Corporate approach of biodiversity protection in Post-COP15

2023-07-18GoldenBee责任编辑0

At the 18th International CSR Forum on June 8-9, 2023, Joseph Confino, Communications Director of Capitals Coalition, shared the post-COP15 corporate biodiversity conservation pathway and highlighted the Business Action Framework for Nature. The following are the main contents of the speech:

I want to begin by thanking GoldenBee for inviting me here to address you today. GoldenBee is an integral partner and operate as our hub in China. The work that we do together to translate the capitals approach into the Chinese business context is essential. Integrated approaches to decision making are critically important if we hope to deliver on the goals and targets of the new Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, as well as those of other international and intergovernmental conventions, agreements and goals.

Integrating capitals into economic decision-making

The basic insight is that our economies are deeply dependent on the value that they receive from multiple forms of capital - natural, social and human capital, alongside economic capital - but that this value is often economically invisible and therefore not included in our decision-making. This leads to decisions made on partial insights and incomplete datasets that can be ineffective, inefficient or even damaging to businesses, nature and broader society.

By conceptualising nature, communities and culture as stocks of capital that can be invested in to deliver benefits, or returns, we are able to illuminate this invisible value and effectively integrate it into our decision-making, leading to better and more sustainable outcomes for nature, people and the economy. A holistic systems approach sits at the heart of a capitals approach. Nature, people, society and the economy must be recognized as parts within a deeply interconnected global system and addressed as a single issue.

Understanding the value of their impacts and dependencies on the capitals can be a watershed moment for organizations. By providing organizations with tools to identify and measure the value they receive from natural, social and human capital, we provide a more holistic understanding of the system in which organizations operate, leading to integrated, data-driven decision-making with broad benefits across nature and society.

New situation of biodiversity faced by enterprises

While economic and social issues have been at the top of international agendas for decades, with climate joining them in recent years, biodiversity is finally having its moment in the global spotlight. Nature and biodiversity underpin human wealth, health, happiness, and identity as well as all economic activity and global financial markets. But our economies treat nature as a limitless resource. As we begin to run up against nature’s limits, it’s becoming increasingly clear that we cannot continue to treat nature in this way if we hope to protect the life support systems that underpin all human endeavour, wellbeing and culture.

Biodiversity in China is deeply entwined, as it is around the world, with local culture, practices, beliefs, livelihoods, literature and cuisine. The concept of the “Ecological Civilisation” in China is closely aligned with the ambitions of a capitals approach. Both recognise the deep interconnection between the health of nature and that of human wellbeing.

Framing China’s immense biological diversity as a series of natural assets will promote the wealth and wellbeing of present and future generations and can ensure a sustainable and prosperous future for China and the world. It’s no surprise then that it was under a Chinese Presidency working within the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, that 196 countries recently adopted a new global agreement to halt and revise the loss of nature, including the adoption of the new Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

The framework ensures the full integration of biodiversity and its multiple values into policies, regulations, planning and development processes, poverty eradication strategies, and environmental impact assessments, within and across all levels of government and across all sectors. Perhaps most significantly for the private sector, was the adoption of target 15 which created an obligation on governments to require that all large companies and financial institutions assess and disclose their risks, impacts and dependencies on nature.

The target sends a clear signal to large companies. They will be required by governments to assess and disclose their impacts and dependencies on nature by 2030. Crucially, this will apply across their operations, supply and value chains, and portfolios.  But, while the targets don’t kick in until 2030, leaders are already taking action as they increasingly recognise the competitive advantage that comes with understanding and acting on their impacts & dependencies on natural capital.

ACT-D helps enterprises adapt to the GBF

Businesses and financial institutions then have a critical role to play in the success of the framework. So, what can businesses do now?

Some are unclear on where to start and others tell us that the landscape of tools, frameworks and initiatives is confusing, and that different organizations, initiatives and frameworks can appear to be in competition or even in contradiction with one another, even when they are harmonized and collaborative.

To address this, we partnered with other leading initiatives and framework developers including Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, Science Based Targets Network, World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Economic Forum to develop a set of practical high-level actions to guide businesses towards nature action.

High-level Business Actions on Nature, known as the ACT-D, an acronym which stands for the different steps: Assess, Commit, Transform & Disclose, the actions guide businesses along a clear pathway to take action on nature. They also guide organizations through the various tools, frameworks and initiatives available in the market to support them in assessing their relationships with nature, committing to action and target setting, transforming their practices and disclosing nature-related information.

At this year’s World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, held in Davos in January, we launched a series of case studies that show how leading businesses across different sectors and geographies are already using ACT-D to deliver change within their organizations and to drive ambition towards a nature-positive economy.

Chinese enterprises demonstrate their leadership in biodiversity

Chinese businesses are also showing leadership in this arena.

For example, with support from GoldenBee as part of our TEEB AgriFood for business initiative, Shengmu Organic Milk, the largest organic dairy company in China, is using natural capital accounting to guide their organization strategy and operational decision-making across their subsidiaries, pastures and production zones. Through their capitals assessments, the company discovered opportunities to reduce operating costs and paved the way for easier access to preferential finance solutions, including green loans. Nature-based production also worked to directly boost revenue as their organic milk fetches 22% more than conventional product.

Another example from this program is Astral, a Chinese ESG investment firm looking to invest in transformational agri-food systems. Astral work directly with farmers and local communities in Yunnan, a province that hosts the highest levels of biodiversity in China, to provide fair access to agri-markets. Currently the company is developing natural capital accounts that reflect the ‘Gross Ecosystem Product’ index that provides a clear signal of the value of nature's contribution to human wellbeing.

For enterprises, whether it is the operation of the supply chain or the development of business activities, they must protect and respect nature instead of destroying and plundering nature. After the production is completed, it is necessary to restore the natural environment as much as possible.

The above are the responsibilities that enterprises should fulfill. We must put these responsibilities and concepts into reality, integrate them into all links and chains of enterprise operation, and finally realize the coordinated balance of “people, nature and economy”. Capitals Coalitions hopes to adopt this coordinated approach and join hands with everyone on the road of protecting ecological diversity and nature.

This article is based on Joseph Confino's speech at the 18th International CSR Forum.

Best Practices

Upcoming Event

All the materials on the site “Source: XXX (not from this site)” have been reprinted from other media. They do not imply the agreement by the site.

All the materials with “Source: CSR-China Website” are the copyright of CSR-China Website. None of them may be used in any form or by any means without permission from CSR-China Website.

GoldenBee Official Micro blog

GoldenBee Official WeChat