ABSTRACT
Firms have traditionally viewed biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES) as external constraints on their activities because of regulations and laws imposed on them. Companies have started accounting for ES to improve management practices and even restore natural capital. Accounting for ES may be undertaken for different purposes, depending on whose needs and aspirations it aims to satisfy. Accounting for ES in a standardised, comparable and transparent manner has become a critical challenge for mainstreaming ES in business decision-making and applications. A lack of standardisation means that ES cannot be consistently accounted for from the perspective of a whole business, a business unit, its supply chains or its products and projects. This prevents ES accounting from being 'mainstreamed'. Ecosystem services-based approaches are a way of understanding the complex relationships between nature and humans in order to support decision-making, with the aim of reversing the declining status of ecosystems and ensuring the sustainable use/ management/conservation of resources.
