DP World Biodiversity Statement
Why Biodiversity is Important to Us
Biodiversity is understood as the variety and variability of life on earth and encompasses genetic, species and ecosystem diversity. It is a fundamental pillar for maintaining functional, balanced and healthy ecosystems and regulating climate change. The degradation and loss of biodiversity presents a very real risk not only to our climate, but also to mankind’s physical and economic well-being. Therefore, comprehensive climate action cannot be removed from addressing the threat posed by nature’s decline.
DP World acknowledges its responsibility to nature and is committed to implementing solutions that help prevent biodiversity loss across our global operations, both on land and in water. We aim to minimise our environmental impact and take meaningful steps toward nature positivity by actively contributing to the restoration of natural ecosystems, aligned with our Ocean Strategy and Blue Carbon Ecosystems Strategy.
What Are We Doing?
To manage our impact on biodiversity and contribute towards the safeguarding of nature, we will:
- Continue to improve the understanding of our operational impacts on biodiversity and local conservation needs, to ensure that we establish the right goals and objectives and strategies to achieve them.
- Undertake Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) when developing in new areas, in line with our internal standard and guidance which is informed by good international practice, specifically IFC Performance Standard 6 Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Management of Living Natural Resources.
- Apply the Mitigation Hierarchy approach to avoid and minimize our impact on biodiversity, restore nature where possible, and offset impacts.
- This approach will be strengthened through the use of the Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT) to facilitate initial screening of biodiversity risk during master planning and support our ambition of achieving no net biodiversity loss in new developments,
- Develop and implement Biodiversity Action Plans (BAPs) where required, to offset unavoidable impacts, adopting the ‘like for like’ principle and ‘net gain’ approach for areas of critical habitat, where feasible. The BAPs will establish clear objectives, targets and indicators to monitor and measure performance.
- Considering business and conservation priorities and needs, we will identify opportunities to restore or reclaim habitats where feasible during the operational lifecycle of DP World’s land holdings.
- Continue to implement and evolve our internal environmental standards and guidelines in line with good international practice for assessment, monitoring, and management of environmental aspects and impacts throughout the operational lifecycle.
- Aim to integrate a nature-based solutions (NbS) approach into our management strategies to support biodiversity, manage climate change risk and maximize environmental, social and economic co-benefits.
- Engage with relevant external stakeholders on nature and biodiversity related issues, following DP World’s External Stakeholder Engagement Policy.
- Refer to emerging frameworks such as the Science Based Targets for Nature (SBTN) and the Taskforce for Nature-Related Financial Disclosure (TNFD), as well as the IUCN’s Guidelines for Planning & Monitoring Corporate Biodiversity Performance, to guide us in further defining our approach to biodiversity management, governance, and reporting.
- Implement our Ocean Strategy as part of the DP World Group sustainability strategy 'Our World, Our Future' and its "Water” legacy pillar, across four focus areas for action: diverse and resilient ecosystems, healthy waters, blue finance and blue science, innovation and leadership.
- Continue to work with strategic partners to help us to develop and deliver on our ambitions and elevate the need for biodiversity action more broadly.
- Take a leadership role in promoting ocean health and sustainability as part of the UNGC Ocean Stewardship Coalition and continue our commitment to the Ocean Stewardship Principles.
- Develop specific performance indicators that are reflective of our operations and facilitate a data-driven approach for definition of targets and decision making.
Scope & Responsibilities
Our ‘Biodiversity Statement’ applies to DP World’ operations globally, including all our business units and subsidiaries, where we maintain operational control. We will work with our internal and external stakeholders to ensure all parties are aware of our commitments and ambitions to meaningfully reduce impacts, restore and protect ecosystems and their biodiversity.
While the Group Head of Sustainability is the custodian of the Group’s Biodiversity Statement, they are supported at a management level by the Executive Sustainability Council. The Council is comprised of senior stakeholders from across the organization, and together will be responsible for providing oversight of the implementation of this Statement.
The Biodiversity Statement is in line with our Group-level sustainability strategies, existing strategic partnerships and guided by international frameworks and global guidelines for biodiversity conservation. It shall be reviewed and updated annually.