Publications

There is an increasing demand for consistent methods and tools to quantify biodiversity footprints. We have developed the intactness-based biodiversity impact factors (IBIF) dataset: a consistent set of country-level impact factors that can be used to attribute losses in local terrestrial biodiversity intactness to emissions and resource use associated with production or consumption in a given country.

We used the GLOBIO model and its mean species abundance (MSA) metric to obtain these impact factors for 234 countries and five environmental pressures: CO₂ emissions, NH₃ emissions, NO_x emissions, land use (urban land, cropland, pasture, forest plantations and mines) and roads. IBIF includes impact factors for vascular plants, warm-blooded vertebrates (birds & mammals) and both species groups combined. The dataset can be used to quantify the biodiversity footprints of current products, industrial sectors or consumers, in support of policy- and decision-making aimed at halting or reversing biodiversity loss.