Repost: 20 ways policymakers can help businesses fight nature loss
This opinion piece by Eva Zabey was originally published in Reuters/Ethical Corporation Magazine
Nature underpins our collective wellbeing and our very survival. It provides the foundation of our economic system, supports human development and equality, and increases our resilience to climate change.
Yet, nature is in crisis. Current economic and business practices are driving nature loss, putting planetary systems under ever-increasing pressure and creating significant risks for our economies and livelihoods.
Failing to address the nature crisis is huge, and will bring greater costs, challenges and risks to businesses, who are already experiencing the negative effects of climate change and nature loss. Without urgent action these effects will only grow more complex and widespread. Recent research suggests the reduction in the UK’s GDP linked to nature degradation could be larger than the hit from the 2008 financial crisis or the COVID-19 pandemic.
In December 2022, 196 governments adopted the Biodiversity Plan (also called the Global Biodiversity Framework), which provides a whole-of-society approach around a number of specific goals and targets, with a central mission to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030.
Nearly two years on, we are yet to see meaningful progress towards this goal. While voluntary actions from businesses are on the rise, this won’t be enough. We need ambitious collaboration between the public and private sectors to support the necessary transformation of our economic and financial systems.
With less than 100 days left until the U.N. Biodiversity COP16 in October, more than 130 businesses and financial institutions with combined revenues of $1.1 trillion are calling on governments through a business statement to accelerate the implementation of the Biodiversity Plan and enable decisive corporate action on nature.
Company endorsers including Danone, H&M Group, IKEA, Nestle, Natura & Co, Salesforce, Unilever, EDF and many others are urging governments to adopt and enforce nature policies and regulations that:
Make sure business and financial actors protect nature and restore degraded ecosystems
Ensure sustainable resource use and management to reduce negative environmental impacts
Value and embed nature in decision-making and disclosure
Align all financial flows to transition to a nature-positive, net zero and equitable economy
Adopt or strengthen ambitious global agreements to address key nature loss challenges
Given the polarised political landscape, this is an important moment for businesses of all sizes and sectors to call for policymakers to establish a robust enabling environment that will unleash new business opportunities, innovation and investment, and accelerate the transition.
Clear regulatory frameworks and incentive mechanisms would also improve corporate accountability and create a level playing field.
Underpinning the five policy recommendations is a complementary set of 20 clear policy asks for governments developed by the Business for Nature coalition in consultation with more than 150 partners and leading businesses.
These range from banning land conversion in key protected areas to transitioning to regenerative farming models and adopting a deep-sea mining moratorium.
Together, the recommendations and asks form a focused set of measures capable of transforming our economic and financial systems. These measures should be designed nationally and adapted based on national and local circumstances through multi-stakeholder processes, with a particular focus on the views of Indigenous peoples, local communities, children and youth, and women.
Nature is rising up the corporate agenda, with a growing number of businesses understanding, assessing and disclosing their dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities on nature, following the high-level actions to Assess, Commit, Transform, and Disclose, and supported by critical guidance, for example from the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN).
Many are also increasingly using sector-specific guidance to collaborate on common challenges and opportunities and to contribute to the transformation of their industries.
Some companies have gone one step further and developed dedicated nature strategies. Businesses including Decathlon, Holcim, GSK, Kering and Tetra Pak have already published theirs through the ‘It’s Now for Nature’ joint global campaign, which aims to rally all businesses and financial institutions to act on nature.
By sharing their forward-looking plans for nature on this public platform, these businesses are helping identify best practice in how to integrate nature in decision-making to transform operations and supply chains.
But for the shift towards a nature-positive economy to happen at the scale and speed required, business action on nature needs to accelerate in all sectors, supported by a rapid shift in government ambition.
As the world looks to COP16 in Cali, Colombia – the first Biodiversity COP since the adoption of the Biodiversity Plan – the focus must be on translating the plan's goals and targets into national action.
Governments must learn from past lessons, such as the failure to implement the Aichi Targets, set by the U.N. Convention of Biological Diversity in 2010. Many of the targets, including halving of deforestation, were vaguely worded and did not clearly articulate the role of business and finance.
Countries are expected to publish their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) or their national biodiversity targets ahead of COP16. It is vital that these clearly outline the role of business and finance in protecting and restoring nature and cover the policy asks highlighted by Business for Nature.
Some countries, such as Ireland, France and Japan have already clearly articulated the critical role of business in their national plans, sending positive signals to other countries to do the same.
This leadership now needs to become the norm. Only with courageous and forward-thinking leaders in government and in business will we build a nature-positive economy for all by 2030.