UN report recommends accounting rules be used to safeguard biodiversity

Rules which may force businesses to record and report their impact on biodiversity via their published accounts are being considered by the global accounting standard setter.

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) is considering recommendations by a United Nations affiliate, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), to measure and report their biodiversity impact in financial statements.

The IASB is already considering a standard framework for measuring carbon emissions with an aim of releasing a final standard by 2012.

The TEEB report recommends the accounting profession accelerate efforts to provide standards and metrics for disclosure of environmental impacts.

“Ultimately, the ability and interest of business to use such valuations in their financial accounts may depend on developments in accounting standards, financial disclosure requirements, and environmental liability regulations,” the report states.

The report’s release comes as PwC releases its own study revealing that less than one in five companies see biodiversity as an important business issue.

“The UK’s embedded and unconscious dependence on environmental resources, largely unaccounted for and unvalued in market terms, will mean no sector or business will escape unaffected by changes to the availability of environmental goods and services,” the firm said.

Further reading:

UK business is biting the hand that feeds as unchecked environmental resource loss threatens to bite UK economy back

Accounting rules could force businesses to disclose environmental impact