An Overview of BAT’s Biodiversity Risk & Opportunity Assessment
BAT recognises that one of the core elements to ensure the long-term sustainability of its supply chain is to assess, avoid, mitigate, and offset risks related to impacts and dependencies of tobacco growing operations on biodiversity and ecosystems.
Seedlings for reforestation activities.
The main tools in this approach are Biodiversity Risk & Opportunity Assessment (BROA) and Action Planning, and associated training resources. The BROA tool was developed collaboratively by the BAT Biodiversity Partnership. Based on existing risk assessment processes in other industries, it has been adapted to suit BAT’s more diffused agricultural supply chain and to fit more closely to systems within BAT. Since its inception, a number of resources have also been developed to help BAT companies carry out assessments and build action plans. The BROA toolkit consists of a resource handbook, a ‘best practice’ procedure for the assessment, and a reporting and corrective action plan template. It enables BAT companies to identify their impacts and dependencies on biodiversity and ecosystem services and to set up action plans where necessary to address risks.
Following a brief screening questionnaire, the assessment process consists of three phases:
A desk top exercise and discussions with stakeholders. This phase identifies any information needs/gaps and alerts senior managers to areas of concern. It determines if company activities are likely to have an impact on biodiversity.During this phase, a biodiversity risk assessment matrix is used to estimate the magnitude and probability of risks and to prioritise areas to be assessed in more detail within the next phase. It determines if companies activities are likely to have an impact on biodiversity.
Field work and further consultation. This phase refines understanding of biodiversity impacts, issues and opportunities. It should identify and confirm all direct impacts of the operation in addition to reviewing the indirect impacts and determining the extent to which BAT is responsible for their management.
Corrective Action Planning. Plans aim to avoid, minimise, mitigate or offset impacts on biodiversity.
Local NGO talking to tobacco farmers in Bangladesh
BAT companies in Uganda and Indonesia piloted the Biodiversity Risk & Opportunity Assessment in 2006/07 and provided feedback to improve and refine the tool. Since then, both BAT Pakistan and Kenya have also carried out assessments and drawn up action plans. The plan is to roll out the BROA, complete assessments and develop action plans for all BAT companies with agricultural operations by the end of 2010. BAT companies in Uganda, Indonesia and Brazil are now implementing action plans to address risks identified by the assessments. The Partnership have and will continue to support the projects within the BAT companies action plans where significant additional stakeholder input is required to achieve their aims, You can read case studies on Uganda, Indonesia and Brazil in this edition of the bulletin.
The Biodiversity Partnership has developed and used a set of training materials to train BAT staff on how to carry out the assessments. In 2009 three regional training workshops took place, lead by the NGO partners with support from local NGOs:
Kenya - AME (TBA facilitated, June 2009),
Bangladesh - ASPAC Regional Workshop (Earthwatch facilitated, July 2009),
Brazil - LACAR (FFI facilitated, August 2009)
40 BAT Leaf staff have now been trained. A second ASPAC regional workshop took place in March 2010 in Sri Lanka. There is a summary of the regional workshops in this bulletin.
The BROA tool encourages participants to look at situations over a longer timeframe and over a wider landscape perspective than would apply in the day to day business environment, enabling them to identify underlying trends in biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Collaboration between company staff in the field and external stakeholders lies at the heart of BROA – both the process and the outputs are important. Field staff and external stakeholders bring differing expertise and perspectives to bear - ‘ownership’ of the findings by the company and transparency with local stakeholders are both essential to drive corrective actions. The Biodiversity Partnership helps broker such relationships.
We have already learned that BROA can identify not only risks of negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems from operations, but also risks to operations from loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Again, by the end of 2010 the Partnership will make recommendations for any further improvements to the toolkit. This will be through the individual BROA reports and from a review workshop later this year. The review will ensure that the tool is easy to use by the companies and provides consistency across operations - the ultimate aim, to avoid negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems from BAT’s operations and to address risks to the sustainability of operations where biodiversity and ecosystems are being degraded in the operating areas.
We have already learned that BROA can identify not only risks of negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems from operations, but also risks to operations from loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Q1/2010
