What and why
The environmental impact assessment in Voyager is fundamentally different from the climate risk assessment. While climate risk asks "how does nature affect the building," this assessment asks "how does the building affect nature."
This assessment helps you understand what environmental impact your property has on the surrounding ecosystems. It covers whether the property overlaps with or is near protected areas, vulnerable habitats, wetlands, red-listed species, invasive species, and agricultural or forest land. Understanding this impact matters both for regulatory compliance (EU Taxonomy, TNFD) and for financing conditions, where nature-related risk is increasingly a factor.
The assessment follows a structured flow called an environmental impact assessment that identifies which environmental impact categories are relevant, evaluates which are high-risk, and determines what consequences the property's presence may have on the surrounding nature.
How it works
To start a biodiversity assessment, navigate to a property and select biodiversity from the assessment options.
The assessment has several steps:
Automated screening. Telescope maps the property against public nature data sources including Artsdatabanken, NIBIO, and Miljødirektoratet. You'll see what nature types, species, protected areas, wetlands, and land use categories overlap with or are near the property.
Environmental impact categories. The system identifies which environmental impact categories are relevant based on the screening data. You review these and confirm or adjust which categories apply.
Impact assessment. For each relevant category, you answer a set of questions about the property's relationship to the environmental factor. Based on your answers, the system calculates whether the impact is classified as high-risk.
Consequence assessment. For categories the system has classified as high-risk, you answer further questions about the potential consequences. The system then determines how serious the impact is and whether mitigation measures are recommended. The distinction between these steps matters: the impact assessment identifies what's at risk, while the consequence assessment evaluates how serious it is.
Measures. You can add mitigation measures as part of the assessment flow. This includes measures tied to specific high-risk categories, but also general measures the organization has already taken or plans to take, such as net positive contributions or other nature-related initiatives. This way the assessment captures both targeted responses and broader efforts.
Good to know
The terminology is important: "impact assessment" (miljøvurdering in Norwegian) and "consequence assessment" (konsekvensvurdering) are two distinct steps. They should not be confused.
Nature data quality varies significantly by region. Some areas have detailed mapping, while others have limited coverage. Telescope shows what data is available and is transparent about gaps.