When we think about businesses and biodiversity, the forestry, agricultural, or mining sectors often come to mind first. Yet almost every organization depends, directly or indirectly, on healthy and functioning ecosystems.
The water used in an industrial process, the wood used to manufacture furniture, the crops needed to produce food, or the ability of a wetland to retain rainfall are all services provided by nature.
The Fonds Écoleader – Biodiversity helps Quebec businesses better understand these relationships and integrate them into their decision-making. Non-repayable financial assistance can cover up to 80% of eligible expenses, up to $40,000 for studies, assessments, and planning, and up to $75,000 when a project also includes support for implementation. The program is scheduled to end on August 31, 2027, or earlier if available funding is fully allocated.
What Does a Corporate Biodiversity Initiative Involve?
A biodiversity initiative is a structured process that enables a company to understand its relationship with biodiversity and integrate it into its strategy, operations, and decision-making.
It examines two complementary dimensions: the company’s dependencies on ecosystems and the services they provide, as well as the positive or negative impacts of its activities and value chain on biodiversity. These relationships can create operational, financial, regulatory, or reputational risks, but also opportunities to improve practices, secure supply chains, and strengthen resilience.
Under the Fonds Écoleader, a biodiversity assessment is the starting point. It describes the current situation, stakeholders, dependencies, and impacts, and then recommends priority measures tailored to the organization. A natural environment characterization or a wildlife or plant inventory may complement the assessment where relevant, without replacing this organizational-level analysis.
Beyond the Carbon Footprint: Expanding the Analysis to Nature
For many companies, a greenhouse gas emissions inventory has been an important first step: it has enabled them to quantify emissions, identify their main sources, and define reduction measures.
A biodiversity initiative is complementary, but its focus is different. It examines the relationships between economic activities, supply chains, and ecosystem functioning. Climate change is, in fact, only one of the five main drivers of biodiversity loss, alongside changes in land and sea use, overexploitation of living organisms, pollution, and invasive alien species.
A company that uses wood depends on forests’ ability to regenerate; wildfires, droughts, or insect infestations can disrupt its supply. A food company depends on water, soil fertility, pollination, and the stability of agricultural production. Even a service company is connected to nature through its buildings, furniture, equipment, energy use, and suppliers. These dependencies and impacts are often found within the supply chain rather than directly at the company’s own sites.
Biodiversity and Climate Adaptation: Different but Connected Approaches
A climate risk assessment examines an organization’s exposure to hazards such as extreme heat, flooding, drought, or wildfires. A biodiversity initiative instead examines its dependencies and impacts on nature and ecosystem services.
However, the two analyses can overlap. In the adaptation plans developed by CCG, natural environments regularly emerge as resilience infrastructure: a wetland retains some stormwater, an urban tree canopy reduces temperatures, and vegetated soil limits runoff and erosion.
This experience enables CCG to approach biodiversity both as an environmental issue and as a component of business continuity. It helps identify situations in which ecosystem degradation increases an organization’s vulnerability, as well as adaptation measures that can strengthen its resilience while generating positive outcomes for biodiversity.
ISO 17298 as a Framework
Published in 2025, ISO 17298, Biodiversity — Addressing biodiversity in the strategy and operations of organizations, provides a methodological framework for integrating biodiversity into strategies, activities, and decision-making processes. It applies to all types of organizations and can be used independently or alongside an environmental management system such as ISO 14001.
The proposed approach involves defining the scope, identifying existing actions, engaging stakeholders, assessing and prioritizing dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities, and then formalizing and implementing an action plan with objectives and indicators.
The standard follows a risk management approach and a progressive process. A company can begin with the best information available, document its assumptions, and refine the analysis over time. It may also initially limit the initiative to a site, product, activity, or particularly sensitive supply chain.
The CPEQ Guide: From Framework to Practice
The ISO standard provides the overall structure. The practical guide published by the Conseil patronal de l’environnement du Québec (CPEQ), How to Integrate Biodiversity into Business, helps organizations apply it within the Quebec context.
Updated in 2026, the guide presents concepts related to ecosystem services and natural capital, case studies, tools, and reference frameworks. It covers nine issues: habitat loss and fragmentation, wetlands, species at risk, invasive alien species, overexploitation of resources, pollution, climate change, urban biodiversity, and environmental nuisances.
For each issue, it provides examples of interactions with economic activities, possible actions, and the main regulatory frameworks. It can therefore be used to raise awareness among teams, identify the most relevant issues, and determine where more in-depth analysis may be required.
ISO 17298 and the CPEQ guide are therefore complementary: the former structures the process, while the latter provides practical guidance adapted to Quebec businesses.
The Biodiversity Assessment as the Starting Point for Funding
Any project supported by the Fonds Écoleader – Biodiversity must include an assessment that meets the program’s criteria or build on an existing validated assessment. Inspired by ISO 17298, this assessment brings together information on the current situation, stakeholders, dependencies on ecosystem services, impacts on biodiversity, and priority measures.
It also provides a useful first step in preparing for the recommendations of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), particularly the assessment of dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities included in the LEAP approach. However, it is not sufficient on its own to fully meet the TNFD framework, which also addresses the location of interactions with nature, governance, strategy, risk management, metrics, targets, and disclosure.
Based on the assessment, a company may obtain funding for:
- complementary studies to gather more precise data;
- the development of an action plan or targeted initiative;
- support in implementing recommendations;
- training needed to sustain new practices;
- support for the development of natural infrastructure.
The initiative may cover the entire organization or begin with a specific facility, activity, product, or supply chain. The key is to maintain a clear link between the identified dependencies and impacts, the priorities established, and the proposed actions.
Structuring this information is becoming increasingly relevant as nature-related disclosure expectations continue to grow. The TNFD remains voluntary, but it is already influencing the practices of companies, investors, and financial institutions. Target 15 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework also calls for the assessment and disclosure of dependencies, impacts, and risks, including across value chains.
Starting with an assessment therefore allows organizations to progressively structure their data, engage their teams, and integrate biodiversity into decision-making before a client, lender, investor, or contracting authority requests this information.
From an Invisible Dependency to an Action Plan
A biodiversity initiative is not simply about planting a few trees around a facility. It involves understanding the connections between business activities, value chains, and ecosystems, and then turning that understanding into decisions and actions.
The Fonds Écoleader – Biodiversity makes this first step more accessible. ISO 17298 provides a robust framework, while the CPEQ guide offers examples and tools adapted to the Quebec context.
For a company that has already completed a carbon footprint assessment or begun analyzing its climate risks, this represents a natural evolution of its resilience approach: which natural environments, resources, or ecosystem services does the continuity of your operations depend on today?