As regulations and standards are strengthened, and governments, investors and local communities become more concerned about impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services, the way your company manages these risks is now critical. Impacting on biodiversity can affect licence to operate, access to finance and insurance, operational cost, on-time and in-budget delivery of projects, and corporate reputation.

Being a member of the Proteus Partnership allows companies to be more proactive in their management of biodiversity. It gives them the understanding and information they need to identify biodiversity issues at an early screening stage and helps to structure responsible environmental management within the development of operations.

It assists them to minimise regulatory and financial risk and to support compliance with international, financial and industry standards, as well as to adhere to internal safeguard policies and address growing pressures to report on environmental performance. This in turn can prevent project delays and associated escalating costs. Proteus allows companies to understand and manage their global footprint on nature whilst supporting the work of international conservation organisations in the improvement and dissemination of global biodiversity data.

With increasingly long time horizons in corporate thinking, forward planning is of particular importance to ensure biodiversity and ecosystem services are properly managed throughout the project lifecycle and in all operating environments.

Access to good early-warning data allows companies to identify biodiversity value and potential impacts, while sound advice from a vast range of policy experts at UNEP-WCMC further supports them in understanding the relevance of this information to their operations.

Since 2003, UNEP-WCMC, a globally-recognised part of the UN system, has been providing companies with the information they need on biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Through Proteus members are able to:

1. Access the best available global data on protected areas, threatened species, areas important for biodiversity, and critical marine and coastal ecosystems.
2. Use consistent biodiversity datasets and tools to inform corporate environmental policy and subsequent decisions, conduct biodiversity risk profiling, implement key elements of the mitigation hierarchy (including offset site selection), develop biodiversity action plans, adhere to international performance standards and report on global footprint.
3. Receive tailored technical assistance and training to help your organisation manipulate and interpret biodiversity data and understand, plan for, and manage potential biodiversity impact.
4. Gain up-to-date insight and advice on the global biodiversity agenda and its relevance to business.
5. Work directly with UNEP’s specialist biodiversity assessment arm and network with like-minded companies and biodiversity and ecosystem services experts convened through UNEP-WCMC.
6. Contribute to the Proteus work programme and identify priorities for data collection.