Biodiversity management in Türkiye: building a foundation for nature stewardship

How can a manufacturing site understand whether its operations are affecting the ecosystems that surround it and how to manage potential risks and opportunities? For PMI Türkiye Manufacturing (PMTM), in Izmir, we asked ourselves these questions and took a closer look at the relationship between local biodiversity, water and the wider landscape.  

PMTM is one of our major global manufacturing sites, supplying more than 20 markets. It’s close to the Boz Dagları Key Biodiversity Area (KBA), which covers more than 230,000 hectares and supports threatened species, critical habitats, and mediterranean ecosystems. The landscape comprises mainly forested mountain slopes, together with inland wetlands and grasslands—all of which help maintain water quality, regulate local environmental conditions, and strengthen resilience to growing pressures on nature. Its designation as a KBA is based on the globally agreed standard developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). 

For these reasons we selected PMTM as one of our first manufacturing sites to pilot the development and execution of a Biodiversity Management Plan (BMP) to help the site identify, assess, and manage biodiversity-related impacts, risks, and opportunities in line with our Value Plan 2030+. This ensures our nature-related ambitions are translated into locally grounded practical actions, ongoing monitoring, and informed decision-making.

Conducting a biodiversity pressure assessment 

In 2022 our global operations sustainability team developed a framework to assess three potentially relevant nature-related pressures across all our priority manufacturing sites: water resource use, pollution, and natural habitats and management of invasive species. The outcome of this biodiversity pressure assessment is the foundation for all our site-level BMPs, which we began rolling out at the end of 2024. Our PMTM site was defined as priority as it was the only site where all three pressures were potentially in scope.  

When evaluating water resources and water pollution, we first assessed whether existing management systems and programs were already addressing these pressures. As a site selected to implement our water stewardship strategy, PMTM implements activities that help reduce pressure on local water resources through improved water efficiency, responsible water use, and catchment-level engagement within the Küçük Menderes Basin. At the same time, potential water pollution pressures are managed through the required programs for the site’s ISO 14001 environmental management system and Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) certification, which strengthen water quality monitoring, wastewater management, pollution prevention, and continuous improvement practices at both a site and catchment level. Based on our assessment of these established programs and controls, we concluded that potential water-related risks and impacts are currently being effectively managed and that these ongoing actions could be directly integrated into our BMP. Read more in this Story of Impact about our water stewardship program in Türkiye. 

However, invasive species and natural habitats represent a newly identified biodiversity pressure for our manufacturing operations and require a dedicated assessment and management approach. Our analysis used a combination of our site’s existing Environmental Impact Assessment and external data sources, including Key Biodiversity Areas Factsheet – Boz Mountains (2016), Republic of Turkey National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (2018), and Steppe Conservation Strategy and Action Plan (2021–2030). As a result, we found no evidence that site operations were currently creating biodiversity risks or impacts on the conservation objectives of the KBA. As our site was within a two-kilometer radius of the identified KBA, it also triggered a landscape-level assessment¹ which revealed one opportunity—to scale up our current awareness activities including cleanup events, tree planting, and regional water events to boost the awareness of biodiversity topics with the local community. 

We identified water resource management and water pollution as key pressures requiring continued mitigation actions, while the assessment has strengthened our understanding of local habitats. Although confirming that material risks and impacts are either absent or currently managed across all three pressures was an important outcome, the assessment delivered a broader benefit—it gave us a structured and integrated understanding of the environmental pressures affecting the wider landscape and established a baseline for future monitoring.  

Image: PMTM 

Developing a Biodiversity Management Plan 

In 2025, once the local biodiversity pressure assessment was completed, the local sustainability team developed the BMP, which outlines the site context, potential biodiversity risks and impacts, ongoing mitigation measures, targets, monitoring and evaluation approaches, cost-benefit considerations, and reporting requirements. The plan also integrates existing environmental programs and management systems.  

This integration is particularly important because biodiversity and water are closely interconnected: healthy ecosystems depend on sufficient, good-quality water, while resilient watersheds help sustain habitats and species over time. As a result, existing water stewardship activities, including monitoring systems, stakeholder engagement mechanisms, and responsible water management practices, were incorporated into the BMP as key measures for managing biodiversity-related impacts, risks, and opportunities.

Moving forward, the local sustainability team is responsible for the ongoing monitoring of targets. The BMP is a living document and will be reviewed and updated at least every five years to address changes in our operations or the external environment. 

Continued water resource management and water pollution controls 

Our long-standing focus on water stewardship has provided a strong foundation for biodiversity management at our site. Through existing mitigation practices, we reduced water withdrawals by 33 percent per unit of production compared to our 2019 baseline, maintain withdrawals within permitted limits, and conduct regular groundwater and water quality monitoring to ensure our operations do not adversely affect nearby aquatic ecosystems. 

We complement these efforts with robust wastewater, stormwater, and emergency response measures designed to prevent pollution and protect local water bodies. Annual assessments and ongoing monitoring indicate that all water quality indicators remain below applicable limits, supporting the effectiveness of our water stewardship approach and its contribution to broader biodiversity objectives. Read more in our Story of Impact on water stewardship in Türkiye.  

From understanding impact to shaping future resilience through engagement  

While our biodiversity pressure assessment did not identify a need for additional mitigation measures at this stage, it highlighted an important opportunity to explore future collaboration opportunities and ensure we remain responsive to changing conditions in the surrounding landscape. 

More broadly, the BMP has provided a strong foundation for future action. By establishing a baseline for monitoring and strengthening our understanding of local ecological conditions, we are better positioned to adapt our approach and implement additional measures should environmental conditions or stakeholder needs evolve over time.