Interim report of the CSS Working Group "Biodiversity and Financial Markets"

7 March 2022, by CSS

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In December 2020, the Center for Sustainable Society Research (CSS) approved the establishment of the Working Group "Biodiversity and Financial Markets". The Working Group investigates the relationship between emerging biodiversity risks, disclosure of biodiversity impacts in corporate non-financial reporting, and perceived risk by equity and debt investors. In particular, the Working Group's research focuses on the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) part of investments, as the "E" has recently often been limited to issues related to climate change.

Could measures to implement the objectives of the Working Group already be implemented or has the objective changed during the funding period?

In 2021, the Working Group conducted extensive research on the current landscape of biodiversity reporting by companies around the world. This involved analyzing and assessing a large sample of sustainability reports across multiple years and countries (approximately 14,000 reports were analyzed via text analysis and pre-selected for manual content analysis, which will be done for approximately 3,000 reports in 44 countries).

What is the significance of the interim results of the Working Group for research in this field?

Preliminary results show that both the quantity and quality of biodiversity reporting is heterogeneous across sectors and companies. This study is the first to analyze biodiversity reporting on a large and global scale.

What is the significance of the interim results for the sustainable development of society?

Due to a currently ongoing update process in the area of biodiversity reporting, the study could have a direct influence on this process if published in time. This could have an influence on future reporting and thus on what information is conveyed in the future through sustainability reports with reference to biodiversity.

You can find out more about the Working Group "Biodiversity and Financial Markets" here.