The Corporate Ecosystem Services Review

The Corporate Ecosystem Services Review (ESR) is a strategic tool developed by the World Resources Institute, the Meridian Institute, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. It provides a five-step methodology for companies to assess how ecosystem degradation—which has seen 15 of 24 evaluated services decline over the last 50 years—affects their bottom line. The ESR identifies five categories of risks and opportunities: operational, regulatory and legal, reputational, market and product, and financing. By 2012, approximately 300 companies had utilized the ESR to move beyond traditional pollution-focused environmental assessments toward a strategy that accounts for ecosystem dependence.

• The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment found that ecosystems have declined more rapidly and extensively over the past 50 years than at any other comparable time in human history, with 15 of the 24 evaluated ecosystem services showing degradation.
• Ecosystem degradation creates five specific types of business risks and opportunities: operational (e.g., freshwater scarcity), regulatory and legal (e.g., new fines), reputational (e.g., NGO campaigns), market and product (e.g., eco-certified products), and financing (e.g., lending requirements).
• Traditional environmental management systems often fail to address ecosystem risks because they focus on pollution and natural resource consumption (impacts) rather than a company's dependence on ecosystem services.
• The ESR methodology is applicable to industries with direct ecosystem interaction—such as agriculture, forestry, and mining—as well as indirect sectors like retail and financial services where suppliers or customers interact with ecosystems.
• As of 2012, an estimated 300 companies have implemented the Ecosystem Services Review methodology.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). The Corporate Ecosystem Services Review. https://www.wri.org/research/corporate-ecosystem-services-review

Chicago

World Resources Institute. The Corporate Ecosystem Services Review. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/corporate-ecosystem-services-review.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=The Corporate Ecosystem Services Review |url=https://www.wri.org/research/corporate-ecosystem-services-review |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendcorporate, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{The Corporate Ecosystem Services Review}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/corporate-ecosystem-services-review}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }