Overview
ISO 17298:2025 - Biodiversity - Considering biodiversity in the strategy and operations of organizations - Requirements and guidelines provides a standardized, practical framework for organizations to integrate biodiversity into strategic decision‑making and day‑to‑day operations. The first edition (2025) sets out requirements and guidance to identify biodiversity dependencies and impacts, assess biodiversity‑related risks and opportunities, and implement measurable action plans. It is applicable to any organization - private, public, large or small - and supports corporate biodiversity management, ecological restoration and sustainable use of ecosystem services.
Keywords: ISO 17298, biodiversity standard, biodiversity strategy, ecosystem services, corporate biodiversity, biodiversity risk management.
Key topics and technical requirements
This standard structures a biodiversity approach into iterative steps and includes both requirements and guidance. Core technical topics include:
- Context and scope: Define the scope of the biodiversity approach and review existing policies, initiatives and local context.
- Interested parties: Identify and involve stakeholders relevant to biodiversity outcomes.
- Identification and prioritization:
- Assess material dependencies on ecosystem services.
- Identify material impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services.
- Identify biodiversity‑related risks and opportunities and prioritize them.
- Mitigation hierarchy: Apply avoidance, minimization, on‑site restoration and, where appropriate, offsets as decision‑making steps.
- Biodiversity action plan: Formalize ambition, set objectives, plan actions, integrate local context and set indicators.
- Indicators, monitoring and review: Establish monitoring indicators, analyze results, report internally/externally and pursue continual improvement.
- Communication: Internal and external disclosure of biodiversity performance and progress.
Keywords: mitigation hierarchy, biodiversity action plan, monitoring indicators, biodiversity dependencies.
Practical applications and who uses it
ISO 17298:2025 is designed for:
- Corporations (including supply‑chain actors) needing to assess biodiversity exposure and disclose impacts
- Public institutions and local authorities planning land use, restoration or conservation
- Financial institutions and investors assessing portfolio biodiversity risks
- SMEs, NGOs and associations implementing biodiversity action plans at site or organizational level
Use cases:
- Integrating biodiversity into environmental management systems or sustainability strategies
- Designing site restoration, habitat protection or nature‑positive procurement
- Meeting reporting expectations of frameworks such as the Kunming‑Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
Keywords: biodiversity management, nature‑positive, biodiversity reporting, ecosystem dependency assessment.
Related standards
ISO 17298:2025 is intended to be used alongside relevant standards such as ISO 14001 (environmental management), ISO 26000 (social responsibility) and ISO 37101 (sustainable development of communities), providing a biodiversity‑focused complement to existing management systems.
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