Why evidence matters for business and nature

Using evidence well is a core part of how we help businesses take effective action on biodiversity. 

For many years, The Biodiversity Consultancy (TBC) has worked with businesses to apply the best available science to real-word biodiversity challenges. Alongside our advisory work, we actively engage with and contribute to the latest scientific research, helping drive forward best-practice for business-biodiversity management. 

Our work sits at the interface of research and practice, supporting companies on issues ranging from biodiversity offsets and financial safeguards to renewable energy planning and emerging Nature Positive aligned approaches. This connection to applied research enables us to help businesses navigate complexity, manage risk and take informed and effective action in fast-evolving policy and market contexts. 

Evidence-based practice is vital for improving outcomes from business action. We aim to ensure that the recommendations we provide, and any subsequent decisions or claims made by the businesses we advise, are supported by appropriate and proportionate evidence. This supports credible business action to effectively protect and restore biodiversity, helps manage business risks, and maximize opportunities - whilst recognizing that decisions are often required in contexts where evidence is incomplete and uncertainty is unavoidable. 

As members of the Conservation Evidence’s ‘Evidence Champions’ program, TBC has worked to formalise an approach to evidence-based practice, ensuring clear expectations established to ensure:  

• evidence effort is prioritised towards the assumptions that matter most
• conclusions are robust and supported by clearly documented evidence  
• limitations and uncertainties are understood and communicated clearly to clients 

In collaboration with researchers at Conservation Evidence, we have published a paper in a special issue of Ecological Solutions & Evidence detailing our evidence-based approach, sharing some challenges faced and lessons learned that can help improve evidence-based practice more widely. The publication can be found here.

Biodiversity and the decisions taken to manage it are complex, meaning it is impossible to ever have ‘perfect data’ to guide action. By prioritizing and transparently documenting evidence use, we hope the approach supports businesses to take informed, credible action that contributes to global biodiversity targets.

Categories: Publications, Insight