Evaluating biodiversity in natural infrastructure projects

Project Overview

The ongoing biodiversity crisis necessitates a fundamental shift in how we manage resources and conduct economic development. While nature-based solutions are growing in popularity, we don’t have clear answers on how infrastructure development affects biodiversity. That’s where this team comes in.

An interdisciplinary collaboration stemming from the Network for Engineering With Nature (N-EWN) Biodiversity Working Group, this project aims to create “biodiversity scorecards” for use in infrastructure development and corporate operations management.

gray bird on ground near water

why a biodiversity scorecard?

photo of the manhattan bridge in new york city

The Challenge

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)’s Kunming-Montreal post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework calls for transformative societal change wherein biodiversity and ecosystems are considered throughout economic decision-making.

Biodiversity-positive infrastructure development, nature-based solutions, and corporate sustainability initiatives all demand robust frameworks for biodiversity accounting. Unless we can quantify and compare the impacts on and benefits to global biodiversity at both product and supply-chain scales, we can’t yet involve biodiversity in decision making for infrastructure projects.

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