Compilation Deinitions Significant impact

18 Indicator Protocols Set: EN IP © 2000-2011 GRI EN12 Description of signiicant impacts of activities, products, and services on biodiversity in protected areas and areas of high biodiversity value outside protected areas.

1. Relevance

This Indicator provides information on the signiicant direct and indirect impacts of the reporting organization on biodiversity in protected areas and areas of high biodiversity value outside protected areas. It also provides the background for understanding and developing an organizational strategy to mitigate these impacts. By asking for structured, qualitative information, the Indicator enables comparison across organizations and over time of the relative size, scale, and nature of impacts.

2. Compilation

2.1 Identify signiicant impacts on biodiversity associated with activities, products, and services of the reporting organization, including both direct impacts as well as indirect impacts e.g., in the supply chain. 2.2 Report the nature of signiicant direct and indirect impacts on biodiversity with reference to one or more of the following: • Construction or use of manufacturing plants, mines, and transport infrastructure; • Pollution introduction of substances that do not naturally occur in the habitat from point and non-point sources; • Introduction of invasive species, pests, and pathogens; • Reduction of species; • Habitat conversion; and • Changes in ecological processes outside the natural range of variation e.g., salinity or changes in groundwater level. 2.3 Report signiicant direct and indirect positive and negative impacts with reference to the following: • Species afected; • Extent of areas impacted this may not be limited to areas that are formally protected and should include consideration of impacts on bufer zones as well as formally designated areas of special importance or sensitivity; • Duration of impacts; and • Reversibility or irreversibility of the impacts.

3. Deinitions Significant impact

Impacts that may adversely afect the integrity of a geographical arearegion, either directly or indirectly. This occurs by substantially changing its ecological features, structures, and functions across its whole area and over the long term. This means that the habitat, its population level, andor the particular species that make that habitat important cannot be sustained. On a species level, a signiicant impact causes a population decline andor change in distribution so that natural recruitment reproduction or immigration from unafected areas cannot return to former levels within a limited number of generations. A signiicant impact can also afect subsistence or commercial resource use to the degree that the well-being of users is afected over the long term.

4. Documentation