Business for Nature welcomes The Dasgupta Review
Business for Nature welcomes the publication of The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review, from Professor Dasgupta and the independent Review team housed in the UK’s Treasury, launched on 2 February 2021.
This influential report celebrates the critical role nature plays in supporting healthy societies, resilient economies and thriving businesses, while simultaneously painting a clear picture of what we stand to lose. Ecosystems face critical tipping points, extinction rates are 100 to 1000 times higher than they were 100 years ago, and per-person stocks of natural capital dropped nearly 40% between 1992 and 2014.
To set the planet on track towards nature-positivity, we must strive for what the Review refers to as “Impact Equality”, by closing the gap between our ecological footprint and what the biosphere can supply. According to the Global Footprint Network, we need 1.6 Earths to ‘satisfy our current demand on a sustainable basis’.
Businesses have a critical role to play in closing this gap and must commit and act now to become net-zero and nature-positive across their value chains. But voluntary actions on their own are not enough and won’t achieve the change scientists tell us is necessary to mitigate climate change and thrive within nature’s limits.
We also need ambitious policies that transform our economic and financial systems. Leading businesses can, and indeed are, already informing and shaping nature policymaking. For example, more than 700 companies have signed Business for Nature’s Call to Action, ‘Nature is Everyone’s Business’ urging governments to adopt policies now to reverse nature loss in this decade.
“Governments almost everywhere exacerbate the problem by paying people more to exploit nature than to protect it, and to prioritise unsustainable economic activities.”
Governments must equally make sure they set the ambition high enough by providing the right tools and incentives that prevent the over-exploitation of nature and reward companies that make sustainable decisions. In turn, this will unlock new business opportunities and help create a level playing field and stable operating environment for all businesses. The Dasgupta Review therefore has strong significance for global nature and climate policymaking, and upholds and strengthens Business for Nature’s Policy Recommendations.
On 25 February, Business for Nature, WWF and Capitals Coalition hosted an event to discuss the Dasgupta Review. Watch the recording.
We’ve highlighted three key takeaways from the Dasgupta Review:
1. We must value and embed nature in decision-making and disclosure to go beyond short-term profit and GDP.
In order to fully integrate the value of nature in decision-making, the Review argues that we must change the metrics by which we evaluate success and move beyond our unhealthy reliance on Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While GDP is useful for short-term measurement of economic activity, it omits all environmental and social considerations and paves the way for unsustainable development. Instead, the Review argues, we must shift towards measurements of “inclusive wealth,” which incorporate natural capital, as well as produced and human capital. The Review also recognises the importance of social capital, which – like biodiversity – it frames as an enabling asset. It argues social capital – more simply,trust – increases the value of an economy’s capital goods and is essential for the effective institutions needed for sustainable engagement with nature.
It is vital that we mainstream natural capital assessments, to ensure the value of nature for people and the economy is visible and considered in decision-making for governments, companies and financial organizations. Businesses can already begin to assess and act on their impacts and dependencies on natural capital, for example through the Natural Capital Protocol and build internal skills to do so through We Value Nature.
2. It is time to reform subsidies and incentive mechanisms and finance a just transformation.
According to the Review, transformation of our financial systems – public, private, national and international alike – is critical to spur the change needed. Financial investments which harm ecosystems and biodiversity must be diverted towards those investments which restore and replenish nature. We must eliminate harmful subsidies that damage nature and redirect them to reward businesses who design innovative, circular and profitable business models that deliver positive long-term outcomes for nature.
Companies and financial institutions are recognizing the need for this transition. This past September, 26 financial institutions from across the globe came together to launch the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge, and call on global leaders to commit to protect and restore biodiversity through their finance activities and investments.
3. We must align, integrate and enforce policies for nature, people and climate to ensure coherence.
It is vital we tackle climate change, social inequality and nature loss together. We cannot solve the climate emergency without biodiversity as our ally, by protecting ecosystems that keep carbon in the land and oceans. Likewise, we will not halt the loss of nature without ambitious climate action. The Dasgupta Review recognizes climate change as a key driver of biodiversity loss and highlights the ways in which climate change exacerbates the loss of nature – for example, through range shifts of plants, bleaching of corals, and increasing water scarcity. The Review also shares research which shows how protecting nature contributes to achieving climate goals; natural forests were found to be 40 times better than monoculture plantation forests at storing carbon.
Many businesses are already tackling nature loss and climate change together. Retail giant Walmart has committed to help protect, manage or restore at least 50 million acres of land and one million square miles of ocean by 2030, while becoming carbon neutral (without offsets) by 2040. Companies such as Anglian Water, Nestlé and Suez are using nature-based solutions that offer a win-win for nature and climate mitigation and adaptation.
As the Review says: ‘Humanity faces an urgent choice.’ COVID-19 has given us a stark warning of the risks, vulnerabilities and inequalities of our systems – and what’s at stake for everyone if we cannot mobilize ambitious action. We must work urgently, collectively and innovatively to put the recommendations and findings of the Dasgupta Review into action. Both the 15th Conference of Parties for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the 26th Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) represent key moments to set the policy ambition high on nature and climate.
Now is the time for business and governments to put their weight behind building a stable, net-zero, nature-positive and fair future in which humanity and all life on earth can thrive.
Read WBCSD’s Business Summary on the Dasgupta Review.
Download the Dasgupta Independent Review on the Economics of Biodiversity Report.