A variety of other tools is evaluated in “Measuring Corporate Impact on Ecosystems: A Comprehensive Review of New Tools”, a December 2008 report from Business for Social Responsibility (BSR).

In its introduction, BSR points out that one hundred years ago, we didn’t have the dozens of macroeconomic measures in use today. “The Great Depression presented circumstances that couldn’t be addressed without new tools and metrics. Today is an equivalent era for environmental issues”

The fascinating range of tools examined by BSR include

  1. Artificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services (ARIES);
  2. Ecosystem Services Review (ESR) ;
  3. Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI);
  4. Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT);
  5. Multi-scale Integrated Models of Ecosystem Services (MIMES);
  6. the Natural Value Initiative (NVI);

and so on – there are 30 in all."

(http://thackara.com/notopic/metrics-and-aesthetics/)