Public exposure

The Biodiversity Standard exposure draft was made available for public comment between 5 December 2022 and 28 February 2023. You can access 122 submissions from organizations and individuals here.

A re-exposure of the disclosure 304-7 Access and benefit-sharing for public comment took place between 26 July – 10 September 2023 and has now ended. The comments from 17 submissions from the re-exposure can be found here.

The GSSB is now reviewing comments as per the GSSB Due Process Protocol. The final Standard is expected to be approved in Q4 2023.

The importance of this standard

The alarming decline in biodiversity in the last decades threatens to bring disastrous consequences to the environment and people, including triggering knock-on effects on climate change.

The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will adopt the 'post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework' in 2022, which will define collective commitments to reverse the loss of biodiversity for all relevant stakeholders, including government, companies, civil society, and investment institutions.

Both governments and companies are being called upon to demonstrate accountability in responding to the biodiversity crisis by conserving and sustainably using biodiversity. The revision of GRI 304: Biodiversity 2016 aims to reflect global best practice on biodiversity management to support companies in addressing their impacts.

About this project 

The review of GRI 304: Biodiversity 2016 is a priority project for the GSSB. Since the GRI disclosures on biodiversity were last revised in 2006, the issue of biodiversity has received significant attention in the global sustainable development agenda.

This project aims to review GRI 304: Biodiversity 2016 to represent internationally agreed best practices and align with recent developments as well as relevant authoritative intergovernmental instruments in biodiversity.

The Standard will enable an organization to publicly disclose its most significant impacts on biodiversity and how it manages them. This disclosure enhances transparency on the organization's impacts and increases organizational accountability.

The GSSB appointed a multi-stakeholder Technical Committee in November 2021 to lead the revision of GRI 304: Biodiversity 2016. The project will follow the GSSB's Due Process Protocol, the implementation of which will be overseen by the Due Process Oversight Committee. Read the Project Proposal and the Terms of Reference for more information. 

Previous public comment 

The Biodiversity Standard exposure draft was made available for public comment between 5 December 2022 and 28 February 2023.

You can access 122 submissions from organizations and individuals here.

The GSSB is now reviewing comments as per the GSSB Due Process Protocol. An updated timeline of the project will be published in the coming months. The final Standard is expected to be approved in Q4 2023.