Company level biodiversity impact assessment: An application to the aquaculture industry in Norway

Abstract

This paper proposes a company-level biodiversity impact assessment framework tailored to the aquaculture industry. Using publicly available data from Norway, we analyze the relative biodiversity performance of companies based on the following impact variables: sea lice, escapes, diseases, bottom conditions, and lice treatments. We apply an unsupervised clustering methodology to classify and rank companies based on their aggregated biodiversity impact over time. Our findings suggest that companies operating in the northern production areas of Norway have a geographical advantage due to lower sea temperature and lower density of localities, resulting in higher biodiversity rankings. When considering the biodiversity ranking within regions with comparable biological conditions, we find that larger and publicly traded salmon farming companies perform better than smaller privately owned ones, potentially indicating better managerial practices related to biodiversity issues.