Companies should collect biodiversity data in layers, starting with the suppliers, products, commodities and sourcing places most likely to affect nature. The core record combines who and what is being supplied, where activities occur, which pressures they create, what happens to ecosystems and species, which ecosystem services and people are affected, and how reliable the evidence is.
Do not send every supplier the same exhaustive questionnaire. Screen the value chain first, document why priorities were chosen, then obtain precise primary evidence from the suppliers and origins with the most significant actual or potential impacts. Use modeled or secondary data to scope broad chains and fill gaps, but label the dataset, assumptions, uncertainty and improvement plan.
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What a supplier biodiversity dataset must answer
A useful dataset lets a company connect a product or service to an activity and a place, then connect that place to pressures on nature and measurable outcomes. It should also show the boundary of the assessment: which tiers, products, countries and facilities are covered, what is excluded, and whether each value is primary, secondary or modeled.
GRI 101: Biodiversity 2024 states that an organization should “explain how it has determined which of its sites and which products and services in its supply chain have the most significant actual and potential impacts on biodiversity.” The standard replaced GRI 304: Biodiversity 2016 and provides the most detailed structure for supplier impact disclosures in the guidance considered here (GRI 101: Biodiversity 2024).
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Supplier, product and scope identifiers
Begin with identifiers that allow every later measurement to be joined to the correct transaction or activity:
- Legal supplier name, facility or operating unit, and a stable internal supplier ID.
- Product, material, service, commodity code and description, including relevant processing steps.
- Tier and relationship: direct supplier, processor, trader, farm, fishery, mine, carrier or another upstream actor.
- Volumes, units, reporting period and, where useful for screening, spend.
- Countries, jurisdictions and activities covered; tiers not yet mapped; exclusions; assumptions; and the reason for each boundary.
- Evidence type for every important field: supplier measurement, company fieldwork, satellite observation, certification record, geospatial layer, life-cycle assessment, trade dataset or model output.
Include suppliers beyond tier one whenever a material impact occurs upstream. Spend or volume can help rank work, but neither is a substitute for ecological significance: a small volume from a highly sensitive location may deserve more attention than a large volume from a lower-risk setting.
Origin, location and traceability
Location is foundational because the same activity can have very different consequences in different ecosystems. Capture the place where the supplier activity occurs, not merely a corporate headquarters or billing address.
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- Country or jurisdiction for each priority product, service and origin.
- Traceability level: country, region, local area, named facility, farm, vessel, concession or another specific source.
- Coordinates, maps or polygon boundaries when available, with the date and method used to obtain them.
- Processing and aggregation points, so a final product is not mistaken for a single ecological origin.
- Known uncertainty, such as a country-level proxy used because farm-level records are unavailable.
Overlay priority locations with areas important for biodiversity, places of high ecosystem integrity or rapid ecosystem decline, high physical water risk, and areas where ecosystem services are particularly important to Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Record the layer name, version or date and the matching rule used. A sourcing region or country may be used as a location proxy when exact origin is unavailable, but the proxy and its limitations must be explicit.
Which biodiversity pressures to measure
For priority products and services, organize pressure data around four categories. Report the relevant fields by country or jurisdiction and explain the method and assumptions.
Land and sea-use change
- Area of natural ecosystem converted or degraded, with units and reporting period.
- Date or date range of conversion.
- Ecosystem type before and after the change.
- Whether the change is associated with cultivation, grazing, forestry, infrastructure, aquaculture, coastal development or another activity.
- Evidence of restoration, conservation or avoided conversion, with the boundary and status of each claim.
Do not treat an unverified “deforestation-free” statement as a complete biodiversity result. The record should show the mapped area, baseline, verification method and any unresolved locations.
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Exploitation of natural resources
- Wild species harvested, caught or collected; taxonomic level; quantities; and units.
- Harvest or extraction location, season and method where material.
- Extinction-risk category or another recognized conservation status for affected species.
- Water withdrawal and consumption, source, volume, return flow and reporting period.
- Resource-management controls, quotas or restoration actions relevant to the activity.
Species data should be specific enough to identify the affected population where that distinction matters. A commodity label such as “seafood” or “timber” is not a substitute for species, origin and harvest method.
Pollution
- Pollutant type, quantity, medium and release pathway.
- Discharge, emission or application location and date.
- Relevant substances such as nutrients, pesticides, sediment, plastics, heavy metals or other contaminants, depending on the activity.
- Receiving ecosystem, treatment performance and compliance evidence where applicable.
Connect releases to the ecosystem that can be affected. A total mass reported at a corporate level may hide a concentrated discharge near a sensitive wetland or river.
Invasive alien species
- Known or potential invasive species associated with the product, vessel, shipment, water intake or production system.
- Introduction pathway, treatment or biosecurity control.
- Location, date and evidence of an introduction or established population.
If no material pathway is identified, record the screening method rather than leaving the field blank. This distinguishes “not applicable after assessment” from “not investigated.”
Measure ecosystem condition, extent and species outcomes
Pressure indicators show what an activity does; outcome data show the state of the affected ecosystem. For each ecosystem potentially affected, collect:
- Ecosystem classification and size for a stated baseline year.
- Condition at baseline and in the current reporting period.
- The condition methodology, indicators, spatial unit and threshold used.
- Measured change versus modeled or inferred change.
- Habitat change, fragmentation or connectivity where relevant.
Where species are material, add species identity, extinction risk, population size or a defensible proxy, and habitat change. State whether a value was measured in the field, derived from monitoring or estimated from a model.
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Attribution needs care. A decline observed around a sourcing area can have cumulative causes, including other suppliers, public infrastructure and climate effects. Report the association and the method used to assess contribution; do not imply that one buyer caused all observed ecosystem change.
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Record ecosystem services and affected people
Nature-related impacts matter partly because ecosystems provide services to people. Identify services affected or potentially affected and explain the mechanism and direction of change.
- Provisioning: food, freshwater, timber, fibers or medicinal resources.
- Regulating: flood control, water purification, erosion control, pollination, carbon storage or temperature regulation.
- Cultural: spiritual, recreational, identity, educational or heritage values.
Name the beneficiaries or affected groups where appropriate, including Indigenous Peoples, local communities, workers, municipalities and other organizations. Explain, for example, how water withdrawal could reduce downstream availability, or how habitat conversion could affect customary harvests. Follow applicable consent, privacy and data-governance requirements when recording community information.
Ask about management and data quality
A supplier questionnaire should collect management information alongside impact measurements:
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- Traceability coverage, unresolved origins and the plan to improve them.
- Monitoring frequency, indicators, quality controls and independent verification.
- Certification scheme and the criteria it actually covers.
- Engagement with affected stakeholders and grievance or remedy processes.
- Source, collection date, geography, method, assumptions, confidence and known limitations for each dataset.
- Planned improvements, owner and target date for closing each material gap.
Certification can be useful evidence, but a certificate is not a substitute for describing its scope, criteria, chain-of-custody coverage and remaining risks.
How to prioritize suppliers before requesting detailed data
Use a documented, risk-based sequence rather than demanding the same dataset from every vendor.
- Screen the portfolio. Map product lines, supplier activities, commodities and sourcing regions. Resources that can support initial screening include ENCORE, the SBTN Materiality Screening Tool and the SBTN High Impact Commodity List.
- Locate ecological sensitivity. Check proximity to important biodiversity areas, high-integrity or rapidly declining ecosystems, threatened species habitat, high physical water risk and places where communities depend heavily on ecosystem services.
- Score significance. Consider severity and likelihood. Severity can be described through scale, scope and irremediable character: how intense the change is, how widely it extends and how difficult it is to reverse.
- Set a priority list. Combine ecological significance with practical factors such as volume, spend, influence and data availability. Keep the ecological rationale visible so commercial size does not dominate the decision.
- Escalate evidence. Request precise primary data from the highest-priority suppliers and origins first. Use progressively better location and outcome data as significance warrants.
- Document the boundary. If the chain is too broad to map immediately, publish the scoping approach, exclusions, assumptions and next steps instead of presenting partial coverage as comprehensive.
Keep a versioned prioritization register. When a new origin, species listing or ecosystem-sensitivity layer changes the assessment, record the reason for reprioritization.
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Primary, secondary and modeled data: when each is appropriate
Primary evidence is generally most useful for high-priority suppliers: supplier surveys with supporting records, field surveys, facility measurements and satellite-derived observations tied to a known site. Precise coordinates improve the ability to compare an activity with sensitive areas and ecosystem condition.
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| Method | Best use | What to disclose | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supplier or field evidence | Priority origins, facilities and measurable management outcomes | Collector, date, site, protocol, quality checks and verification | Coverage can be slow, inconsistent or incomplete beyond tier one |
| Satellite or other direct observation | Land-cover change, habitat extent and site-level screening | Imagery source, resolution, observation dates, classification and validation | May not identify species, ecosystem function or management quality by itself |
| Secondary geospatial layers | Comparing origins with sensitive areas and broad exposure screening | Layer name, version/date, spatial resolution and matching rule | Proxy geography can misrepresent a specific supplier site |
| Life-cycle assessment, input-output or trade models | Initial estimates across large, complex chains | Dataset, system boundary, allocation, assumptions, uncertainty and volume/spend link | Average values may hide local conditions and recent actions |
Do not merge these methods into one apparently precise number. Preserve the data type and confidence for each indicator so readers can distinguish measured change from an estimate.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Build a supplier questionnaire that produces usable records
Organize questions around a traceable record rather than a long undifferentiated checklist. A practical form can require the following fields for every priority product or activity:
| Question block | Required response |
|---|---|
| Identity and scope | Supplier, facility, product/service, tier, period, volume, covered and excluded activities |
| Origin | Country, region, site or polygon; aggregation points; traceability percentage; uncertainty |
| Pressures | Relevant land/sea change, resource use, pollution and invasive-species pathway, with units and method |
| Ecosystem and species | Type, baseline extent, condition, current status, species and habitat indicators where material |
| People and services | Affected ecosystem services, beneficiaries, direction of effect and engagement evidence |
| Management and assurance | Controls, targets, certification scope, monitoring, grievance process and improvement plan |
| Evidence quality | Source, date, geography, primary/secondary/modeled label, assumptions, confidence and limitations |
Require attachments or links to source records for high-severity answers, and allow “unknown” with a corrective action rather than encouraging unsupported guesses. Use consistent units and controlled vocabularies for ecosystem types, species status and jurisdictions so records can be compared.
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Tracing products to farms, fisheries and other origins
Start with the commercial flow, then map the physical flow. Ask the direct supplier which upstream entities handled the product, where aggregation occurred and what percentage of volume is traceable to each origin. For high-priority materials, request farm, fishery, forest, mine, concession or facility coordinates or polygons, subject to legitimate confidentiality and safety constraints.
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When exact coordinates cannot be shared, ask for a bounded area, a trusted verification service or a secure data-room review. Record the geographic precision actually achieved. A country code and a farm polygon are not equivalent evidence, even if both are labeled “traceable.”
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Which reporting frameworks fit the data
GRI 101: Biodiversity 2024 is the clearest detailed structure for organizing supplier biodiversity impacts, including significant products and services, location, pressures, ecosystem condition, species and ecosystem services. It should be read directly for disclosure wording and implementation requirements (official GRI standard).
The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) value-chain guidance, Version 1.0 and last updated March 2026, addresses dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities across upstream and downstream chains. It discusses when fuller traceability is appropriate and when secondary data can support assessment (TNFD guidance on value chains).
ESRS E4 is relevant for companies reporting in the European context and covers material upstream and downstream value-chain matters. Legal applicability depends on jurisdiction, reporting scope, materiality assessment and the rules in force for the reporting period; no single framework determines obligations for every company.
Common failures and how to correct them
- Surveying every supplier identically: replace blanket questionnaires with a documented significance screen and tiered evidence requirements.
- Using headquarters as origin: capture the activity location and aggregation path.
- Reporting only pressure totals: add ecosystem condition, extent, species and ecosystem-service context.
- Presenting modeled averages as measurements: label models, resolution, assumptions and uncertainty, then plan primary-data improvements.
- Claiming complete traceability from one certified tier: state the chain-of-custody boundary and unverified tiers.
- Assigning all local decline to one buyer: distinguish observed change from the company’s estimated contribution and acknowledge cumulative effects.
- Leaving unknowns blank: record “not known,” why it is unknown, who owns the fix and when it will be revisited.
A practical implementation sequence
- Define governance, materiality criteria, data owners and a common data dictionary.
- Screen products, services, commodities, supplier activities and sourcing regions.
- Map priority origins and intersect them with sensitivity and water-risk layers.
- Issue a short baseline questionnaire, then request detailed evidence from high-significance suppliers.
- Validate coordinates, units, dates and source types; separate measured, inferred and modeled values.
- Assess pressures, ecosystem state, species and ecosystem services together rather than as isolated metrics.
- Agree corrective actions, management controls and data-improvement milestones with suppliers.
- Update the priority list and disclose coverage, exclusions, methods and uncertainty in the chosen reporting framework.
The resulting program is defensible when a reader can follow a material product from supplier and origin, through pressure and ecosystem evidence, to affected services, people, management response and data-quality limits.
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