Global maps of impacts
To quantify the impacts of corporate physical assets, we first created
new global maps for each of 4 ecosystem services and 4 biodiversity
indicators under a scenario in which all land surface is returned to its
potential natural vegetation. The 4 metrics of impacts to ecosystem
services include: 1) reduced risk of flooding and erosion for coastal
populations (coastal risk reduction), 2) reduced erosion and sediment
trapping for improved water quality for downstream populations (sediment
retention); 3) retention of nitrogen pollution for improved water
quality for downstream populations (nitrogen retention); and 4) the
number of people within 1 hour travel time able to access nature for
potential recreation, cultural, and health benefits (nature access). The
4 biodiversity impact metrics include: 1) species richness of
amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles (species richness), 2) habitat
for threatened and endangered species (Red List species), 3) habitat for
endemic species (endemic species), and 4) Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs).
See Methods for more details on the calculation of each metric.
All metrics should be interpreted as indices with magnitudes that are
meaningful to compare within a metric but not between metrics. Given the
dominance of built infrastructure in the asset dataset (e.g., bank
branches, retail stores, cell towers, power plants; Table S1), we
assumed that the development of a physical asset resulted in the
complete loss of ecosystem service or biodiversity values as compared to
the retention of natural vegetation.
Our global analysis shows that ecosystem service levels vary greatly
within regions and among services, with 0.5% of total land area
(~700,000 km2, similar to the area of
Myanmar) falling in the 90th percentile of values for
3 or more services (Figure 1a; Table S2). Coastal risk reduction
services were, by definition, restricted to coastal areas and greatest
in areas with large coastal populations. Areas of high sediment
retention value are very geographically dispersed but highest near
streams and rivers near populated areas. Nitrogen retention values are
concentrated in India, China, Europe, the Midwest United States and East
Africa, areas with high nitrogen loads from agriculture, high potential
for natural vegetation to purify water, and especially high human
populations with a need for clean water. Nature access is highest in and
around urban areas, with notable hotspots in Europe, Asia, and the
eastern United States, where high densities of people would benefit from
access to natural areas.
Biodiversity values, on the other hand, have greater levels of overlap
among the different metrics and a higher level of spatial concentration
than ecosystem services, with 3.2% of total land area falling in the
90th percentile for 3 or more biodiversity values
(Figure 1b; Table S2). Biodiversity values are greatest in the tropics,
and especially concentrated in the Amazon, Southeast Asia, the Guinean
Forests of West Africa and the Eastern Afromontane region of East
Africa, matching well-established hotspots of
biodiversity27.
These patterns point to the importance of high-resolution data to
capture spatial variation in impacts to nature. The use of country or
regional averages – an approach taken by some existing methods for
accounting for environmental impacts19,20,28 – risks
substantially mis-classifying the degree of impact to ecosystem services
or biodiversity from an asset or company. This is especially the case
for ecosystem services, where values have high spatial heterogeneity,
varying greatly over small distances.
In addition, the distinctive patterns across ecosystem services
indicators as compared to biodiversity indicators (Fig. 1) shows that
biodiversity values are not a good proxy for ecosystem services, and
thus not sufficient for assessing nature-related impacts. Explicitly
incorporating ecosystem services into assessments of corporate
environmental impacts will be important to fully assess corporate
impacts and the ability to address the nature-related impacts of
companies on people.