The COP16 biodiversity conference is almost upon us, but progress on implementation of its core nature-positive goals remains too slow, warns Business for Nature Advocacy Director Maelle Pelisson.

Due to take place in Colombia in October, COP16 will be the first Biodiversity COP since the adoption of the Global Biodiversity Framework, also known as The Biodiversity Plan. The framework, which supports the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and builds on the Convention’s previous Strategic Plans, sets out an ambitious pathway to reach the global vision to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 and for a world living in harmony with nature by 2050. 

In the background, Business for Nature has been working as a global coalition of hundreds of business organisations and some non-governmental organisations around the world, to encourage and guide businesses to begin to think about how businesses affect the natural environment, what they can do to minimise their impact and how they can measure and record their actions. 

At ICAEW’s October Annual Conference, Pelisson will outline her organisation’s goals, achievements and what more needs to be done to achieve a nature-positive economy and society. “Our mission is to drive policy ambition and business action on nature so that we can reach a nature-positive economy for all by 2030,” Pelisson says.

The organisation works on “a theory of change” basis by demonstrating the actions that some businesses are already taking on nature by developing strategies and how these businesses are disclosing their impact and dependency on nature.

Pelisson will say how reassuring it is to see that some of the world’s largest businesses across industry sectors aren’t waiting for official rules and that they are taking action alone. However, she will also say that “voluntary actions are not enough”. 

“We need to accelerate change, but for businesses to fully be able to transform their whole model and to transform the economic system, we need governments to put in place the right framework,” she says.

This is the second part of Business for Nature’s theory of change: to demonstrate to governments that businesses are making positive changes, but they need the support from governments.

“We need a stronger regulatory framework so that we can move from limited voluntary action – which isn’t going to cut it – to mandatory and incentive measures to transform the economy. We need this collaboration between all actors. Business for Nature’s focus is on the role of  businesses and governments, but we also need civil society to act, too,” she says.

In July, Business for Nature called on governments on behalf of 130 companies with a combined revenue of US$1.1trn “to accelerate the adoption and enforcement of robust nature policies”, emphasising the urgent need to implement the Biodiversity Plan faster to halt and reverse nature loss in this decade. 

The group of companies includes Danone, Decathlon, dsm-firmenich, H&M Group, Holcim, IKEA, Kering, L’Occitane Group, Mahindra Group, Natura & Co, Nestlé, ofi, Safaricom, Sainsbury’s, Salesforce, Suzano, Sumitomo Forestry, Unilever, Wipro, Volvo and many more.

These 130 companies, backed by Business for Nature, are calling for five main recommendations: ensuring business and financial actors protect nature and restore degraded ecosystems; ensuring sustainable resource use and management to reduce negative environmental impacts; valuing and embedding nature in decision-making and disclosure; aligning all financial flows to transition to a nature-positive, net zero and equitable economy, and finally adopting or strengthening ambitious global agreements to address key nature loss challenges. 

Underpinning the five policy recommendations is a set of 20 policy requests for governments developed by the Business for Nature coalition in consultation with more than 150 partners and leading businesses. These range from banning land conversion in key protected areas to transitioning to regenerative farming models and adopting a deep-sea mining moratorium.

So far, only around 10 of the 196 governments participating in COP16 have published their national biodiversity plans. With less than 100 days until COP16, governments need to radically step up their efforts if this Convention is to be deemed a success. 

“We really want to go to COP16 and demonstrate that businesses are committing to do more, and they are doing more but they need a better enabling framework to scale and speed up action,” she says.

Business for Nature has also been working with its partners to develop a joint collective campaign on how to start changing business models to account for nature. Several company strategies have been reviewed and accepted as part of the campaign, including Decathlon, GSK, Holcim and Kering. 

One of the requirements is undertaking a materiality assessment on their impacts and dependencies on nature, making sure that they identify where their main impacts are, and then to set targets that are directly linked to those impacts,” she says.

It’s also about companies making sure the governance is in place so that senior decision-makers are accountable and responsible for the delivery of their nature strategy. 

“We hope these strategies give confidence to others to start their own journey to develop and publish a nature strategy. The more companies learn from each other, the quicker others can develop their own strategies and avoid having to start from scratch,” says Pelisson. 

With more than three quarters of the world’s population voting in elections this year, governments around the world are facing tension among their populations over short- or medium-term political objectives and the environmental outlook.

However, Pelisson argues that the journey to protect, enhance and restore a nature-positive economy is an immediate problem, not a distant one in the future.

“There won’t be an economy without a healthy planet – and that’s not long term. It’s not even mid-term. There are so many examples of how natural disasters impact our lives, economies and livelihood almost every day. It’s a short-term issue,” she says.

Besides pushing governments to take action around the world, Pelisson’s main message to business is “don't wait for the right policies to be in place; that might take a while, but they’re on the way. And don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. You already know what you should be doing. You just need to get going.”