Businesses around the world are being urged to develop ambitious strategies to help reverse the global economy’s negative impacts on biodiversity and nature as part of a new multi-year campaign launched today by the Business for Nature coalition and consultancy giant PwC.
Dubbed ‘It’s Now for Nature’, the campaign is accompanied by fresh guidance published today by the two organisations aimed at helping businesses to develop and promote corporate nature-positive strategies in line with the global goal adopted last year to halt and reverse nature-loss by 2030.
The Nature Strategy Handbook is designed to guide businesses through the supportive tools and frameworks available to help develop effective corporate nature strategies, building on recommendations from the High Level Business Actions on Nature, the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), and the Science Based Targets for Nature initiative.
The guidance also has the backing of the Business for Nature coalition’s 85-strong membership base, which includes the TNFD, World Economic Forum, the We Mean Business Coalition, the UN Environment Programme, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL).
It comes alongside fresh research published today by consultancy Globescan, which quizzed more than 200 sustainability and nature experts from around the world for their views on the risks organisations face from nature degradation.
The research found more than 90 per cent of respondents viewed the state of nature and biodiversity as a “catastrophic or alarming issue”.
It added that companies therefore needed to urgently develop public-facing nature strategies with buy-in from CEOs in order to drive nature positive reforms.
In addition, 94 per cent of respondents said biodiversity loss needed to be addressed with the same urgency and resources as climate change, and that to do so businesses needed to take an approach that far more deeply integrates their decarbonisation and nature loss strategies.
Eva Zabey, CEO at Business for Nature – which commissioned the research – said the Now for Nature campaign was aiming to encourage companies to accelerate and scale up their work to ensure nature risks and dependencies inform their decision making.
“Business leadership, innovation and courage can lead us out of the nature crisis, but we must move fast,” she said.
“Every business and financial institution needs a nature strategy – a roadmap of how a company will contribute to a nature-positive world. It’s the only way businesses will achieve their climate goals and ensure their future resilience.”
As part of the landmark Global Biodiversity Framework treaty adopted by hundreds of governments worldwide at last year’s COP15 summit in Montreal, countries agreed to a host of targets and initiatives designed to halt and reverse nature loss from 2030.
Target 15 of the treaty specifically requires all larges businesses and financial institutions to assess and disclose their nature-related risks, impacts and dependencies, and to take action to address them, heaping further pressure on the private sector to embed biodiversity and natural resource considerations into their decision-making.
Tim Christophersen, vice president for climate action at tech giant Salesforce, said the campaign was aimed at demonstrating momentum for global business action on nature through to 2030.
“Nature needs a seat at the table in all key business decision-making,” he said. “It’s not only about managing risks but also about innovation, collaboration and creating value. We welcome this campaign and think the Nature Strategy Handbook will be a hugely useful resource to help us hone and iterate our nature strategy over time.”
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