What is the difference between “environmental aspect,” “direct driver,” and “impact driver”?

This commentary intends to highlight the nomenclatorial and associated concept-related challenges that companies face in trying to comply with the different voluntary and legal frameworks for assessing their impacts and dependencies on biodiversity.

The driving forces (or “drivers”)-pressure-state-impact-response (DPSIR) framework is used to illustrate the differences in the concepts used in environmental management (ISO) and biodiversity/nature-related governmental (e.g., Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)) and non-governmental frameworks (e.g., by the Natural Capitals Coalition, the science-based targets for nature (SBTN), and taskforce on nature-related financial disclosures (TNFD)).

While the use of the terms (and their definitions or descriptions) at state, impact and response level are rather homogeneous, those at driving force and pressure level are not. In addition, the generally distinguished pressures on biodiversity do not correspond to the pressure level in environmental management.

Overall, the most striking is the difference between the well-established environmental management system according to ISO 14001 (and the related Life Cycle Assessment, LCA, standards) on the one hand side and the other (newer) frameworks on the other. A harmonization would be most desirable.