How to build a nature-positive business


· 5 min read
This will be the decade of biodiversity.
That was the contention of my last article, which argued that climate will make way for conservation over the next few years, post-Montreal Agreement. This is the next big opportunity for environmentally-conscious leaders.
But what does that look like in practise – how can your business start to become not just carbon-neutral, but nature-positive? After all, pursuing decarbonisation at the cost of biodiversity is robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Despite the challenges, clean energy can be developed relatively sustainably, minimising negative impacts on ecosystems; and the core principles hold whatever your sector. Here is one four-pronged approach.
Businesses large and small can be proactive on biodiversity. But the scale of the challenge is immense, and the government needs to step in and play more of a role.
One policy I would like to see is mandatory biodiversity reporting and disclosure. This has been so impactful in the climate change arena, as carbon accounting, ESG scoring and the TCFD have brought so much focus and action to corporate decarbonisation efforts. Now that we have our Paris-equivalent macro target of 30x30 courtesy of the Montreal Protocol, we need the standards and metrics to drive progress at the micro level too.
A reporting framework could include biodiversity footprint assessments; risk management audits; explicit biodiversity targets; and measures to track performance. All of these could be included in annual reports, making it a key part of a firm’s overall performance evaluation. It would also allow investors and financial institutions to compare biodiversity performance in a standardised fashion across different sectors and firms, encouraging the development of nature-positive investment and lending strategies.
Ultimately we will need some radical, systemic policy shifts to really reverse our extinction curve. We are seeing policy start to wake up in some areas, such as the UK’s post-Brexit farm subsidy regime which will reward farmers with £2.4bn a year for up to 280 different actions to promote biodiversity. But they remain uncommon, uncoordinated and nowhere near enough to meet the scale of the challenge.
2022 saw some efforts at genuinely wide-reaching climate policy at last, in the shape of the Inflation Reduction Act and the EU’s carbon border adjustment scheme. Hopefully, the coming decade of biodiversity will see similar efforts appear in time.
Until then, it is down to us as individual leaders to take responsibility on ourselves. Nature-positive business is a fast-growing world, with much that can be done. Come join in.
illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.
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