Biodiversity - a GRI Reporting Resource - Global Reporting Initiative

International Finance Corporation (IFC) Biodiversity Guide
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is the private sector arm of the World Bank Group.
Its mission is to promote sustainable private sector investment in developing countries, helping
to reduce poverty and improve people’s lives. IFC has developed A Guide to Biodiversity for the
Private Sector: Why Biodiversity Matters and How It Creates Business Value. This web-based
guide is designed to help organizations operating in emerging markets to better understand
their relationship to biodiversity issues and how they can effectively manage those issues to
improve business performance and benefit from biodiversity.
[http://www.ifc.org/BiodiversityGuide]
Millennium Development Goals (United Nations)
The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty
to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target
date of 2015 – form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading
development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of
the world’s poorest. The 7th Goal is to ensure environmental sustainability.
[http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals]
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA)
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) is an international initiative launched by the
United Nations and led by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the World
Resources Institute (WRI) to assess the conditions of the world’s ecosystems.
[http://www.millenniumassessment.org]
Public-private partnerships
Increasingly, partnerships arise between public and private parties. Multiple issues can be
addressed through such partnerships and the topic of biodiversity is one of them. Biodiversity
is a complex issue to deal with, especially when:
• operations are not limited to individual sites;
• activities are known for their potential negative impacts on biodiversity; or
• areas of high conservation value are not recognized.
A partnership can offer assistance by recording impacts and collecting information, developing
biodiversity management plans, performing impact assessments, or transferring knowledge.
36 © G R I 2 0 0 7