Estimating Biodiversity Benefits

As global momentum grows around nature‑positive actions and global biodiversity targets, companies are seeking guidance, approaches and tools that go beyond water risk mitigation to encompass ecosystem benefits. Yet few resources currently exist to account for the biodiversity benefits of corporate water stewardship projects. The newly released Biodiversity Benefit Accounting (BioBA) guidance fills this gap by offering a framework to support companies in integrating biodiversity into corporate water stewardship initiatives.

The guidance aligns with global biodiversity accounting efforts, including the Nature Positive Initiative (NPI) and the Align project, and complements previously developed benefit‑quantification resources such as Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting (VWBA) and Water Quality Benefit Accounting (WQBA).

Objectives of BioBA

BioBA provides companies and project partners investing in corporate water stewardship activities with clear guidance on how to:

1. Identify biodiversity objectives for corporate water stewardship projects,
2. Plan for implementing biodiversity‑aligned projects,
3. Select appropriate indicators, metrics and methods with which to evaluate the biodiversity benefits of corporate water stewardship projects, and
4. Communicate the biodiversity benefits of corporate water stewardship and biodiversity projects.

BioBA is intended for a variety of audiences, including corporate sponsors, project implementers and third‑party benefit evaluators. It is applicable for voluntary corporate water stewardship and biodiversity projects across a wide variety of activities and interventions in terrestrial and freshwater aquatic ecosystems at a project‑site scale. It is not intended to be used to evaluate the impact of a company’s operations on biodiversity at the landscape, regional or national scale.

Building on established water stewardship accounting frameworks

BioBA sits within a suite of guidance publications that support water stewardship practitioners in quantifying multiple benefits from corporate water stewardship activities, including nature‑based solutions (Brill et al., 2023). BioBA complements accounting frameworks focused on water volumes (WRI et al., 2025a), water quality (WRI et al., 2025b) and water access, and sanitation and hygiene (WASH) accounting (Jacobson et al., 2024). It utilizes the same structure and approach developed for these guidance documents to the extent possible.