How can businesses contribute to halting and reversing biodiversity loss? Welcome to the Home of Wisdom Coffee Conversations to learn more and discuss!
The biodiversity impacts of a chocolate cake: The opportunities and risks of using life cycle assessment tools to measure biodiversity impacts
There is an increasing expectation to monitor the biodiversity impacts of business activities and whole organisations' supply chains, as organisations start to engage with their biodiversity impacts. This is, however, a complicated challenge - given the complexity of both these corporate value chains and the difficulty in measuring biodiversity. Using the example of a chocolate cake, I will discuss how commonly used footprinting approaches for assessing biodiversity impact can be powerful tools for addressing this complexity, before discussing some of the uncertainties this introduces into analyses when trying to model biodiversity impacts. I will use the example to illustrate a series of recommendations on how to use these tools most effectively in environmental strategy design, and how these uncertainties can be embraced to make the most of these powerful tools.
About the presenter
Thomas White works part-time as a Research Fellow in the Nature Positive Hub at the University of Oxford, and as a Senior Principal Consultant for The Biodiversity Consultancy. He is a Visiting Fellow at the JYU Biodiversity Footprint Team, based here until November. His recent research has focussed in two major areas:
1) understanding how we can better engage, and improve the outcomes from private sector biodiversity management (from measuring impacts and setting targets, to taking effective action); and
2) how we can collect and better use evidence to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of actions to protect and restore biodiversity.
Join the event on-site or online
We encourage you to take a moment away from your desk and participate on-site at the Home of Wisdom within the C-building, where coffee and tea will be served and the discussion may continue after the event ends. However, remote participation is also possible. You are warmly welcome to join the event either way!
To join online, use the link below. In addition, use your own name as you join to be let in from the waiting room.
