Measuring ecosystem services from railways and Wales' coastline, IPBES Biodiversity and Business

In this Month's Newsletter:

• Railway Infrastructure and Ecosystem Services Webinar 

  • Launching the Ecosystem Valuation for Railways Framework 

• Mapping Nature’s Coastal Protection  

  • Wales’ coastal habitats deliver £36 million in avoided flood damages  every year

• #IPBES12 in Manchester

  • And our thoughts on their Biodiversity and Business report

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Railway Infrastructure and Ecosystem Services Webinar

Launching the Ecosystem Valuation for Railways Framework

Natalya Kharadi and Ian Dickie are attending the “Railway Infrastructure and Ecosystem Services" webinar to launch the ECOV4R (Ecosystem Valuation for Railways) Framework and its first two pilot applications in the UK and Spain.

The framework — the first global methodology for assessing and valuing ecosystem services in railway infrastructure — provides a practical and scalable approach to support more resilient, evidence-based, and nature-positive decision-making across the rail sector. The framework was developed by eftec and AtkinsRéalis with funding from International Union of Railways.

The launch event is taking place on 6 March 2026 from 09:00 to 11:00 CET, and is free to register. 

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Mapping Nature’s Coastal Protection

Wales’ coastal habitats deliver £36 million in avoided flood damages every year

Our report for the Natural Resources Wales on the value of coastal habitats as flood defence was recently mentioned at a Parliamentary and Scientific Committee session held in partnership with the National Oceanography Centre this February. 

The work, in partnership with ABPmer, found that Wales’ coastal habitats deliver £36 million in avoided flood damages every year. Most of this benefit comes from avoided damages to residential and commercial properties (48%), and the remainder from reduced disruption to rail services (37%), with additional benefits linked to avoided impacts on agricultural land and roads.

We produced a framework for how to identify where coastal habitats deliver the greatest economic benefit. This framework was designed to help ensure that natural capital is embedded within coastal planning and long-term investment.

More detail on the report findings are published on our website.

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#IPBES12 in Manchester

And our thoughts on their Biodiversity and Business report

Ian Dickie attended the 12th session of the IPBES Plenary (IPBES-12), which was held in Manchester this February. Over 150 governments participated to address how economic activity impacts nature. Ian reflected on the event,

“The IPBES week in Manchester was an important coalescence of corporate and scientific views on the state of global biodiversity. This was demonstrated by the excellent range of speakers put together by a major financial institution like AVIVA for the event I attended. It represents a further maturing of the debate, not pondering data deficiencies or future commitments, but with a sense of purpose that it’s time to take decisions and action.“

Shortly after, IPBES released their Biodiversity and Business Assessment Report (full report forthcoming). The report says many of the same things we’ve promoted for three decades: Businesses need reliable, comparable, and actionable information regarding their impacts and dependencies on nature to make informed decisions on their risks. Measurement and disclosure of such information also help governments design more effective and efficient environmental and economic policies.

Our two key takeaways from the report are:

• While the work provides a strong evidence base, it appears heavily weighted toward academic literature. Better coverage of grey literature by public and private sector, standards, such as BSI Flex 701 and BS ISO 14054, and evidence from practice would strengthen its relevance and usability for business decision-makers operating in real-world regulatory and market contexts.

• It rightly recognises that biodiversity impacts and benefits are unevenly distributed across and within countries, including the importance of systematically identifying material impacts and dependencies at company and sector level. Without greater transparency across value chains, risks remain obscured, mispriced and unevenly borne.