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Align Project Recommendations Open for Consultation

June 14, 2022 |

The Aligning Accounting Approaches for Nature (Align) project was developed to assist the European Commission’s efforts to support businesses, financial institutions and other stakeholders in developing standardized natural capital accounting practices by establishing a standardized approach to biodiversity measurement and valuation.

The project, which brings together the European Commission, the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Arcadis, the Capitals Coalition and others, is working to develop a generally accepted suite of methods, indicators and criteria for biodiversity measurement and valuation tools and approaches across business and finance.

The project team has now released Draft V01 of the Recommendations for a standard on biodiversity measurement and valuation.

The recommendations aim to support broader sustainability measurement and disclosure efforts that are currently under development, including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) revision of its biodiversity indicators, the Taskforce for Nature-Related Financial Disclosures framework (TNFD), the Science Based Targets Network guidance (SBTN), and the Transparent project.

After several consultation rounds with experts and business practitioners across the project’s Technical Hub and Community of Practice, the Align team is now looking for public comment on the V01 Draft until Friday July 22nd. We encourage all businesses and experts to provide their insights which will help to shape this important piece of work. You can also register for the online Align Community where you can apply to join the Community of Practice and/or the Technical Hub.

Recommendations from the Align project have been developed at a time of increasing global awareness and activity around the topic of target setting, measurement and disclosure of nature-related issues.

Access the recommendations and comment until Friday July 22nd.

Align in numbers in 2021:

  • 235 Community of Practice members, with a total of 126 representing the business community.
  • 61 members within the Technical Hub, working to ensure scientific robustness of the recommendations
  • 4 Community of Practice meetings to ensure Align is business-focused and business-driven.
  • 5 Technical Hub meetings to discuss the technical details of the recommendations for a standard.
  • 1 large survey to confirm needs, interests, and challenges of the broader Align community to identify key areas of alignment.
  • Connecting with 11 priority initiatives to identify synergies and complimentary outputs.

Benefit from the Coalition’s unique overview of the capitals approach and community, gain insights into the latest thinking and developments and receive newsletters and project updates.