How Trait Data Reveals Hidden Risks in Your Supply Chain

Identifying the impacts and dependencies of your supply chain on nature is an important part of managing risk, as well as understanding how your business interfaces with nature. One of Natcap’s scientists, Dr Ben Howes, recently attended a workshop on developing trait-based biodiversity metrics, which was attended by world-leading scientists from Imperial College London, Natural History Museum, BirdLife International, and the Zoological Society of London, among others. These trait-based biodiversity metrics could offer unique insights into measuring impacts and dependencies, and ultimately financial risks of supply chains.

What is Trait Data? 

Traits are morphological and behavioural characteristics of species, for example, for plants, the weight of seeds or thickness of bark, whilst for birds, wing length and beak width. This enables us to understand the role a species has within an ecosystem, as well as the functioning of the ecosystem itself. For instance, we can infer the types of seeds a bird may feed on and disperse based on its beak width and length.

We can also measure traits at the ecosystem level, creating a map of trait space from all of the species. This can be used to identify species which have unique traits and may therefore be providing key services that no other species can replace. 

Lastly, trait space can be used to compare the quality of the same ecosystem in different locations, potentially showing how external impacts have changed the trait space of the ecosystem and likely the quality of ecosystem services it can provide.

How Could Trait Data Allow Corporates to go Above and Beyond Current Tools? 

Trait data enables corporates to go beyond traditional biodiversity metrics by directly linking ecosystem functions to business risks and impacts. Unlike many current tools, trait-based approaches can identify which specific species are critical to ecosystem services, how sensitive they are to external impacts, and what risks their loss might pose to supply chains. This allows businesses to more confidently and precisely anticipate physical, regulatory, and reputational risks before they materialise. 

Trait data also supports forward-looking analysis by mapping where ecosystem services are most vulnerable under future climate or biodiversity scenarios. Ultimately, it offers a more functional, predictive, and decision-relevant understanding of nature’s role in corporate operations.

What is the Science of Trait Data? 

Trait data can link the supply of ecosystem services by specific species or ecosystems to commodities in your supply chain. Trait data does this by telling us about the ecosystem services a species or ecosystem provides, as well as how sensitive the species or ecosystem is to external impacts. On top of this, trait data can infer how important a species is to the overall functioning of an ecosystem, and therefore how the services the ecosystem provides may decline if that species is impacted. 

Trait-based approaches can identify which species are most critical to ecosystem functioning and most likely to create material risks for your business. This can affect commodities in your supply chain in two ways:

1. Species which are identified as critical to ecosystem functioning are more likely to be protected by regulations, and negative impacts on them are more likely to be reported on by media outlets, resulting in policy and reputational risks.
2. Negative impacts on these important species may cause a reduction in the function of the ecosystem and therefore a lowering in the quality of the services it provides, potentially leading to physical risks such as increased pests or loss of pollinators.

Trait-based approaches can also help identify where businesses are dependent on nature’s services and where those dependencies could translate into physical risks. By analysing the traits of species that deliver key ecosystem services, you can map where these services are most abundant and how that supply might shift under future scenarios of climate or biodiversity change. If commodities in your supply chain rely on an ecosystem service that is already limited, for example, a small number of pollinator species or few natural pest predators, that represents an immediate risk. Similarly, if trait-based models predict that species providing a vital service may decline or move geographically in the future, this highlights a forward-looking physical risk to production or yield stability.

Biodiversity metrics that use trait data are becoming increasingly common. While these metrics are still in their infancy and have well-established limitations and caveats they have potential to provide a unique perspective on your supply chain's interface with nature, speaking to both the impacts on functionally important species, as well as the presence of vital ecosystem services on which your supply chain may rely. 

At Natcap, we are committed to staying up to date with scientific advances and are continuously updating our supply chain capabilities to ensure we are using the highest quality datasets.