Professional biodiversity studio: access biodiversity data, analyse nature on demand. This manual takes a corporation from the materiality decision to a GRI 101-aligned biodiversity report, and uses Gaia (gaia.eco) as the data and analysis platform for every disclosure it can support.

0. Scope, decisions and the Gaia modules used

GRI 101: Biodiversity 2024 applies to reports and other materials published on or after 1 January 2026. If biodiversity is a material topic for your organisation, you report Disclosure 3-3 from GRI 3: Material Topics 2021, every relevant disclosure from 101-1 to 101-8, and certain related disclosures from other GRI Standards. Lock the decisions below in the first two weeks.

What you report when biodiversity is material

Rules on omission

• Reasons for omission are permitted. If information is confidential or legally prohibited, name the disclosure or requirement, give the reason and explain it in the GRI content index.

• If a committee, policy or process does not exist, say so, explain why and describe any plans. You do not have to create the item.

• Information already published elsewhere can be cross-referenced in the content index.

Decisions to lock

What Gaia does and what stays with you

Gaia modules used in this manual

Status of the standard: this manual paraphrases GRI 101: Biodiversity 2024 from the published text. Check every requirement against the standard before publishing, and check any later GRI interpretations.

1. GRI 101 requirements and gap table with Gaia support

GRI 101 has eight disclosures: three on topic management (101-1 to 101-3) and five on the topic itself (101-4 to 101-8). Gaia produces the evidence for the location, driver, state and ecosystem service disclosures (101-4 to 101-8) and supports the mitigation and target disclosures (101-1, 101-2). It does not cover access and benefit-sharing (101-3). Use this table as the working gap analysis and update the Status column.

Procedure for each row

1. Mark status as Done only when the disclosure text, the evidence file and a reviewer sign-off all exist.

2. Where content is partial, disclose what you have, state the gap and the date it closes. Where a policy or process does not exist, say so and describe any plans.

3. Where information is confidential or legally prohibited, use a reason for omission: name the requirement, give the reason, explain it in the content index.

4. Check the wording of each requirement against the GRI 101 text before publication; this table paraphrases it.

2. Policies, management and access and benefit-sharing (101-1 to 101-3)

These three disclosures describe what you commit to and how you manage impacts. Policies and decisions are yours; Gaia supplies the baselines, the avoidance evidence and the nature-based solutions that make commitments measurable. Allow 6 to 8 weeks, in parallel with sections 3 to 5.

101-1: Policies to halt and reverse biodiversity loss

1. Write down each policy or commitment on biodiversity. Describe how it is informed by the 2050 Goals and 2030 Targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

2. State which activities and business relationships the policy covers. If it covers only some, explain why. State whether business relationships are obliged or only encouraged to comply.

3. Set goals and targets. If you use terms such as net positive impact, no net loss, net gain or nature positive, define them and name the sources. Report whether the goals are informed by scientific consensus (GRI 101 points to tools such as those from the Science Based Targets Network).

4. Fix the base year and the indicators that track progress. Take baselines for state-of-nature indicators from Gaia (section 5): run the Gaia Map search for each site with the parameter sheet (section 7) and record the baseline values.

5. Back each target with monitoring you control, such as an annual eDNA campaign, rather than public records alone, because indexes depend on sampling effort.

Target register (one row per goal)

101-2: Management of biodiversity impacts

Apply the mitigation hierarchy in order and report each level. Use Gaia where the table shows it.

Then complete the other requirements of 101-2:

1. b. Hectares. For each site with the most significant impacts, report hectares under restoration or rehabilitation and hectares already restored. Take them from your site records.

2. c. Offsets. For each offset report goals, geographic location, whether and how good offset practice is met (GRI guidance names additionality, ecological equivalence and permanence), and whether it is certified or verified by a third party.

3. d. Management plans. List the sites with a biodiversity management plan and explain why others have none. A plan should contain monitoring, a time schedule, milestones and targets. Gaia searches repeated each year with unchanged parameters supply the monitoring entry.

4. e. Climate. Describe how synergies with climate action are enhanced and trade-offs reduced. If there are none, a brief statement suffices.

5. f. Stakeholders. Describe how actions avoid and minimise negative impacts and maximise positive impacts for stakeholders. For restoration, consider free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Gaia Gallery and the multilingual interface help prepare material in the language of those you engage.

101-3: Access and benefit-sharing

Gaia does not cover this disclosure. Follow these steps if you use genetic resources or associated traditional knowledge (for example in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals or agriculture).

1. Establish whether any access and benefit-sharing regulation applies to your use of genetic resources, and in which provider countries.

2. Describe the process that ensures compliance: who is responsible, how provider countries are identified, how it is built into strategy and procedures, and how staff are trained.

3. Describe voluntary actions beyond legal obligations, or actions where no regulation exists.

4. Report significant non-compliance under GRI 2-27.

5. If none of this applies to you, say so and explain why.

3. Identify impacts and locations with Gaia Map and Gaia Layers (101-4, 101-5)

This is where Gaia saves most work. One repeatable Gaia search per site produces the evidence for how you identified significant impacts (101-4) and for whether each site is in or near an ecologically sensitive area (101-5). Allow 4 to 6 weeks.

101-4: Identification of biodiversity impacts

1. List the sites and the supply chain products and services in scope.

2. Screen by sector and commodity with the tools GRI 101 cites as examples: ENCORE, the SBTN Materiality Screening Tool, the SBTN High Impact Commodity List, the WWF Biodiversity Risk Filter, the IUCN Red List, the CITES Appendices and the TNFD LEAP approach. Gaia does not replace these; it adds site-level evidence.

3. Fix the Gaia search parameters once in the parameter sheet (section 7): radius, time window, taxonomic groups, minimum record count.

4. For each site, run the Gaia Map search at the site coordinates. Record the number of records and species, the Shannon-Wiener, Berger-Parker and Simpson dominance indexes, and the invasive alien species recorded.

5. Open Gaia Layers at the same coordinates. Record designated areas, protected habitats and the habitat type, with the publisher and date of each layer.

6. Judge significance with the scale below, written down before scoring. GRI 101 judges severity by scale, scope and irremediable character, and notes that likelihood and severity increase near ecologically sensitive areas, tipping points and threatened species.

7. Report the method, assumptions, thresholds, limitations, sources and stakeholder engagement. Say for each dataset whether it is primary, secondary or modelled: records that Gaia draws from GBIF are secondary data; your own eDNA or field survey is primary data.

Output: significance register with the Gaia evidence for each site.

Significance scale (illustrative, adapt and document)

Site screening table (one row per site, from Gaia Map and Gaia Layers)

101-5: Locations with biodiversity impacts

For each site with the most significant impacts report:

1. a. Location and size. Give a polygon or map, and names and coordinates where available. For transport or fishing use routes or FAO fishing areas. Size in hectares comes from your site records.

2. b. In or near an ecologically sensitive area. In Gaia Layers, load the national protected-area, nature reserve and Habitats Directive layers. If a layer is missing, use the Gaia search engine for maps, which crawls organisation sites and structures GIS layers. "In" means completely or partly inside the area. "Near" means within the affected or potentially affected area, or within the radius you set (decision 5) and explain. Report the distance only if the site is near.

3. c. Activities. List the activities at each site from your records.

4. d. Supply chain. List the products and services with most significant impacts, and the countries or jurisdictions where related activities occur. Run the Gaia screening for the sourcing regions you know, with coordinates or the best available area.

For 101-5-b, state which of the five area types applies. Gaia covers some of them directly:

Two calculations belong in this disclosure. The share of sites in or near an ecologically sensitive area:

\text{share} = \frac{\text{sites in or near a sensitive area}}{\text{total sites}} \times 100

and, for supply chain commodities, the proportion of one high-impact commodity: quantity sourced of that commodity divided by the total quantity of high-impact commodities sourced.

101-5 reporting table (one row per site)

4. Direct drivers of biodiversity loss (101-6)

101-6 asks for quantities per site, mostly from your own records. Gaia contributes the habitat typing for land and sea use change, and the invasive alien species evidence. Report only the drivers relevant to your activities. Allow 4 to 6 weeks.

The five direct drivers and where each is reported

101-6-a: Land and sea use change

For each site where activities lead or could lead to land and sea use change:

1. Classify the ecosystem before and after with the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology (decision 7). Use the habitat layers in Gaia Layers to identify the type; confirm on site where the layer is coarse.

2. Fix the cut-off date (tied to a no-conversion or deforestation-free policy) or the reference date (decision 6) and state which and why.

3. Report hectares of natural ecosystem converted since that date, the date, and the ecosystem type before and after. A natural ecosystem substantially resembles one found without major human impact. Conversion is a human-induced change to another use, or a profound change in species composition, structure or function.

4. Report separately the hectares converted from one intensively used or modified ecosystem to another during the period, and the types before and after.

5. Where hectares cannot be reported for a supply chain product, report the percentage of sourced volume that is deforestation- or conversion-free, and describe how it was assessed.

101-6-b: Exploitation of natural resources

1. For each wild species harvested, report quantity, type and extinction risk. Look up the IUCN Red List category for each species.

2. Check in Gaia Map whether each harvested species is recorded near the site, and whether records rise or fall across time windows, as context for the extinction risk statement.

3. Report water withdrawal and water consumption in megaliters from your meters.

101-6-c: Pollution

1. Report the quantity and type of each pollutant generated. GRI 101 points to GRI 305-7 (NOx, SOx, persistent organic pollutants, VOCs, hazardous air pollutants, particulate matter), GRI 303-4 and GRI 306-3.

2. Report heat, light, noise and vibration where they breach legal limits.

3. Gaia does not measure pollutants. Use Gaia indexes upstream and downstream, or before and after, as state-of-nature context in 101-7.

101-6-d: Invasive alien species

1. For each site where activities could introduce invasive alien species, describe how they are or may be introduced. Typical pathways: imported plant material, soil movement, cargo and vehicles, ballast water.

2. Define "invasive" by national regulation and the Global Invasive Species Database. Report only invasive species.

3. In Gaia Map, list the invasive alien species recorded within your search radius, with record counts per time window and the latest record date. A rise between windows is an early signal.

4. In Gaia Nexus, read the recorded predators, parasites and competitors of each invasive species. Prefer measures that support natural enemies already present; any release of a species for biological control needs approval from the competent authority and an ecologist's risk review.

5. Enter the measures in 101-2 and the records in your 101-6-d text.

101-6-e and f: Supply chain and compilation

1. Repeat a to d for each supply chain product or service listed in 101-5-d, broken down by country or jurisdiction.

2. Describe how the data were compiled: standards, methodologies and assumptions. Reference the Gaia parameter sheet (section 7) and the classification you used.

101-6 data sheet (one row per site and driver)

5. State of biodiversity: indexes from Gaia (101-7)

101-7 asks, for each site reported under 101-5-a, for the type, size and condition of the affected or potentially affected ecosystems in a base year and in the current period. Gaia turns occurrence and eDNA records, each with a place and time stamp, into biodiversity indexes, which give the species-composition part of ecosystem condition. They do not give the whole of it, so combine them with the other condition measures below. Allow 6 to 8 weeks.

What 101-7 requires

The three Gaia indexes

Gaia data come from GBIF; only records licensed for commercial use are used, and Gaia filters and checks them where feasible. Let S be the number of species, n_i the records of species i, N the total records, p_i = n_i / N.

Shannon-Wiener index (higher = more diverse):

H' = -\sum_{i=1}^{S} p_i \ln p_i

Simpson dominance index (higher = more dominated by a few species):

D = \sum_{i=1}^{S} p_i^2

Berger-Parker dominance index (share of the most frequent species):

d = \frac{n_{\max}}{N}

Check which form Gaia displays for Simpson (D as above, or 1 - D) and state it in the methodology note.

Worked example (illustrative numbers): four species with 50, 30, 15 and 5 records, N = 100. Then p = 0.50, 0.30, 0.15, 0.05, H' = 1.14, D = 0.365, d = 0.50. If the most frequent species grows to 70 records and the others shrink, D and d rise and H' falls: the community is becoming more dominated.

Procedure

1. Ecosystem type and size (a-i, a-ii). For each site reported in 101-5-a, name the affected ecosystem types with the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology and give the size in hectares at the base year. Use habitat layers in Gaia Layers and your site GIS.

2. Reference condition. Define a reference condition for each ecosystem type, against which condition is measured. A practical choice: a nearby protected area of the same habitat type found in Gaia Layers, run through the same Gaia Map search. Write down how you chose it.

3. Base year baseline. Run the Gaia Map search for the window ending in the base year, with the parameter sheet (section 7). Record records, species and the three indexes. If data for the base year do not exist, say so and state the earliest usable window.

4. Current period. Repeat with identical parameters for the current window.

5. Condition assessment (a-iii). GRI 101 measures condition against the reference condition across composition, structure, function, landscape characteristics such as connectivity, and physical or chemical state. Take composition from the Gaia indexes and species records; take structure, function and physical or chemical state from your own surveys and monitoring; take connectivity from the habitat layers. State the condition for each ecosystem type, for example as a score from 0 (fully degraded) to 1 (reference condition). Where conversion is the main driver, condition falls completely.

6. Optional condition-adjusted area. Combine size and condition into equivalent hectares.

7. Species (optional). List legally protected, priority, keystone and culturally or economically important species recorded at the site. Give the IUCN Red List category for each, looked up per species. As a proxy for population size use the trend in Gaia Map records, labelled as a proxy; add Gaia Bioacoustics sound records as evidence of presence.

8. Compilation (b). Describe the standards, methods and assumptions, and label each dataset primary, secondary or modelled. GRI 101 prefers primary data; Gaia records from GBIF are secondary, your own eDNA or survey data are primary.

Equivalent hectares:

\text{equivalent hectares} = \text{ecosystem size (ha)} \times \text{condition score}

How to read a change between two windows

Limits to state next to every index

1. Occurrence records are observations, not a census: they reflect where people and sensors look. Gaia filters and checks the GBIF records where feasible, which reduces errors but does not remove sampling bias. Only commercially licensed records are used, so counts can be lower than the full GBIF holdings for the area.

2. Compare only like with like: same radius, time window, taxonomic group and data sources.

3. Do not compare an area with 40 records to one with 4,000 without saying so.

4. eDNA detections are not individual counts. Confirm in Gaia's documentation how eDNA records enter the indexes, and say so in the methodology note.

5. Read the indexes as indicators to be interpreted by an ecologist, not as a verdict on a site.

101-7 reporting table (one row per site and ecosystem type)

6. Ecosystem services and nature-based solutions with Gaia Nexus and Gaia Traits (101-8)

101-8 asks you to list, for each site reported under 101-5-a, the ecosystem services and beneficiaries affected or potentially affected, and to explain how. Gaia Nexus names the species relationships behind many services, and the same relationships become the nature-based solutions you report in 101-2. Allow 4 to 6 weeks.

101-8: Ecosystem services

1. List services per site. Start from the ecosystem types in 101-7 and your activities. GRI 101 groups services as provisioning (for example timber, freshwater), regulating and maintenance (for example erosion control) and cultural (for example recreation, heritage). GRI 101 cites ENCORE, the Natural Capital Protocol, the TNFD LEAP approach and the WRI Corporate Ecosystem Services Review as methods.

2. Name the species behind each service. In Gaia Nexus, look up who pollinates, preys on or lives in symbiosis with the species involved. Example: pollination of a crop, or pest regulation by predators of the pest.

3. Check the species are present. In Gaia Map, check whether those species are recorded near the site and whether records rise or fall across windows.

4. Name the beneficiaries. Beneficiaries can include Indigenous Peoples, local communities, other organisations and your own organisation. This comes from your engagement records, not from Gaia.

5. Explain how they are or could be affected. Link each service to the drivers in 101-6 and the changes in 101-7.

6. Extend to supply chain and downstream. Repeat for the countries in 101-5-d and for downstream entities where relevant.

Examples of services that Gaia evidence supports

Gaia procedures for nature-based solutions (used in 101-2 and 101-8)

Combat a pest or invasive alien species

1. In Gaia Nexus, search the target species and read its predators, parasites and pathogens.

2. In Gaia Map, check which of those natural enemies already occur within the search radius.

3. Prefer measures that strengthen natural enemies already present, such as food plants, shelter and nesting places, over introducing a new species. Any introduction for biological control needs approval from the competent authority and an ecologist's risk review before release.

4. Select supporting plants in Gaia Traits and place them with Gaia Layers.

5. Repeat the Gaia search each year with unchanged parameters and track pest and enemy records.

Support a struggling endemic or protected species

1. In Gaia Nexus, read the species' relationships: food plants, pollinators, hosts, prey, predators.

2. In Gaia Map, locate current records and the trend by window.

3. In Gaia Layers, find nearby habitat patches and designated areas the measure can connect to.

4. In Gaia Traits, choose plants that supply what the species needs and suit the site.

5. Agree the measure with the competent authority or a conservation organisation before implementation.

Select plants for forestry or landscape design with Gaia Traits

1. Read the Ellenberg indicator values of candidate plants (their needs for light, moisture, soil reaction and nutrients) and match them to the site.

2. Open the Sources tab in Gaia Traits and check where each value comes from. As listed on 12 October 2026: LEDA Traitbase (vascular plants, north-west Europe), USDA PLANTS Database (vascular plants, North America), BROT Plant Trait Database (Mediterranean vascular plants) and Pignatti Flora d'Italia (Ellenberg indicator values, Italy). Use the source that covers your region, and record its name, licence and citation in the evidence file. Three of the four are listed as free for scientific use, so confirm that commercial use is permitted before publishing the values.

3. Compare blooming and fruiting periods and combine plants so nectar, pollen and fruit are available through the season, to support pollinators.

4. Check growth cycle, aesthetics and plant structure with the 3D models and videos in Gaia Traits.

5. Record the final plant list with the Gaia export date, and show stakeholders the species supported with Gaia Gallery.

7. Gaia workflow, data and evidence filing

This section turns sections 3–6 into one repeatable routine, so the numbers in your report can be reproduced next year.

7.1 What Gaia replaces and what stays manual

7.2 Four-step routine

1. Search and discover. In Map, set the site and radius; list species, record types and years available.

2. Calculate KPIs. Run the indexes for the baseline window and the reporting window with identical parameters.

3. Context and solutions. Add Layers for sensitive areas (101-5), Nexus and Traits for measures (101-2, 101-8), Gaia Bioacoustics where sound adds evidence.

4. Draft, filter, download. Use the AI reporting assistant for a draft, filter and analyse the underlying data, then download tables and exports as evidence.

7.3 Parameter sheet (fill in once per site, per reporting year)

7.4 Evidence filing

Keep one folder per reporting year: parameter sheet, KPI exports, layer screenshots, the AI draft and the final text, and a short reviewer note. Name files site_disclosure_year, for example SiteA_101-7_2026. Cross-reference each file in the GRI content index.

7.5 Data governance

• Read Gaia's terms and privacy policy before uploading your own data.

• Occurrence and eDNA records are secondary data from GBIF; commercially licensed points only mean counts are lower than in GBIF as a whole. State this in your methods note.

• Do not publish exact coordinates of sensitive species; generalise them.

• Credit licensed records as their licences require.

• Check each trait source's licence before using trait data in a public or commercial deliverable.

• Treat the AI draft as a draft: every number is checked against an export.

• Confirm with Gaia: the Simpson form used, how eDNA is weighted in the indexes, and how uploaded data is stored.

8. Timeline, quality control checklist and sources

8.1 Timeline (first reporting cycle)

In later years, repeat the Gaia routine (7.2) with unchanged parameters and update only the reporting window.

8.2 Quality control checklist

• Every material topic has 101-1 to 101-8 disclosures or a stated reason for omission.

• Units: hectares for area, megalitres for water.

• Baseline and reporting windows have equal length and identical Gaia parameters.

• Each Gaia figure traces to an export in the evidence folder.

• Indexes are described as composition indicators, with record counts and the commercial-licence limitation.

• Sensitive species coordinates are generalised.

• Related disclosures (GRI 303, 305, 306-3, 411, 413) are cross-referenced.

• Requirements checked against the standard text itself.

• Sign-off by the accountable owner.

8.3 Common errors

8.4 Sources

• GRI 101: Biodiversity 2024.

• Gaia and Illuminum AB.

• Global Biotic Interactions.