Supporting Ecolab’s Journey to Biodiversity Resilience
The Situation
Ecolab, a leading water, hygiene, and infection prevention company, is committed to the protection of biodiversity in its operations and through its products and services. Because of the organisation’s dependency on water, it plays a pivotal role in addressing key drivers of nature loss at its sites and on behalf of its customers.
To contribute to global efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, Ecolab seeks to understand the state of nature, associated water and biodiversity risk, and its effects in its most critical operations. Since 2023, Anthesis has partnered with Ecolab to utilise the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures’ (TNFD) LEAP (Locate, Evaluate, Assess, Prepare to respond) approach and to chart a path for integrating biodiversity considerations into business decisions.
Throughout this time, we have provided Ecolab with end-to-end nature services, guiding them through TNFD framework application, risk and site assessments, measuring existing mitigation strategies, through to strategic guidance on next steps.
Our Solutions
Applying the LEAP approach, we assessed Ecolab’s impacts and dependencies on nature and proximity to ecologically sensitive areas. We screened its value chain industries and activities (i.e., diversified and specialty chemicals production, forest and paper products production, industrial gases production, etc.) to identify nature impacts and dependencies.
We also enhanced our analysis of Ecolab’s sites by assessing a list of 100 facilities for reputational risk associated with proximity to key biodiversity areas (KBAs). From this review, we identified four sites for further validation based on their proximity to KBAs.
Anthesis and Tandem Global then partnered to perform a more in-depth evaluation of 19 manufacturing sites included in Ecolab’s commitment to obtaining Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) certification. This evaluation served to identify biodiversity-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities at these sites, and to assess the performance of existing site-level risk mitigation activities. These sites are focused on addressing site-related water challenges and risks and are a starting place for Ecolab to validate results of their 2023 nature risk screen as they reside in high-risk watersheds, rely on water as a critical ecosystem service, are high energy consumers, and are responsible for 70% of Ecolab’s manufacturing production.
Ecolab’s nature related dependencies include:
- Water supply
- Flood and storm mitigation
- Climate mitigation
- Land use
- Water use
- Greenhouse gas emissions
Impacts of the Project
Measuring Success
To better measure how site level actions have a positive impact on biodiversity, Anthesis supported Tandem Global in analysing recommended TNFD metrics. We are also keeping up to date with progress on the Nature Positive Initiative’s “State of Nature Metrics”, which is aimed at fostering consensus on a small set of metrics to measure the state of nature. From this analysis we have identified three metrics to be prioritised in the near-term, which will now be socialised with key internal stakeholders to integrate into site level data collection.
A Clear Path Forward
As a result of our work in 2025, Ecolab now has a list of prioritised sites based on physical, regulatory and reputational nature risks, and has identified that many of its existing site-level actions and management plans are already mitigating some biodiversity-related impacts. Ecolab’s greatest opportunity now lies with continued augmentation of water stewardship efforts to further mitigate nature risk as these sites.
End-to-End Services
By applying the TNFD LEAP framework, screening operations and value chains, and validating site-level conservation actions, Ecolab is taking meaningful steps to address its dependencies and impacts on nature. These actions not only help safeguard ecosystems but also strengthen operational resilience, reduce regulatory and reputational risks, and unlock long-term value creation.
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