The paper is based on work within BSR’s Ecosystem Services Working Group, which was formally launched in January 2007. At the end of the initiative’s first year, in December 2007, it was clear to corporate members that governments around the world were becoming more active on the issue of ecosystem services in a range of ways. In response, members of the working group asked BSR to informally track activity by country and region. With increasing activity every year, BSR began formal tracking of public sector engagement with ecosystem services in 2009. BSR’s first public report documenting public sector activity on ecosystem services was issued in January 2012. BSR released a revised paper in January 2013.

This 2014 paper is an updated version of the 2013 document. We have added detailed global public sector activity on ecosystem services in 2013 calendar year to the appendix and made slight changes to the main text to reflect shifts in overall global trends.

The purpose of this working paper is to help corporate sustainability teams, as well as strategy and legal teams, understand the full range of public sector activities that have been launched and are under way related to ecosystem services. We hope that this snapshot of the current state of play related to public sector engagement with ecosystem services will catalyze greater corporate engagement in relation to assessing business impacts and dependencies on ecosystem services.
This paper’s scope is focused on public sector activity related to ecosystem services—at both the national and subnational levels, insofar as information about these efforts is available publicly online. The paper considers the full gamut of activity, from formation of task forces through funding of research and, of course, the passage of new policies and legislation.