A benchmark of 30 major European businesses finds most companies only have vague nature targets<\/p>\n
Dutch coffee company JDE Peet\u2019s, French food business Danone and retailer Carrefour have emerged as the European companies doing the best job of managing risks related to biodiversity, in an analysis by the Dutch Association of Investors for Sustainable Development (VBDO) and PwC Netherlands. <\/p>\n
The first edition of the Business & Biodiversity Benchmark examines 30 European companies across the food and beverage, extractives and pharmaceuticals sectors. These were identified as high-impact and high-dependency segments by a 2023 analysis<\/a> from the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation.<\/p>\n The benchmark evaluates how companies integrate biodiversity into their strategies, policies, action and implementation frameworks, and targets and metrics.<\/p>\n While awareness of biodiversity has grown substantially among European companies, integrating it into business strategy and measurable targets remains limited, the data shows.<\/p>\n Of the 30 companies included in the benchmark, 22 (73 per cent) identified biodiversity as a material topic in 2024 \u2014 up from 14 companies (47 per cent) in their 2023 annual reports.<\/p>\n Risk avoidance tendency<\/p>\n Despite this, only half of the companies were found to have biodiversity transition plans in place. The report finds that targets remain vague in most companies, often relying on broad terms such as \u201cno net loss\u201d without clear baselines, timelines or measurable indicators. <\/p>\n Just a small group of frontrunners \u2014 including JDE Peet\u2019s, Danone and Carrefour \u2014 use biodiversity indicators that are specific, comparable and capable of tracking progress meaningfully.<\/p>\n Additionally, only a minority explicitly link biodiversity to their core business models, value chains or dependencies, the assessment finds. <\/p>\n The report says that corporate policies continue to focus primarily on \u201crisk avoidance rather than long-term value creation\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThis benchmark shows that companies recognise the risk, but very few translate this into real, measurable outcomes,\u201d VBDO executive director Ang\u00e9lique Laskewitz said in a statement.<\/p>\n According to the assessment, companies in the food and beverage and extractives sectors generally show \u201cmore mature approaches to biodiversity management\u201d than businesses in other industries. The report links this finding to the direct interaction of these companies with nature and related regulatory requirements such as the EU\u2019s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the EU Deforestation Regulation.<\/a><\/p>\n Biodiversity was considered a material issue by more than 90 per cent of companies in the food and beverage and extractives sectors, compared with 40 per cent of pharmaceutical companies. Eighty-seven per cent of food and beverage companies had also assessed their impacts on biodiversity.<\/p>\n The report finds that food and beverage companies perform significantly better in assessing biodiversity-related physical, transition and systemic risks across their operations and value chains, with an average score of 53 per cent \u2014 more than double that of pharmaceuticals (25 per cent) and extractives (26 per cent).<\/p>\n In addition, a number of food and beverage companies are taking steps to address high-impact value chains \u2014 such as coffee, cocoa, palm oil, sugar cane, soya and wood fibre \u2014 with the aim of reducing deforestation and land conversion.<\/p>\n Carrefour, for example, has restricted the sourcing of at-risk raw materials and has set objectives and action plans for each commodity. A dedicated forest committee in the company oversees these initiatives and advises on priorities and project funding.<\/p>\n However, the food and beverage sector lags behind the extractives industry in terms of consulting with communities and on policies addressing \u201csocial consequences\u201d, such as grievance mechanisms, engagement with Indigenous peoples and local communities, and commitments to free, prior and informed consent.<\/p>\n Biodiversity disclosure remains weak <\/p>\n While the three sectors in the study show rising recognition of biodiversity, EU-level data by the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group, the EU\u2019s technical adviser on sustainability reporting, indicates that this is not the norm across all industries. <\/p>\n According to Efrag data based on the second wave of reports under the CSRD filed between January and April 2025, just 39 per cent of companies considered biodiversity material and 30 per cent disclosed any biodiversity metrics. Among those that did, reporting was minimal, averaging around four metrics a company.<\/p>\n A separate analysis published in July by researchers behind the open-science platform Sustainability Reporting Navigator shows limited progress on biodiversity over the past decade. <\/p>\n The study, which reviewed sustainability reports from 2014 to 2023 for Europe\u2019s 600 largest listed companies, finds that the average number of biodiversity indicators disclosed in 2023 was just 0.66, up only marginally from 0.45 in 2014. Over the same period, the number of climate change indicators more than doubled.<\/p>\n