Etsy – Charlotte Stewart – 2023
Goals
This summer, Etsy wanted to better understand its impacts, dependencies, opportunities, and risks related to biodiversity. Charlotte joined the Etsy Impact team for 12 weeks to identify preliminary areas of opportunity and/or risk by researching the reporting landscape and biodiversity frameworks for addressing impacts and dependencies on nature. This work supported ongoing internal planning and education on the topic of biodiversity and how it relates to Etsy’s business activities.
Solutions
Charlotte broke the research into three phases. The first phase involved conducting a landscape analysis to assess current efforts and commitments across Etsy and peer companies in the e-commerce space related to biodiversity. In the second phase, she explored Etsy’s value chain to understand and make recommendations related to areas of impact, potential risks, and opportunities. This phase involved using nature-related analysis tools such as Exploring Natural Capital Opportunities, Risks, and Exposure (ENCORE) and the WWF Risk Filter Suite.
The third and final phase of research involved preparing for reporting by starting to distill the requirements of European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and accompanying European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), as well as understanding nature-specific guidance frameworks such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and Science Based Targets Networks’ (SBTN) targets for nature.
Potential Impact
As a result of the research conducted, Etsy is further assisted in understanding some of its nature-related opportunities and risks and considering these in future value chain initiatives, strategic planning, and sustainability reporting. Etsy is a leader in the sustainability space and the information gathered will be available to various teams across the business that embed sustainability in their work.
Biodiversity has rapidly become a top topic of interest for businesses and investors, so being prepared and informed will allow Etsy to keep commerce human in the best way possible.
