The Role of Business in a Nature-Positive Future
The world is committing to a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). Each part of society has a role to play. This article discusses how businesses can get started with setting indicators and targets to drive momentum and avoid the risks from the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
The nature of biodiversity
Nature and climate are interlinked: biodiversity loss exacerbates climate change and climate change exacerbates biodiversity loss. However, unlike the impact of human activities on our climate system, the potential impacts on nature cannot be quantified and communicated in a single metric such as tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (t CO2-e) emitted. Biodiversity is complex and often tailored or adapted metrics, depending on the sector, bioregion, country, and timescale, need to be developed to measure its loss.
Despite this complexity, there are opportunities for businesses to demonstrate nature-positive action. This article by Addison, Stephenson and Bull et al. describes a framework around the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) process, to guide biodiversity indicator development for business performance management.
Bergstrom, Wienecke and Hoff et al. examine the current state and trajectories of 19 Australian ecosystems, from the Great Barrier Reef to terrestrial Antarctica, describing the chronic ‘presses’ and/or acute ‘pulses’ that drive ecosystem collapse. They propose a 3As Pathway – Awareness, Anticipation and Action.
We have also seen the establishment of the Science-Based Targets Network (SBTN) and their publication of Science-Based Targets for Nature – Initial Guidance for Business, which recognise the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and SBTs for climate. This is a work in progress that guides businesses through a 5-Step process and presents some “no regrets” actions.
The post-2020 global biodiversity framework
Phase one of the UN Biodiversity Conference was held (hosted in-person and virtually) in Kunming China from the 11th to 15th October 2021. Phase two will be an in-person meeting in Kunming, from 25 April to 8 May 2022.
The focus of phase one was the adoption of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, which provides “a strategic vision and a global roadmap for the conservation, protection, restoration and sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystems for the next decade”. You can watch the proceedings right here – Australia’s Minister for the Environment, Sussan Ley, presented to the High Level Segment (HLS) Breakout room D on Knowledge, Innovation and Benefit Sharing.
What role does business play in the global biodiversity framework?
Target 15 of the 2030 action targets (Draft 1) describes the role of all businesses – public and private, large, medium, and small - to assess and report on their dependencies and impacts on biodiversity from local to global. It also calls for businesses to reduce negative impacts by at least half and increase positive impacts, reducing biodiversity-related risks to businesses and moving towards the full sustainability of extraction and production practices, sourcing and supply chains, and resource use and disposal.
We have drawn on these targets to help formulate a starter set of biodiversity indicators for this article, as we did when discussing mainstreaming of biodiversity in our September article.
Challenges
One of the challenges businesses are faced with is the lack of standardised biodiversity metrics. This is not surprising given:
the range and complexity of ecosystem regions in Australia
the diversity of key business sectors from resources-based (e.g., mining, oil and gas, agriculture, forestry and fishing) to health care, property and retail trade
decisions about where to focus biodiversity initiatives (e.g., site, bioregion or ecosystem region, product, corporation, supply chain)
the perception that only some sectors impact on biodiversity loss – when significant impacts may occur in the supply chain and in developing countries
the cumulative impacts of pressures on biodiversity.
Business sectors such as extractive industries are required to measure and monitor biodiversity impacts, and implement mitigation and remediation measures, through environmental permitting of site-based activities. However, these indicators are specific to the activity’s context and geographical location, particularly for mitigating potential impacts on protected species and priority ecosystems.
Other sectors, that have historically considered their activities to have low biodiversity impact have recognised the opportunities for net biodiversity gain. The GPT Group, for example, recognise that the land occupied by their buildings in urban environments has reduced wildlife habitat. In response, they have implemented restorative projects at their assets and sites (Sustainability Report 2020) and developed a biodiversity policy addressing material and product selection, their supply chain partners, and not operating or developing in areas of World Heritage, IUCN I-IV protected status or similar significance.
In contrast, the measures undertaken by global corporates in the food services industry are likely occur in other countries. In a recent Reuters Impact Conference, the Chief Sustainability Office of McDonalds, talked about their commitment to eliminating deforestation by 2030 across the entire value chain. Their parting advice was to get started where you can and use that momentum to figure out how to shape the path forward.
Biodiversity performance management
Addison, Stephenson and Bull et al. have shown how a framework to guide biodiversity indicator development for business can be wrapped around the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) process that many organisations are familiar with. It starts by asking what business decisions will be influenced by a better understanding of biodiversity performance? such that goals and targets relate to business influence and impacts, and link to national regulation, lender standards or international biodiversity goals.
The Science-Based Targets Network outlines a 5-step process of SBTs for nature, with more depth on materiality, the value chain, spheres of influence, prioritisation of places and measuring the baseline. Addison et al. and SBTN both outline the importance of setting management actions (with SBTN focussed on avoid, reduce, restore & regenerate and transform), and monitoring and reporting.
Bergstrom, Wienecke, Hoff et al.’s 3A’s Pathway (Awareness, Anticipation and Action) complements these frameworks while focussing on combatting ecosystem collapse and providing additional detail around action choices if impact occurs.
Awareness: of ecosystem values
It is important to understand the ecosystem values of the place in which your activities take place or have an impact. Bergstrom, Wienecke and Hoff et al. describe the values of 19 ecosystem regions across the ocean, land and freshwaters of Australia, which provides a solid information base from which to build a biodiversity action plan for business.
Awareness of ecosystem values means to “acknowledge the importance of appropriate biodiversity, and to recognise where biodiversity and ecosystem services need protection”. Ecosystem services, or benefits from nature, include provisioning of food, raw materials, and water; regulating our air and water quality, climate, and pollination; supporting cultural values (e.g., health and wellbeing, recreation and tourism, spiritual and religion); and supporting nutrient cycling, photosynthesis and soil formation.
Valued ecosystem regions in Australia are recognised for their extent (e.g., the Great Barrier Reef comprises 10% of global reef area), their species diversity (e.g., the wet tropical rainforests lining the northeast coast comprise 60% of Australia’s butterflies, 50% of birds and 36% of mammals) and their provisioning services (e.g., the Murray Darling River Basin provides around 55% of Australia’s water use in agriculture (Bergstrom, Wienecke, and Hoff et al. 2021).
Government sources of information about ecosystem values and pressures include the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment's 2021 Finalised Priority Assessment List (FPAL) of species and ecological communities. By way of example at the state level, the Victorian Department Environment, Land, Water and Planning has developed its “Biodiversity 2037 Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Improvements Framework”.
The Our Knowledge Our Way guidelines for caring for Country describe Indigenous-led approaches to strengthening and sharing knowledge for land and sea management. While the guidelines aim to benefit Indigenous peoples working in this field by highlighting their knowledge-driven practices, they also showcase case studies that intersect with ecosystem values and pressures (e.g., water rights in the Murray-Darling Basin).
Anticipation: of pressures
The broad threats or pressures from human activities, that have emerged in writing this article (and Mainstreaming Biodiversity) include:
adverse fire regimes, climate change and severe weather
land use change: e.g., deforestation/conversion in the supply chain
habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation: e.g., agriculture, mining, transportation corridors, urban and commercial development
changed surface and groundwater regimes: e.g., abstraction, alteration to surface water flows and groundwater levels, dams
sourcing from areas of high species extinction risk, including ocean resource exploitation: e.g., threatened fisheries, direct harvest, bycatch
pollution: e.g., contaminated stormwater, wastewater discharges, particulate emissions to air, oil spills to land and water, pesticides, and herbicides
invasive non-native species and diseases: e.g., threats to birds, frogs and mammals, and root-rot fungus causing plant dieback.
Identifying and prioritising biodiversity values, and human pressures on those values, allows an organisation to measure a baseline and set targets to account for its impacts or mitigation, aiming for no net loss or better (i.e., net gain).
Action: to manage pressures
The call to action, as described by the SBTN’s Action Framework (AR3T), comprises the following:
Avoid - prevent impact happening in the first place, eliminate impact entirely
Reduce - minimise impacts, from a previous baseline value, without eliminating them entirely
Regenerate - increase the biophysical function and/or ecological productivity of an ecosystem or its components within existing land uses - often with a focus on nature’s contribution to people e.g., regenerative agriculture
Restore - initiate or accelerate the recovery of an ecosystem with respect to its health, integrity, and sustainability with a focus on permanent changes in state
Transform - contribute to system-wide change by acting on the drivers of nature loss using technological, economic, institutional, and social factors and changes in underlying values and behaviours.
The 3A’s Pathway developed by Bergstrom, Wienecke and Hoff et al. introduces some additional approaches for if, or when, an impact occurs:
Recover: leave alone
Restore: provide assistance to natural recovery (similar to the SBTN AR3T framework above)
Renovate: change some elements to better suit new pressure window
Adapt: change major elements to better suit new pressure window or create novel ecosystems.
The more complex an action choice is (such as renovate and adapt) the higher the costs both financially and ecologically.
Set ambitious climate targets
As we began in this article, biodiversity loss and climate change are interlinked, and climate change pressures are already threatening species and ecosystems. The aftermath of the Australian Black Summer bushfires is still being evaluated but the devastating impact on ecosystems and species is apparent:
Biodiversity is at risk from climate change pressures, in the same way that humans are, including impacts from both increases and decreases of rainfall, increases in temperature over land and sea surface temperature (land and marine heatwaves), ocean acidification, sea level rise, coastal erosion and increased number of extreme fire weather days.
Biodiversity performance indicators - a starter set
The purpose of performance indicators is to help an organisation to determine whether it is achieving its biodiversity goals and targets relevant to its context – whether that be on operations level management of biodiversity performance (e.g., mining site) or corporate level (e.g., ensuring no deforestation in the supply chain).
While the setting of goals and targets is not discussed in this article, they should be:
specific to the business’s influence and impacts
be quantified to account for business objectives (e.g., no net loss of biodiversity or better)
use meaningful spatial and temporal timeframes of reference (e.g., compared with an appropriate baseline for biodiversity).We’ve developed a starter set of biodiversity indicators aligned to an action in response to a risk or threat. They should be linked to goals and targets as outlined above.
We started with the initial guidance for business provided by the SBTN and cross-referenced with the first eight targets listed in Draft 1 of the CBD’s post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
These indicators link risks and actions to regulatory requirements and may include monitoring of species, habitats or plant communities and encompass community participation (e.g., citizen science) or Traditional Knowledge.
A nature-positive future
All businesses have a role to play in halting biodiversity loss and ensuring our natural environment is healthy, valued and actively cared for, so that humans can also thrive. We also want to ensure our action now leaves an on-going legacy – from accountability to a strong evidence base and implementation of adaptive management around goals and target setting.
The world is close to setting global biodiversity 2030 action targets and its financial markets are turning away from investments in projects that cause biodiversity decline. Businesses need to be aware, anticipate and act if they are to continue to meet society’s expectations.
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Shelley Anderson is a freelance Certified Environment Practitioner and sustainability professional with experience in Australia and the UK. Her expertise includes environmental risk assessment and management, due diligence, and reporting across a broad range of industry sectors. Shelley was also a Director of the Cotswold Canals Trust (UK) where she led the Natural Environment team and applied her skills to charity governance and impact.
Written in consultation with Jenni Mulligan, Co-Founder and a Principal Consultant @ iSystain .
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