The Center for Biodiversity Outcomes
The Center for Biodiversity Outcomes brings together individuals and groups — from academic, nonprofit, policy and corporate sectors — to achieve common goals of biodiversity conservation and sustainable management of natural resources in the 21st century.
We integrate Arizona State University’s more than 40 years of conservation biology research with the capabilities and expertise of groups and organizations outside the university to ignite conversations in creative and meaningful ways. Through these relationships and partnerships, we centralize important research to achieve biodiversity outcomes.
An Introduction to Biodiversity
Our Mission
Our mission is to enable the discoveries and solutions needed to sustain Earth’s biodiversity in a time of rapid biophysical, institutional and cultural change.
Our Vision
We envision a world where the diversity of life on Earth is valued and sustained for the benefit of all.
Our Core Strengths and Values
CBO’s values are aligned with those of ASU’s New American University model:
Access
We champion educational inclusion and diversity, while engaging stakeholders and decision-makers that contribute to a plethora of knowledge and applicability.
Impact
We conduct local and global solution-oriented research with real-world applications for sustainable human and ecosystem wellbeing.
Excellence
We cultivate innovation through a transdisciplinary approach that transforms the way different sectors work together, inspiring creative solutions to pressing biodiversity conservation issues.
The gap
Global biodiversity loss is occurring at a rate that is 1,000 times greater than the estimated background rate of species extinction. This crisis now threatens the sustainability of our planet and the foundations of our future prosperity – from food security to access to clean water to our ability to adapt to climate change.
As unprecedented shifts in climate and ecosystems occur, anthropogenic stressors will continue to interact with natural processes in ways that are poorly understood.
Policy makers, corporations, NGOs and other institutions on the front lines of biodiversity challenges are not getting the usable research and implementable solutions they need.
Our opportunity
The Center for Biodiversity Outcomes is a world-leader in the field of environmental and biodiversity decision science. We catalyze the implementable solutions Earth’s biodiversity crisis demands through research, education and partnerships with institutions worldwide.
Thanks to our multiple partnerships and the innovative power of ASU, we facilitate sustainable biodiversity managed by reducing the impact of key biodiversity loss drivers, such as habitat loss and fragmentation, overexploitation, pollution and poaching.
Our approach considers all the ways in which biodiversity is important to society, including wellbeing, economy and culture.
Our Strategy
We innovate new approaches to achieve biodiversity outcomes based on three programs: research, partnerships and education. As we implement this actionable science model, we study ourselves to improve this approach, increasing its success rate and serving as a scalable model other institutions can apply across the globe.
Research
We produce insights that transform the way the world thinks about, values and manages biodiversity.
Partnerships
We engage partners from NGO, corporate and government sectors to apply innovative research results to achieve real-world change.
Read our capacity statements for NGOs, corporations and governmentsEducation
We draw on the intellectual firepower of ASU to train the next generation of conservation leaders, training them to communicate with non-specialist audiences to increase influence and reach.
