Supporting a more sustainable future requires continually revisiting our areas of focus. As our environment changes, so too does our approach.

Today, we’re sharing an update to our sustainability framework, expanding our focus to more explicitly include biodiversity.

Expanding our approach to sustainability

Biodiversity—the variety of life on Earth and the ecosystems that support it—is essential to the health of our planet and the resilience of communities worldwide. As a global marketplace powered by millions of sellers, our business intersects with natural systems in many ways, from our corporate operations to seller supply chains.

That’s why as part of our longstanding goal to foster a more resilient and sustainable marketplace, we’re sharpening our focus on biodiversity, while encouraging more intentional, nature-conscious choices.

Building on a strong foundation

While this marks a new chapter in how we articulate our sustainability priorities, it builds on work already underway.

We’ve incorporated biodiversity considerations across our operations and programs. For example, our Brooklyn headquarters was designed to meet the Living Building Challenge—one of the most rigorous green building standards—with a focus on responsible materials, reducing harmful chemicals, and supporting urban biodiversity.

We’ve also supported nature-based solutions like regenerative agriculture and land stewardship through our Impact Investment Fund, and our carbon strategy includes investments that help protect natural ecosystems, such as sustainable forest management.

Taking the next steps

Building on this foundation, we are deepening how we incorporate biodiversity considerations across our business. As part of this work, we are beginning to apply a more explicit biodiversity lens to how we evaluate materials, product categories, and marketplace policies.

This includes:

• Furthering our partnership with World Wildlife Fund: We’ve worked alongside WWF since 2016 through the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online. Through this work, we will continue to support industry-wide efforts to reduce the sale of protected wildlife, ensuring our own policies and enforcement aim to protect endangered and threatened animals.
• Evolving our marketplace policies: This work is already informing updates to our House Rules, including changes to how we approach certain animal-derived materials, like fur from animals killed primarily for their pelts. More information on this change can be found HERE.
• Supporting our seller community: We plan to develop educational resources to help sellers make more informed choices about the materials they use, with a focus on biodiversity-sensitive categories.

We are taking a thoughtful, iterative approach to this work, recognizing that biodiversity is a complex and evolving area. Our goal is to make meaningful progress over time, while supporting our global community of sellers.

Looking ahead

We see this as an important step in the evolution of Etsy’s sustainability efforts. By more intentionally incorporating biodiversity into our decision-making we aim to better understand our impacts and identify opportunities to support a healthier, more resilient natural world.

As always, we’ll continue to share updates as this work progresses.