2021 Biodiversity Performance Ratings of South African Companies

All businesses, no matter the size, industry or location, depend on nature for goods and services; and every business impacts nature. We are in the midst of the global biodiversity crisis, and the private sector has a critical role to play. Yet, biodiversity has lagged behind climate change in being recognised by the private sector as a material concern. The Biodiversity Disclosure Project aims to bring attention to this critical issue and enable businesses to do better how well South Africa is doing in mainstreaming biodiversity. This report, the fourth such ratings since 2018, evaluates how well the South African private sector is doing in mainstreaming biodiversity. For 2021 267 JSE-listed companies and 27 State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) were evaluated. It is encouraging that overall recognition of biodiversity has risen from 22% of 354 companies in 2020 to 35% of 294 companies in the 2021 reporting period to 104 in 2021 but there is still much to be done and urgently.