Business for Biodiversity: T-Labs for social-ecological change

A new EU directive (ESRS E4) obliges companies to disclose the impact of their procurement, production and sales on biodiversity and to list associated risks and opportunities. The new regulation is particularly challenging for small to medium-sized companies. However, it also offers an opportunity to promote social-ecological change within the economic sector. Now, in order to bring about true change, companies’ employees will have to put the new legal obligations into practice. Successful learning processes are a prerequisite here, as are the development of new skills and a growing awareness of the importance of biodiversity.

And this is where our project comes in: In so-called Transformation Labs (T-Labs) we closely cooperate with companies from the food sector to explore how they can effectively design and implement measures to promote biodiversity. To this end, we combine natural and social science methods such as impact assessments, surveys, interviews, and workshops. Together with the companies and their employees, the project aims to open up new ways of thinking and spaces for transformative change with the aim of achieving biodiversity-friendly procurement, production and distribution in the German food industry.

Research approach

The research design comprises several consecutive steps and is both designed to gain scientific knowledge and to develop practical solutions for companies. From a natural science perspective, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center (SBiK-F), together with Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), is in a first step evaluating criteria and indicators for measuring the effects of corporate practices in the food industry on biodiversity.

ISOE is investigating these transformation processes in companies from a social science point of view. Its focus is on the employees' options for action. In a next step, we cooperate with companies in order to find out whether and how the implementation of these standards leads to employees changing their assessment of biodiversity. We are analyzing the effects of implementation both quantitatively in the food industry as a whole and qualitatively in six selected companies. Based on these findings, we are setting up so-called Transformation Labs (T-Labs) in three companies. The aim of these T-Labs is to promote an awareness of the importance of biodiversity with the help of transdisciplinary learning processes involving scientists and companies’ employees and to identify starting points that positively influence corporate biodiversity-friendly action.

Background

Companies can make a significant contribution to the conservation of biodiversity. This also applies to the food industry. Their procurement, production and distribution are largely dependent on the quality of biodiversity, and vice versa. Accordingly, there is great potential for preserving biodiversity by changing business practices and also for increasing the competitiveness of companies, as investors are, for example increasingly demanding that companies present the impact of their processes on biodiversity in a transparent manner. The research project accompanies the Europe-wide, regulation-driven transformation process initiated by the introduction of the European Sustainability Reporting Standard ESRS E4. Due to its novelty, this has hardly been researched to date. The research project is thus breaking new ground: It offers new scientific findings firstly on the effectiveness of instruments for measuring the food industry’s impact on biodiversity and secondly on the companies’ biodiversity-friendly actions that can be strengthened beyond the reporting obligation through internal measures such as training courses.

Cooperation partners 

  • Prof. Dr. Katrin Böhning-Gaese, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ 
  • Dr. Alke Voskamp, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (SBiK-F)
  • Dr. Thomas Kastner, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (SBiK-F)

Funding 

VW Foundation, Pioneer Project - Societal Transformations

Duration

2024/07 – 2027/06