Supporting the publishing industry to understand biodiversity risks

Post Date: 02 January 2025
Read Time: 6 minutes

Biodiversity refers to the variety of plant and animal life in the natural world [1]; essential – not just for its own sake – but also because it underpins ecosystem services that are vital for human life, such as food, clean water, clean air and plant growth. Biodiversity is the intricate web of life that sustains all living organisms on the planet and without it, humans would not be able to exist.

However, as the impacts of climate change become more extreme and human activity becomes more disruptive to the environment, biodiversity is declining at an alarming rate. The WWF’s Living Planet Report 2024 found the average size of monitored wildlife populations has shrunk by 73% over the last 50 years [2] and WWF’s 2022 Report highlighted more than one million animal and plant species are currently threatened with extinction, more than any other time in human history [3]. Scientists believe we are currently living through the sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history – the first one since the dinosaurs were wiped out from existence 65.5 million years ago.

Business is a significant contributor to biodiversity loss

Businesses are a significant contributor to this biodiversity loss, whether through the overexploitation of natural resources, buildings, or the damaging of natural areas by improper waste management and pollution. Climate change has recently dominated the corporate sustainability agenda, however nature and biodiversity are increasingly becoming the new ‘big challenge’ that businesses must face.

In 2022, the 15th United Nations (UN) Biodiversity Conference (COP15) ended with a landmark agreement to guide global action on nature to 2030, called the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) [4]. The GBF aims to address biodiversity loss through four overarching goals and 23 targets. Target 15 is of particular interest for business: it requires countries to demand that companies disclose their nature impacts in corporate reporting.

More recently, COP16 took place in Colombia and the outcome showed a broad acknowledgement of the continued need for more action on biodiversity. Whilst the summit sought to incentivise businesses to protect and restore biodiversity, it remains evident that many businesses simply do not know where to begin. The sheer scale of the topic is daunting, often leaving businesses unsure of where to start, struggling to identify important areas or not having a clear understanding of what actions they can take. What is clear is that biodiversity loss is a global challenge and increasingly businesses are seeking to collaborate both within and cross-industry to help tackle these challenges collectively [5].

Tackling biodiversity risks as a sector: The Book Chain Project

The Book Chain Project (BCP) is an SLR-owned initiative, supporting the publishing industry to understand the potential biodiversity related risks of their print and paper.

BCP is a collaboration of 28 leading publishers, over 400 paper mills and over 550 first-tier suppliers to make the supply chains of printed books and journals more transparent and sustainable. It operates as an IT platform where paper mills, printers and other suppliers can share information with publishers and work together to drive social and environmental responsibility in product supply chains.

The project started life in 2006, partly in response to the Greenpeace report ‘The Paper Trail’ [6] which cast a light on the potential impacts of the publishing industry on global deforestation. Together with the publishers, relationships were built with paper mills to gather tree species and country of origin data for each fibre used in every brand of paper and board. Over the last 18 years, BCP has expanded into three workstreams: Forest Sourcing, Labour and Environment, and Chemicals and Materials.

The Forest Sourcing workstream collects and analyses the origins of tree fibres used in paper and board, helping publishers identify responsible forest sources for their books. Every year, mills are asked to provide forest source information for the paper brands that they produce. There are a lot of them; we hold data on over 4,000 paper and board brands from 400 paper mills around the world.

Using the countries and regions of origin, and tree species included in each pulp, we assess:

Biodiversity risk which determines the regional and country level biodiversity risk, based on data from WWF. This tool was initially developed in 2022 and underwent an update in 2024. The tool enables publishers to gain a better understanding of the developments in biodiversity risk in the areas where tree fibres are sourced.
Forest risk which determines country-level deforestation and transhipment risk, based on data from the Corruption Perception Index (WRI), Global Forest Resources Assessment (FAO), Satellite-sourced Tree Cover Loss (WRI) and Trade flows of Industrial Roundwood (FAO).
Species risk which helps to identify which species are at risk of extinction and is based on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Appendices.

These risks assessments are incorporated into the BCP grading system which risk assesses the sources of paper brands, helping publishers to identify responsible forest sources for their books, including considerations for biodiversity.

BCP is also helping publishers to understand other possible indirect contributors to biodiversity loss within their supply chains. Mills and suppliers are asked to complete an annual self-assessment questionnaire on their environmental performance, including water use, wastewater treatment, material use and waste disposal. The questionnaires enable publishers to understand potential hotspots for environmental pollution, an indirect contributor to biodiversity loss. In addition, BCP leverages the World Resource Institute (WRI)’s Aqueduct tool to show current Overall Water Risk and Future Water Stress based on each mill or supplier location. While that risk is not something the mill or supplier can influence, it shows areas where water consumption in the publishing supply chain is at greater risk of harming nearby ecosystems.

This type of transparent, collaborative action is a great way for businesses to begin to tackle the pressing question of biodiversity loss, and contribute towards the goals of the Global Biodiversity Framework.