Browsing by Author "Guan, Yucong"

The ongoing industrial globalization and high dependence on natural resources have stimulated forest companies to balance diverse and conflicting stakeholder demands and to disclose sustainability initiatives through corporate disclosures (Li and Toppinen, 2011). The identification of business impacts and risks associated with biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) has triggered corporations to report their initiatives and performance on such issues, especially corporations in the environmentally sensitive sectors. In order to investigate the current state of reporting on biodiversity and ecosystem services in the forest sector, a content analysis was implemented based on the Global Reporting Initiatives (the G3.1 version) environmental performance indicators for analyzing sustainability-related reports of thirteen globally operating forest companies in this study. The focus of the content analysis was on initiatives and environmental performance regarding five key threats to biodiversity and ecosystem services: the threat of habitat loss and degradation, the threat of over exploitation and unsustainable use, the threat of climate change, the threat of pollution and nutrient load and the threat of invasive alien species. The results indicate that reporting variations exist in terms of geographical locations and content-specific characteristics. In general, environmental subcategories of products and services, emission/effluents and biodiversity are the most reported. Regarding the five key threats to biodiversity and ecosystem services, the threat of over exploitation and unattainable use is the most comprehensively reported while the threat of invasive alien species is the least reported. Based on the GRI sector supplements in other environmentally friendly sectors, industrial features of the forest sector and inter-linking issues detected between/among three sustainability dimensions, tentative suggestions and indicators are proposed for the forest sector supplement from biodiversity and ecosystem services perspective. Biodiversity and ecosystem services will probably be a subject of mandatory reporting with the assistance of a transparent and rigid reporting system. Inter-linking issues between/among sustainability dimensions and stakeholder involvement in environmental issues will be cornerstones in integrated reporting in the future.