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Ganesh Ramaswamy - Kreston Rangamani
Ganesh Ramaswamy
Partner at Kreston Rangamani and Associates LLP, Global Tax Group Regional Director, Asia Pacific

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Ganesh has extensive experience of more than 30 years in providing specialist tax services, particularly to large privately owned groups, with particular strengths in the property, retail, healthcare and hospitality industries. He has supported various entities with specialist advice on tax-effective structures and restructures, cross-border transactions on account of outbound and inbound India investments, mergers, acquisitions and divestments. Ganesh has also worked with stakeholders across businesses to deliver solutions such as tax due diligence, tax consolidation and restructuring of large family businesses in the Middle East, Asia, and Singapore.


Biodiversity standard of GRI gets an update

March 11, 2024

Sector: ESG

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has published a biodiversity standard update which will help Corporates to provide information and analysis on the biodiversity impacts.

Overview of GRI’s biodiversity standard update

The standard GRI 101 – “Biodiversity 2024” has been updated to support Corporates around the world to disclose their significant impacts on biodiversity which comes out of their business operations and supply chain management.

GRI has agreed to support the use of the above standard over the next two years, with Corporates expected to mandatorily follow it from 2026. This revised standard builds on key global developments in the biodiversity field such as UNFCCC Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, The Science Based Target Network (SBTN) and The Taskforce on Nature Related Financial Disclosures.

Key features and requirements of GRI 101

The updated GRI standard sets new rules for reporting through transparency on biodiversity impacts. The standard suggests location specific reporting, both within the organisations’ operations and its supply chain functions. This is aimed at enabling the stakeholders to correctly assess the organisation’s impact on biodiversity.

In detail, the biodiversity standard focuses on achieving the following objectives:

  1. Covering the areas where significant impacts on biodiversity gets poorly reported especially in supply chain management.
  2. Location specific reporting on impacts including all places where impacts are felt with detailed information of the place and site where the impact has been felt.
  3. Disclosure norms on biodiversity loss covering the areas of land misuse, climate change, pollution and over exploitation.
  4. Reporting the impacts on society including those on communities and indigenous people.

Corporate responsibilities in addressing biodiversity loss

The Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services has come out with an assessment report which sends a warning that 50% of the global economy is under threat due to biodiversity loss. The GRI update on Biodiversity standards has come up against this background.

Corporates need to take immediate steps to reverse the biodiversity loss, restore nature to its glory, respect the rights, roles and contributions to sustain biodiversity along the supply chain. When these actions of the Corporates are validated and communicated in the form of a report brought out by GRI, all the stakeholders in the system will definitely end up benefitting from this transparency.

For more information on Kreston Global’s sustainability hub, click here.