Join us at the ECCB 2026

We are inviting you to submit an abstract to our symposium at the ECCB 2026 in Leiden, Netherlands 6-10 July with the topic of operationalising the mitigation hierarchy across scales. We would be happy to receive abstracts that touch upon questions of measuring and valuing biodiversity impacts across value chains and direct operations with a focus on avoidance and compensatory measures related to them. See below for full description of the symposium topic.

Please follow this link to submit your abstract (max 300 words) to our session: https://cbd.eventsair.com/PresentationPortal/Account/Login?ReturnUrl=%2FPresentationPortal%2Feccb2026%2Fsubmit-symp-abstract (In the topic selection select “Nr 03 – Beyond direct impacts” symposium from the drop- menu. If you have issues with the portal try changing to a different browser, e.g. Microsoft Edge)

The deadline for abstracts is February 15, 2026. We will notify of acceptance as soon as possible after the deadline.

The symposium is organised as part of the BOOST for biodiversity offsets project funded by the Strategic Research Council of Finland.

Please feel free to share this invitation!

Best wishes,
Liisa Varumo, Hanna Kalliolevo and Essi Pykäläinen

Contact: liisa.varumo@syke.fi

FULL SYMPOSIUM DESCRIPTION

Beyond direct impacts – linking supply chains and footprints with avoidance and compensatory measures for effective biodiversity conservation

In the past two decades there has been a notable increase in the instruments and measures developed to halt biodiversity loss and help reach international conservation targets. Research on measures to avoid direct biodiversity impacts or compensate them through e.g. biodiversity offsets and nature credits have shown the diversity of the metrics and institutional arrangements of these measures (e.g., Droste et al. 2022; Marshall et al. 2020). Despite and partially because of this variety of approaches several persistent pitfalls remain in these systems, particularly regarding the accounting of biodiversity losses and gains, and the consistent application of the mitigation hierarchy.

The direct impacts are however only one side of the story. Indirect losses arising through global supply chains constitute a major share of biodiversity loss (Marques et al. 2019).  Yet, calculating and mitigating these indirect losses is inherently even more challenging than addressing direct impacts. Ongoing debates over how to measure indirect losses underscore the need for methodological innovation. To prevent greenwashing, shared principles – such as prioritizing avoidance and establishing transparent accounting methods – are required for both direct and indirect biodiversity losses and their compensation. This symposium seeks to systematically link the domains of (i) biodiversity impact avoidance, (ii) biodiversity footprint accounting, and (iii) compensatory measures such as offsetting and nature credits to pursue practical and methodological clarity on how the mitigation hierarchy can be operationalized across scales, from local projects to international markets.

For this symposium we hope to convene researchers and practitioners to present and discuss from multiple perspectives (ecological, economic, legal, policy, and interdisciplinary) their experiences that could help design robust, transparent, and equitable frameworks for measuring and valuing biodiversity.