The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) announced the launch of “ISO 17298: Biodiversity for organizations,” a new standard aimed at helping organizations to assess and address their biodiversity impacts, dependencies, risks and opportunities.
According to ISO, the new standard comes amidst growing regulatory, reputational, and operational pressures from increasing biodiversity risks, with $44 trillion, or over half of global GDP, moderately or highly dependent on nature.
As pressure increases, and as companies integrate biodiversity considerations into organizational strategies and operations, however, the lack of a common biodiversity framework “has contributed to fragmented approaches and growing confusion as nature-related risks and expectations increase,” according to Noelia Garcia Nebra, ISO Head of Sustainability and Partnerships, with the new standard aimed at addressing the gap, “by offering a structured roadmap that enables organizations to assess biodiversity-related impacts and consider these effectively in their strategies.”
Garcia Nebra added:
“The standard embeds biodiversity into core governance and risk management practices – not just sustainability reporting – ensuring alignment with global expectations and organizational operations.”
ISO said that the new standard will help organizations to assess how their activities interact with biodiversity, prioritize actions at both operational and landscape levels, set measurable objectives and monitor progress, and integrate biodiversity into broader sustainability efforts.
ISO’s new biodiversity standard was developed by a technical committee bringing together experts from over 60 countries, and including the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) as a liaison organization to the committee.
TNFD Technical Director, Emily McKenzie, said:
“The TNFD is pleased to have supported ISO with the development of this important standard, building from its recommendations and guidance of the TNFD LEAP (Locate, Evaluate, Assess, and Prepare) approach. ISO 17298 will help as an international standard in further harmonizing concepts, definitions and approaches, and supporting organisations to consider nature-related issues in their strategy and operations.”
In addition to the TNFD, ISO said that the new standard was designed to be interoperable with other frameworks and initiatives including the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as ISO standards 14001 Environmental management systems and 26000 social responsibility, and that it contributes directly to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
ISO Director of Standardization, Marco Rossi, said:
“ISO 17298 is suitable for a wide range of users, from SMEs and large corporates to public institutions and cities. It supports the production of credible, comparable biodiversity data that can inform investment decisions, improve disclosure, and unlock access to nature-positive economy and biodiversity-linked markets.”
ISO added that the new release marks the beginning of a broader suite of biodiversity standards, with future work focused on areas including standards on vocabulary, biodiversity net gain, and characterization of products based on native species, among others.
Click here to access the new ISO biodiversity standard.
