ISO 17298:2025—Biodiversity Strategy and Operations

Across industries and landscapes, the connection between business and nature is becoming harder to ignore. Businesses are increasingly recognizing that over half of global GDP ($78 trillion) depends on nature, making nature degradation a critical risk to supply chains, asset values, and operational stability. As biodiversity loss and climate change intensify, organizations face rising regulatory pressures. ISO 17298:2025—Biodiversity – Considering biodiversity in the strategy and operations of organizations – Requirements and guidelines helps organizations better understand their relationship with biodiversity and take practical, informed steps to manage their impacts while identifying new opportunities in a changing world.

Biodiversity According to ISO 17298:2025

According to ISO 17298:2025, biodiversity refers to “variability among living organisms on the earth, including the variability within and between species, and within and between ecosystems.” Biodiversity includes not only species we consider rare, threatened, or endangered but also every living thing—from humans to organisms we know little about, such as microbes, fungi, and invertebrates.

Why Is Biodiversity Important?

Biodiversity is important because it maintains ecosystem stability, resilience, and functionality, supporting all life on Earth.

• Stability: An ecosystem requires various species to perform specific tasks to maintain health. For example, bees pollinate plants, earthworms break down organic waste, and grasshoppers help recycle nutrients through the food chain. Stable ecosystems provide essential services like clean air, water, and climate regulation, which are vital for survival.
• Resilience: In a diverse, complex ecosystem, if one species is lost (e.g., one type of pollinator declines), other species with similar functions can often fill the gap, allowing the ecosystem toresistdisruption and recover (resilience). Biodiverse ecosystems can better recover from disturbances like climate change, natural disasters, or human impact.
• Functionality: Healthy ecosystems function as natural life-support systems, providing essential services (e.g., clean air and water, fertile soil, food production, and climate regulation) that are indispensable for survival.

Essentially, the more diverse an ecosystem is, the better it can support life and handle change.

Why Biodiversity Matters for Business: Managing Risk with ISO 17298:2025

Biodiversity is essential for life on Earth—it underpins the natural systems that provide clean air, fresh water, fertile soil, and crop pollination. These ecosystem services are not just environmental benefits; they are foundational to global economies and supply chains. From agriculture and manufacturing to construction and energy, nearly every industry depends—directly or indirectly—on healthy, functioning ecosystems.

Yet biodiversity is under unprecedented pressure. More than 1 million species (out of an estimated 8 million) are currently at risk of extinction due to human activity. Habitat loss, pollution, climate change, and overexploitation are accelerating this decline, creating significant risks for businesses, including supply chain disruptions, regulatory challenges, and reputational impacts. ISO 17298:2025 provides a practical, structured framework to help organizations respond to these challenges.

What Is ISO 17298:2025?

ISO 17298:2025 specifies requirements and guidelines for organizations to consider biodiversity in their strategies and operations, thereby adopting a biodiversity approach. It provides decision-making support that enables any organization to assess its biodiversity dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities, and to define, implement and monitor an action plan. This allows added value for both the organization itself and its interested parties.

The aim of ISO 17298:2025 is to help organizations to include biodiversity conservation, ecological restoration, and sustainable use into their business, social, and environmental strategies and practices.

This international standard is applicable to any type of organization, irrespective of its size or nature (e.g. large groups, public institutions, local authorities, mid-cap companies, associations, micro-structures, single-member companies), sector, level of development and the extent to which it includes biodiversity protection in its activities.

Why Is Biodiversity Declining?

Biodiversity is decreasing rapidly due to land-use change (e.g., deforestation, agriculture), climate change, overexploitation of resources, pollution, and the spread of invasive species, causing a catastrophic 73% decline in average wildlife populations between 2020 to 1970.

Habitat Loss

Habitat loss is the primary driver of global biodiversity decline. Conversion of forests, wetlands, and other ecosystems for agriculture, urban development, and mining have destroyed habitats—leaving species without food or shelter. When ecosystems are destroyed or fragmented for agriculture and urban expansion, species lose essential breeding and feeding grounds, leading to increased competition, stress, and higher susceptibility to climate change. 

Overexploitation of Resources

Overfishing, overhunting, and logging for commodities that exceed natural regeneration rates, severely reduce species populations. Overexploitation of resources leads to ecosystems that are less resilient to changes.

Climate Change

Rapidly changing temperatures and weather patterns, such as increased droughts and heat waves, are altering ecosystems faster than species can adapt, impacting polar and marine systems particularly hard. For example, evidence suggests that reductions in water vapor in the atmosphere since the 1990s has resulted in 59% of vegetated areas showing pronounced browning and reduced growth rates worldwide. This degradation of habitats directly impacts biodiversity by decreasing food availability, reducing shelter for wildlife, altering ecosystem structures, and potentially accelerating habitat loss.

Pollution

Chemicals, pesticides, plastics, and nutrient runoff (causing algal blooms) contaminate ecosystems, harming both wildlife and water sources. Pollution causes declines in wildlife, such as the 40% drop in insect species, and induces reproductive failures or death in marine life, birds, and plants through contaminants like pesticides, plastic, heavy metals, and nutrient runoff. 

Invasive Alien Species

Invasive alien species damage ecosystems by disrupting food webs, contributing to nearly 40% of all known animal extinctions and reducing native biodiversity. Non-native species introduced intentionally or accidentally by humans can outcompete, prey upon, or bring diseases to native wildlife, disrupting local ecological balances.

Overconsumption and Population Growth

Increasing demand for food, energy, and materials, particularly in developed nations that outsource their consumption, accelerates habitat destruction. The urban sprawl, along with the associated transport infrastructure, can radically transform habitats, increase pollution, raise ambient temperatures, and increase the risk of non-native species being introduced by human movements.

Key Benefits of ISO 17298:2025 for Biodiversity Management

Today, biodiversity loss ranks among the top global risks facing organizations, with ecosystem collapse threatening everything from raw material availability to economic stability. ISO 17298:2025 supports organizations—from businesses, local authorities, NGOs or public institutions—to:

• Understand biodiversity impacts, dependencies, and risks
• Identify opportunities for green growth, nature-positive finance, and new market opportunities
• Align with global frameworks like the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF)
• Develop and implement a credible biodiversity action plan
• Transparently report on nature-related performance

By guiding organization to identify their impacts on ecosystems, their dependencies on natural resources, and the risks tied to biodiversity loss, ISO 17298:2025 encourages organizations to truly see their relationship with nature.

How ISO 17298:2025 Aligns with ISO 14001, ISO 26000& ISO 37101

ISO 17298:2025 is expected to be used in conjunction with other relevant standards concerning ecological engineering, landscape-level approaches (e.g. ISO 37101), or social responsibility (e.g. ISO 26000). The biodiversity approach proposed in ISO 17298:2025 is intended to be implemented on a stand-alone basis or can be used in conjunction with an environmental management system (e.g. ISO 14001) or a comprehensive social responsibility approach (e.g. ISO 26000), regarding risks and opportunities to consider or actions to implement.

Where to Find ISO 17298:2025

By implementing ISO 17298:2025, organizations are guided to develop plans that are not only credible but also actionable. Plans that move beyond words and into measurable impact.

ISO 17298:2025—Biodiversity – Considering biodiversity in the strategy and operations of organizations – Requirements and guidelines is available on the ANSI Webstore and in the Standards Package, ISO 17298 / ISO 17620 / ISO 17317 – Biodiversity ESG Package.