Aligning nature sustainability reporting requirements across national, business and farm scale: lessons from Ireland

The United Nations System of Environmental Economic Accounting Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) has been proposed as a useful method to support reporting for European Union (EU) public and private sector nature-related policies, including the European Environmental Economic Accounts (EEEA) Regulation, the Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Given that 46% of the total EU land area is managed within farms, agriculture provides a useful context to test how the SEEA EA, applied at a local level, can provide aggregate information at landscape level and used for nature reporting at different scales. In Ireland, 72% of land is managed within farms with the dairy sector playing a key role in the value chains of agrifood businesses. Using an Irish dairy farm as a relevant case study, we tested how the SEEA EA can be used at farm-level to develop ecosystem accounts and improve farm environmental performance. In parallel, we compared farm-level, EEEA, NRR and CSRD reporting requirements to assess their potential for alignment through the SEEA EA. At farm scale, we found that applying the SEEA EA framework provided useful information for the farmer to achieve multiple environmental goals including biodiversity and climate targets. Comparing the EEEA, NRR, CSRD and farm-level reporting requirements showed they have similar needs relating to information on biodiversity and ecosystems. We outline how the SEEA EA provides a useful framework to align nature reporting for coherence, comparability and efficient use of resources with potential to amplify collective action for nature.