Biodiversity: From Assessment to Pathway, How to Integrate Scenarios

Starting around 2016-2017, the strategy expanded to include promotional activities, with the implementation of rapid diagnostics designed to quickly identify major local biodiversity challenges. Since then, a biodiversity module has been developed with the Lokimo tool to qualify ecological stakes of a site upstream of projects, based on public data: protected species, soil pollution, ecological continuities… These initiatives are part of a global approach structured in four stages: measuring impacts, avoiding and reducing them as much as possible, renaturing sites, and contributing — for example to CDC Biodiversity’s Nature 2050 Fund.

Global vision

Beyond the tools, Josephine Brune emphasized the importance of involving stakeholders at all stages, especially public actors and scientific experts. To hope to create coherent ecological continuities, for example, “it is necessary to work at the neighborhood scale and in close connection with local authorities,” she insisted. This imperative is even stronger because, in some cases, a space must reach 2,500 m² in one piece for renaturation to contribute to the ZAN objective (under the current law) — a configuration rarely achieved by a single real estate project. “Coordinating several projects to create connections between green spaces requires a territorial vision,” she added.

Internally too, maintaining an ambitious biodiversity roadmap remains a challenge. “This is a constantly evolving subject. Tools change, data improves, demands increase. Teams, especially operational ones faced with sometimes complex indicators, need support,” continued the Head of Environmental Transitions at Icade.

The same requirement for clarity applies to external communication. “Regarding biodiversity, we try to be as transparent as possible, especially in our reports to investors. We define each indicator and are thinking of linking them more to ecosystem services to facilitate understanding.” This is necessary, according to her, in a sector where “there is still the idea that real estate is not very concerned with biodiversity.”

Case-by-case integration challenges

Josephine Brune also stressed the need to make choices at the scale of each project. “There are not necessarily universal best practices; everything depends on the project, the local authority, the local challenges… But if there is one best practice that systematically ticks both carbon and biodiversity boxes, it is renovation,” she underlined. Long perceived as out of reach for developers, rehabilitation is in fact a strong transformation axis at Icade. “It’s a paradigm shift for our business that we have been pushing for ten years.” The group notably launched Ville en vue to restructure city entrances and AfterWork, which converts offices into housing.

At the scale of each operation, it is sometimes necessary to arbitrate between conflicting objectives. “Take green roofs: they filter rainwater, improve thermal insulation, bring biodiversity… but to be effective, they require sufficient substrate and vegetation, which means more weight,” Josephine Brune illustrated. Structures then have to be reinforced, mechanically increasing the building’s carbon footprint. Icade has ambitious goals here: a significant portion of projects must anticipate future environmental regulation thresholds. “So sometimes you have to make choices and prioritize certain issues depending on the project.”

These trade-offs are not limited to design choices. They extend throughout the value chain, with sometimes counter-intuitive effects. “You can green a project and at the same time worsen its biodiversity footprint by increasing demand for construction materials,” noted Florent Rebatel, ESG analyst – Environment/Biodiversity at CDC. But measuring biodiversity footprint over the entire activity remains a major challenge. “The calculation of our Global Biodiversity Score illustrates these difficulties: we have very little information on the real impact of the value chain, especially since we are developers, not builders, but it’s a subject requiring serious reflection,” added Josephine Brune.

The data challenge

To further integrate biodiversity, a priority remains to access reliable and exploitable data. “And for that, the entire upstream sectors must be structured,” said Ms. Brune. But unlike climate, where greenhouse gas emissions are primarily measured, biodiversity requires crossing several dimensions: land use, pollution, land conversion, climate, etc. The CSRD directive could play a structuring role by requiring companies to consolidate pressure data usable by analysts, estimated Clément Molinier, senior ESG modeler specializing in biodiversity at Iceberg Data Lab.

The data challenge also exceeds technical aspects: “The whole point is to change practices. For that, real data—not approximations—is needed. Until a fine mapping of the value chain is done, progress cannot be made,” insisted Alix Chosson, ESG analyst specialized in Climate & Environment at Candriam, calling for clearer frameworks: “Should it come from the State? The regulator? It’s not just about imposing constraints but also providing tools.”

In this context, some actors like CDC Biodiversity support companies in evaluating their footprint: identifying pressures in the value chain, modeling impacts, defining targeted strategies… “This approach is always adapted to sector-specificities, with priority given to high-impact value chains linked for example to agriculture, material extraction, or forestry,” detailed Emma Godefroy, Project Manager at CDC Biodiversity. The organization also runs several sectoral working groups, including one dedicated to agriculture, to promote good practice dissemination.

The data question also relates to how biodiversity issues are integrated into economic decisions. Should they be assigned a monetary value or a weight equivalent to financial criteria? “We have integrated the CBSh as a standalone risk indicator in our investment committees. A downgrade must be considered just like information on property value,” illustrated Josephine Brune.

Anticipating trajectories

Scenario issues featured prominently in discussions. While their use is more or less established for climate, their application to biodiversity is still nascent. “There aren’t really stabilized tools to build biodiversity scenarios, nor clear methods to integrate them into company strategies,” summarized Ms. Brune.

The TNFD recommendations provide some guidance, distinguishing normative scenarios—based on a target objective—and exploratory scenarios, built from hypotheses. “On climate, we have normative scenarios like 1.5 °C and transition plans to align with it. For biodiversity, we’re more in exploratory scenarios: for example, what if water stress increases? This is more useful for risk analysis than strategic direction setting,” noted Elouan Heurard, ESG analyst specializing in Biodiversity at Candriam.

To build these exploratory scenarios, several approaches exist, often inspired by climate tools. Some adapt global socio-economic scenarios (SSP) to specific ecological issues like land use or diets. Others use the Delphi method, which involves expert panels to identify structuring hypotheses.

These feed into Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) such as IMAGE, GLOBIOM, or MAGPIE, which cross socio-economic and environmental data to project soil or resource evolution. Results can then feed more specialized models (Biodiversity models) translating pressures into biodiversity impacts. Examples include GLOBIO, the Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII), or the Living Planet Index (LPI).

But this exercise has limits. “Depending on the model used, very different results can be obtained. It’s necessary to cross approaches to avoid selection bias or impact transfers,” warned Elouan Heurard. The shared recommendation is to combine multiple models and indicators to strengthen trajectory robustness.

A dynamic reading of impacts and dependencies

At Candriam, a specific method was developed to evaluate a company’s exposure to biodiversity by crossing three dimensions: what, where, and how. “We start by looking at what the company does and its impact on biodiversity, using life cycle analysis (LCA) models. Then, we look at where it operates through geospatial analyses. Finally, we assess how it manages these two dimensions: its internal policies, the existence or not of scenarios, its capacity to adapt strategy, and potential controversies,” detailed Elouan Heurard.

This approach is complemented by a prospective reading that includes a temporal dimension. “It’s not enough to evaluate a company at time T: you must also project its behavior to 2030 or 2040, anticipating stricter regulations, production changes, or ecosystem modifications.” The goal is to determine if the current footprint is likely to increase under a business-as-usual scenario or if the company’s strategy anticipates improvement. This approach can also apply at portfolio scale to project a form of cumulative ecological debt, modeled on carbon budgets.

Beyond construction, the question remains how scenarios are used. Several speakers noted that company-produced scenarios often remain a formal exercise. “The problem is that they serve to show everything is fine, without truly testing model resilience against different possible futures. For climate, for example, many companies build transition scenarios without integrating both physical and transition risk dimensions,” said Alix Chosson.

These scenarios remain useful to anticipate trajectories to align with but must not lead to a mistaken reading of physical risk indicators that could encourage reducing nature dependencies, added Florent Rebatel: “Just because a system depends on biodiversity doesn’t mean it should be replaced. Agroecology, for example, depends heavily on ecosystems — but it’s precisely a solution. The same applies to materials like wood in construction.”

That’s why some advocate including a scope 4, which would value avoided impacts — in other words, positive contributions by companies that facilitate other actors’ transitions. “Impact or footprint measurement tools should also capture this dimension, especially for investors,” observed Florent Rebatel. “That’s where scenarios become essential: when talking about avoided impacts, you enter a theory of change logic. You need a baseline and an improved scenario to estimate what has really been avoided,” emphasized Alix Chosson.

Work is underway to structure this analysis framework. “We joined a European research project this year under Horizon Europe, where CDC Biodiversity’s role will be to build sectoral trajectories aligned with the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF),” mentioned Emma Godefroy. The project, designed holistically, aims to develop financial tools compatible with biodiversity preservation goals.

“Scenarios also have the advantage of integrating a temporal dimension into analysis and putting company strategies into perspective: are they truly ambitious, or out of step with sectoral or national trajectories?” concluded Elouan Heurard.