Minister of State for Nature, Heritage and Biodiversity, Christopher O’Sullivan TD, has launched a Biodiversity Duty Reporting Guidance for Public Bodies. The guidance provides practical steps to help public bodies fulfil their ‘biodiversity duty’ – a new legal requirement for public and state bodies to consider biodiversity in their decision making and daily operations. Developed by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) with support from Business for Biodiversity Ireland, the guidance will also assist public bodies in fulfilling their biodiversity reporting obligations.
“All of us have a role to play in protecting our biodiversity, and that includes our public and state bodies. Many of them, including ESB Ireland and Iarnród Éireann, are already leading by example and can see the benefits – for biodiversity, for the public and their own organisations.”
“This guidance will help even more of our public bodies to make a commitment to biodiversity. It suggests areas of business activities within public bodies, from procurement, to construction, landscape management and organisational development, which can have a real impact on our biodiversity. It will also support public and state bodies to report on their progress over the coming months as required by the legislation.”
Biodiversity Duty Reporting Guidance for Public Bodies provides actionable steps and tools for public bodies to embed biodiversity considerations into their operations. It indicates areas of opportunity within public bodies where biodiversity can be incorporated, and sets out how biodiversity duty can be strengthened through clear targets, knowledge and skills development, collaboration and implementation. The guidance also supports public and state bodies to record and report on progress.
ESB Ireland is a member of the Business for Biodiversity Ireland platform, which is an initiative seed funded by the NPWS and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), in response to the recognised growing need for business guidance in transitioning to a nature-positive way of working.
Recent wildlife legislation requires listed public and state bodies to incorporate biodiversity considerations into their operations and report on their progress
Biodiversity Duty Reporting Guidance for Public Bodies provides practical guidance on incorporating biodiversity into work programmes and on reporting obligations
The first report on the implementation of Ireland’s 4th National Biodiversity Action Plan is due in summer 2025 and will include progress reported by public and state bodies.
“Biodiversity action is a core part of ESB’s ambition to make a difference for planet, place and people;
we aim to be nature-positive by 2030. In 2024, ESB appointed a Group Head of Sustainability, who has completed the establishment of a new Centre of Sustainability – including the creation of a new role of Group Biodiversity Lead, tasked with driving biodiversity action and transformation across ESB’s business units.”
“We have recently published the ESB Networks Biodiversity Strategy ‘Networks for Nature’ and are currently in the process of developing similar strategies for other constituent business units of ESB. ESB wholeheartedly welcomes this new guidance document, which provides clear directions with regard to our annual reporting duty.”
Public and state bodies are an important partner in our delivery of the National Biodiversity Action Plan. I would like to thank them for their positive engagement in outlining the steps they’ve taken to promote biodiversity and we welcome further engagement as they implement their biodiversity duty.”
Ireland’s 4th National Biodiversity Action Plan (NBAP) was published in January 2024 and sets out Ireland’s vision for biodiversity to 2050. The Plan provides a greatly enhanced governance framework for biodiversity in Ireland that integrates biodiversity into decision making processes across Government. The Wildlife (Amendment) Act 2023 puts the NBAP on a statutory footing, with an obligation for listed public bodies to have regard to its objectives and targets in the performance of their functions. Public bodies must integrate biodiversity into their policies and programmes, and report annually on measures adopted and progress made. The first report on implementation of the 4th NBAP will summarise measures adopted by public bodies and progress to date.
With BFBI’s support, your business will embark on an ongoing cycle of self-assessment to ensure your biodiversity actions are in line with current guidelines
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