Businesses are central to reversing biodiversity loss but they risk extinction themselves if they don’t take steps to protect the environment.
That’s the warning of a major new report by Ipbes (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services), which is based on contributions from leading scientists around the world and approved by 150 governments.
The study said that all companies, even those that seem far-removed from nature, rely on it for services such as flood mitigation, water supply, tourism, recreation and education.
But despite this, it warned that businesses aren’t doing nowhere near enough to protect nature. According to the report, $7.3 trillion of public and private finance had directly negative impacts on nature in 2023. In contrast, $220 billion was spent on activities contributing to the conservation and restoration of biodiversity.
Professor Stephen Polasky, co-chair of the report, said:
“The loss of biodiversity is among the most serious threats to businesss, yet the twisted reality is that it often seems more profitable to businesses to degrade biodiversity than to protect it.
“Business as usual may once have seemed profitable in the short term, but impacts across multiple businesses can have cumulative effects, aggregating to global impacts, which can cross ecological tipping points.”
Matt Jones, co-chair of the report, added:
“This is a pivotal moment for businesses and financial institutions, as well as governments and civil society, to cut through the confusion of countless methods and metrics, and to use the clarity and coherence offered by the report to take meaningful steps towards transformative change.
“Businesses and other key actors can either lead the way towards a more sustainable global economy or ultimately risk extinction…both of species in nature, but potentially also their own.”
The report said all businesses have a responsibility to address their impact on nature, and takes steps to reduce it such as increasing efficiency and reducing waste and emissions.
Specific actions businesses can take are listed below. Click on the images for larger versions:
Professor Stephen Polasky, co-chair of the report, said:
“Better stewardship of biodiversity is central to managing risk across the whole of the economy and throughout societies – it’s not some distant environmental issue, but a core challenge now in every boardroom and cabinet-room.
“We need to move beyond the fallacy of a binary choice between governments and decision-makers being either pro-environment or pro-business. All business depends on nature, so actions that conserve and sustainably use nature can also be those that help businesses thrive in the long-term.”