What We Learned Reviewing a Biodiversity Assessment Against ISO 17298:2025

As carbon accountants and sustainability consultants, much of our work to date has focused on greenhouse gas emissions - measuring them, managing them, and helping organisations reduce them. Biodiversity hasn’t traditionally been front and centre in that work.

Recently, we were asked to review a company’s biodiversity impact assessment and report, specifically looking at its alignment with ISO 17298:2025. It was our first time working deeply with a biodiversity-focused standard, and the process highlighted several useful lessons that we think are worth sharing.

1. It’s a Framework, Not a Reporting Standard

One of the first things that stood out is that ISO 17298 is not a reporting standard in the same way as ISO 14064-1:2018.

Instead, it provides a framework for integrating biodiversity into business strategy and operations. That distinction matters.

It means:

• There is more flexibility in how organisations apply it

• But more ambiguity, especially for first-time users.

From a review perspective, this makes consistency and structure even more important.

2. Repeatability Matters More Than Perfection

One of the main focuses in the review was not whether the assessment was “perfect,” but whether it was repeatable year-on-year.

For biodiversity to become meaningful to your organisation, the process needs to be reproducible. You need to be able to compare initiatives against each other and track performance over time.

This process will naturally evolve as your understanding of the standard - and how it applies to your business – improves.

In practice, this means building a structure that allows you to:

• Reassess impacts regularly

• Track improvements

• Focus on the areas of highest impact first.

An imperfect but repeatable process is far more valuable than a one-off, highly detailed assessment that sits on a shelf. This is also how you avoid the classic “set and forget” trap.

3. Document the Process — Not Just the Outcome

A common gap is a lack of process documentation. It might seem trivial, but writing a clear SOP or management procedure becomes your “recipe” for future assessments.

It also becomes a bit of an insurance policy - capturing knowledge on paper rather than in someone’s brain. This document will be very much appreciated during times of staff change over and reduces the risk of one person knowing everything and then leaving!

Aim to capture:

• How impacts were identified

• What assumptions were made

• What questions were asked

• How decisions were reached.

As with the principles in ISO 14064, where transparency and auditability are key. Without this, it becomes difficult to improve the process over time.

4. Start Small - But Start

There is a steep learning curve when first engaging with any standard. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and delay action.

Making small, structured steps in the right direction is far better than doing nothing. Even an early-stage biodiversity assessment has value if it links business activities to biodiversity impacts and builds awareness internally in your business.

A practical starting point is to look at your day-to-day operations and ask:

• Where do we interact with land, water, or ecosystems?

• What activities could be causing harm or creating positive impact?

From there, the process can mature over time.

5. Targets and Indicators Must Be Measurable

As with carbon accounting, what gets measured gets managed. Biodiversity targets and indicators need to be:

• Defined

• Measurable

• Trackable.

Without this, you may struggle to demonstrate progress, prioritise your actions, or effectively communicate your goals with stakeholders (which include your staff).

6. Using your biodiversity data for positive change

Collecting and analysing biodiversity data is only the first step. The next step is turning that data into something that informs decisions.

If you follow the standard you should end up with information that outlines clear risks, opportunities and priorities. The actionable strategic insights that come from these can be incorporated into:

• Business decision making

• Operational processes

• Company values and culture.

This is what ultimately drives improved outcomes—for biodiversity and for the business.

Final Thoughts

Reviewing this biodiversity assessment pushed us outside our usual carbon focused lens and highlighted how much overlap there is between emissions accounting and broader environmental management.

Biodiversity could be (and arguably should be) the next frontier after carbon. Most organisations might not understand the detail, but the key message is to start and improve as you go.

We are still early in our journey with biodiversity standards, so we’d be keen to hear from others working in this space - particularly around how you approach the standard and embedding the learnings into your business so that it has positive outcomes in the business.