Businesses and Biodiversity: An Imbalanced Relationship

By Jose Luis Gallego, environmental communicator (@ecogallego) 

Businesses have an important role in the conservation of nature and the biodiversity it contains — this is a well-known and undeniable fact. Now an international, interdisciplinary team of researchers with expertise in economics, finance, natural sciences, and agronomy have laid out the precise terms of this relationship, complete with concrete metrics, statistics, and data.      

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is very similar to the famous IPCC but centres on assessing the state of the planet’s nature and the negative impact of its deterioration, not only on the environment, but on the economy and business as well.   

Much like its climate counterpart, this expert team is also linked to the UN — in this case through UNEP, the UN’s environmental programme — and publishes assessment reports that serve as the basis for developing policies and business strategies to improve biodiversity, which is regarded as an opportunity.  
as y políticas y empresariales para mejorar la biodiversidad entendiéndolo como una oportunidad.  

What is IPBES? 

During its latest plenary session held in February in the British city of Manchester, the IPBES experts presented their Methodological Assessment Report on businesses and biodiversity. The report outlines the scientific basis for describing and understanding the interdependence of business and nature, as well as assessing the impact that economic activity has on biodiversity. 

Conducted over a three-year period, the study saw the participation of almost 80 experts from 35 countries, and its conclusions were supervised and ratified by the intergovernmental representatives of the more than 150 countries that comprise the IPBES.  

According to these conclusions, businesses not only have the greatest impact but also the greatest dependence on nature. This is why — beyond any other considerations — showing concern for the state of the natural environment is also a matter of economic survival. And the window for implementing potential actions to halt and reverse its deterioration is steadily shrinking.   

The report takes stock of the situation and shows how the growth of the global economy has been at the cost of immense biodiversity loss, which now poses a serious risk to the ecosystemic services which nature provides and, as a result, to the economy, financial stability and human well-being. 

Opposing assessments 

Comparing the evolution of markets and ecosystems in terms of wealth, the average increase in human-produced capital since 1992 has been close to 100%, whereas the decrease in stocks of natural capital has been 40%, which represents one of the report’s most relevant statistics.  

In another crucial contribution, the study indicates that even businesses which might seem the furthest from nature — tech companies, for instance — depend on it, either directly or indirectly. 

Whereas the vast majority of businesses across all sectors show an interest in reducing their carbon footprint as a way of combating climate change, less than 1% are concerned with measuring their impact on nature and mitigating the biodiversity crisis.  

To communicate this situation with the relevance and urgency it deserves, the biodiversity crisis must be tackled alongside the climate crisis, because they are inextricably linked and feed into each other — a position the IPBES has held for years. 

This is something which many agri-food companies — especially wine producers — are already doing by embracing regenerative agriculture or extensive livestock farming. Both approaches naturally improve soil fertility and pollinating insect populations — among other contributions — and help stop the silent loss of wildlife.   

Everyone might be noticing the consequences of climate change in the increase of extreme weather phenomena, but few of us are paying attention to biodiversity loss, which in many ways is equally if not more worrisome.   

Free fall 

One of the most impactful statistics indicates that vertebrate populations have decreased by 70% in just 30 years. The extinction rate is accelerating at such a quick pace that many scientists are already referring to our time as the “sixth mass extinction” on Earth.  The last of the five earlier periods took place 65 million years ago and ended with the extinction of all dinosaur species.    

As Dr. Vanesa Rodríguez Osuna, the coordinating lead author of the chapter on business and biodiversity, states, “the main message conveyed in this report is that the time to act on biodiversity loss and the deterioration of nature is now — we cannot wait any longer. We have to take immediate action at all companies, in all sectors, and in all countries”. 

In her IPBES profile, the prestigious researcher points out that “nature constitutes the basis for all economies, and these can only prosper if we protect, restore, and sustainably use our natural capital.  Our well-being and prosperity depend on our relationship to nature”.