SILVER SPRING, MD, August 26, 2020 – Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) offers a new white paper available for download today, Small Scales, Big Impacts – How conservation makes positive impacts for biodiversity and community awareness despite limitations related to the amount of land, number of employees or the size of managed species. The white paper is sponsored by Toyota North America and is available for free on our website.

In traditional conservation models, large budgets are considered essential for  significant conservation outcomes. This theory also requires large workforces to support meaningful employee or community engagement efforts. However, creative thinking and a working knowledge of conservation context can challenge these notions by enabling projects with positive biodiversity and business outcomes with realistic budget and personnel requirements.

This white paper explores what it means to work on a small scale for a big impact for nature. Highlighted projects show that healthy and productive habitats can be managed with small budgets, teams, land or species, including:

Argos: Newberry Plant
Aristeo Construction: Detroit Headquarters
CRH Americas: Acton Quarry
Exelon: Quad Cities Generation Station
Freeport-McMoRan: Port Nickel
General Motors: Lockport Facility
ITC: ITC Iowa City Warehouse
Phillips 66: Habitat and Conservation Education Initiative

Sponsored by Toyota North America, this white paper includes a forward by Kevin Butt Senior Director, Environmental Sustainability, in which he states, “Toyota’s Challenge 2050 seeks to establish a future society in harmony with nature. To do this, we are committing to planting forests around factories and connecting nature conservation to the education of children. Both of these approaches can be done at scale, at small sites and at locations with restricted access, limited land or challenging conditions. Both of these approaches wield results that are not constrained by the scale of the effort.”

About Wildlife Habitat Council:
For 30 years, WHC has been promoting and certifying ecological stewardship action on corporate lands through partnerships and education. Since only 10-15% of the world’s land surface is protected, private lands provide an essential opportunity for restoring and protecting biodiversity. As the only international conservation NGO focused exclusively on the private sector, WHC provides a framework for voluntary conservation action on a wide variety of corporate lands. WHC’s corporate members represent some of the leading national and multinational corporations seeking to support sustainable ecosystems and the communities that surround them. These efforts have resulted in more than 1,000 certified programs across 47 states and 28 countries.