The concentrated global movement to get businesses to act positively to help preserve the planet’s biodiversity, to some degree, is taking a backseat due to the concerted lobby by certain parties to throttle the dialogues on the critical issue of greenhouse gas emissions.
By Salam Rajesh
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity back in 2022, had mandated that businesses be held accountable for their impacts on biodiversity and for resources shift from subsidies that are harmful to nature while initiating projects that would restore ecosystems – forests, grasslands and wetlands.
On this footnote, Trellis’ initial State of Biodiversity and Business Report 2024 makes a concerted effort at to understand, and monitor, just how sustainability professionals and the companies they work for are confronting the impacts they have on the natural environment, especially the diversity of plant and animal life.
The concentrated global movement to get businesses to act positively to help preserve the planet’s biodiversity, to some degree, is taking a backseat due to the concerted lobby by certain parties to throttle the dialogues on the critical issue of greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, the response to the climate crisis provides a template on how to engage businesses in serious environmental issues, Trellis observed.
One-quarter of the global community treat protecting nature and biodiversity as of high priority, as compared to two-thirds of the global community that prioritize reducing greenhouse gas emissions as the first steps to control GHG emissions and mitigate global warming effects.
Half of the global community have started formal evaluation of their impact on nature – that is, their carbon footprints – while one-third have considered it informally, Trellis stated while hinting at that one-quarter have begun small projects to address their impact on nature, and another quarter is currently engaging in more significant actions.
Around half of the companies based in Europe are taking significant actions, compared to only one-tenth of those based in North America, the biodiversity watch group observed, while underlining that the greatest response has been around agriculture and land use, with three-quarters of companies that rely on agricultural lands taking at least some steps to protect them.
The Trellis survey found that sustainability professionals want their companies to move faster to prevent habitat loss and species extinction, while four-fifths said that the companies they work for are not doing enough to address nature and biodiversity. More than half of the surveyed population said the lack of staff and expertise is holding back efforts on the initiative.
The United Nations had pushed forward its one-decade agenda on biodiversity recovery through its Decade on Ecosystem Restoration global campaign, covering the years from 2021 up to 2030. At the same time, the global call for the 30×30 agenda, that is, the greening of 30 percent of the globe’s total land surface by the year 2030 had been launched in earnest across the seven continents.
The 30×30 agenda seeks the active participation of all relevant stakeholders – governments, corporate, businesses, civil societies, Indigenous peoples and local communities, and even individuals to work collectively in achieving the goal of having more greens to help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and clear the carbon concentration in the atmosphere which is said to be responsible for the growing concerns on global warming.
While the United States of America had come up with strong regulations protecting and managing natural resources, there are no rules forcing businesses explicitly to understand and address their effect on biodiversity, Trellis observed.
Large American companies with operations in Europe will become subject to the new disclosure regime, Trellis stated while observing that publicly held companies are increasingly being asked by investors to explain how their operations are affecting the natural ecosystems. Some companies have started to assess and publish their impact on nature using frameworks laid down by the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), it said.
This runs concurrently to the European Union’s series of regulations that would take effect in the coming years, meant to prevent extensive deforestation and preserve natural habitats that could force businesses to understand where and how their raw materials are produced.
Additionally, the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive will mandate disclosures related to biodiversity for the companies that operate in Europe, regardless of where they are headquartered, Trellis stated in their report.
Taking to the issue, a large US manufacturing company executive had this to say: “We are tackling GHG and circularity first, as biodiversity issues are, sadly, a little more complex for people here to understand. We are building our way toward understanding more complex interdependencies, and, hopefully, it won’t be as big of a leap for decision makers to take action”. This undermined the approach companies are thinking on their lines of action to the global concerns on large scale biodiversity loss through human interventions in natural spaces.
Businesses’ impacts by region find interesting statistics, where North America accounts for 70 percent of the total global biodiversity loss, followed by Europe at 22 percent, Asia/Pacific region at 4 percent, Middle East/Africa at 3 percent and South America at 2 percent respectively.
Impact areas are diverse, with energy use and development impacting up to 75 percent, followed by transport and shipping at 64 percent, freshwater use at 54 percent, raw material procurement and extraction at 51 percent, plastics and chemical pollution at 50 percent, forestry and forest products at 47 percent, agriculture and land use at 43 percent, operations and manufacturing sites near ecological hotspots at 35 percent, and fishing and marine ecosystems at 11 percent respectively.
Focusing on the industry impacts, Trellis reported that direct industries impact accounted for 69 percent of biodiversity loss impacts where consumer goods impacts is responsible for 13 percent of the loss, followed by agriculture/industrial goods/technology at 9 percent each, constructions/buildings/real estate at 8 percent, healthcare/biotech/pharma at 6 percent, energy/renewable at 5 percent, basic materials and hotels/hospitality/tourism at 4 percent each, transportation at 3 percent, and utilities at 2 percent respectively.
Alex Novarro, Director of Nature at Trellis says that “The challenge of nature is great, but our effort to date has been fumbling, distracted by competing interests, and slowed by genuine lack of knowledge. Yet, we have entered the initial phase of building a better world to come. Our success is all ahead of us”.