There are several studies and publications available that are of particular relevance to the Convention process and CBD COP decisions. These are outlined below. For other guides and documents, please refer to the Tools and Mechanisms page of this site.

The UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), in collaboration with the CBD Secretariat and other partners, undertook a review of biodiversity and ecosystem services requirements of standards and certification schemes covering 36 standards across 8 industry sectors. This initial study noted a great deal of variation between standards regarding coverage of biodiversity, definitions used, and measures adopted for biodiversity protection and also observed that specific guidance on managing ecosystem services was rarely given. This has been published as CBD Technical Series #63: “Review of the Biodiversity Requirements of Standards and Certification Schemes”.

Continuing along the themes begun in this initial study, the second phase of this research is entitled CBD Technical Series #73: “Best Policy Guidance for the Integration of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Standards”. This second step builds upon the earlier work by examining best policies in standards systems with regard to the biodiversity and ecosystem services safeguards. It does this by providing an overview of some of the key issues and approaches related to biodiversity management that could be adopted by standard setting organizations. These include the identification of principles or commitments that fit with the intent of the standard and support attainment of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Other overarching approaches that are discussed include an integrated ecosystem services approach to help ensure that the benefits that natural ecosystems provide to people are maintained, and a landscape approach to help ensure that operations support the wider sustainability objectives of a landscape. The study also discusses the five pressures that economic activities pose to biodiversity and ecosystem services and provides specific guidance on how each pressure can be addressed. These pressures are habitat and land cover change; harvest and resource consumption; pollution and external inputs; climate change; and invasive species and genes.

The CBD Business Engagement Decisions are a globally impactful, yet complex set of documents which can guide national action and foreshadow emerging policy and legislative trends. However, the manner in which these decisions are written sometimes renders them inaccessible to non-specialists and as such stunts their potential for empowering proactive change from the very businesses the decisions affect. The purpose of the document entitled “CBD Decisions and the Business Sector” (produced by the National Confederation of Industry Brazil (CNI), the Brazilian Ministry of Environment, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, and the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety) is to synthesize the Business Decisions from COP10 and COP11 in terms of their current and potential impacts on all businesses, globally, in language accessible to the majority of readers. It aims to inform relevant audiences why these decisions are relevant to the profitability of their business, and why being unaware of these deliberations may no longer be advisable.