A nature consultancy has published a paper outlining how businesses should enact transformative change to become ‘nature positive’, proposing a practical framework to help firms understand how to implement biodiversity-friendly measures.
The paper, published by The Biodiversity Consultancy in collaboration with the University of Oxford and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, draws on existing research to offer a practical framework that summarises the different types and scales of transformative actions that companies can take.
“We’re helping companies get to grips with the idea that incremental changes to business as usual will not deliver a nature positive future and will be out of step with what society needs and expects from the private sector. We need ambition and transformative change,” the consultancy wrote on LinkedIn.
The paper comes in the wake of December’s historic Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) that sets a specific target for reducing the private sector’s negative impacts on biodiversity, as part of overall efforts to halt and reverse nature loss within the coming decade.
In parallel, the term ‘nature positive’ is emerging, with several countries, such as the UK, about to implement legislation which will require businesses to account for their biodiversity impact.
Long-awaited corporate disclosure rules are also due to be published in September, as firms scramble to inform themselves as to how such changes may impact their activities.
The Biodiversity Consultancy argues that tinkering with business as usual will not deliver the ambition of the GBF and there remains a lack of clarity on how to operationalise transformative change in the context of nature positivity for companies, particularly as how to develop meaningful actions and measurable targets.
“This article aims to fill this gap, by drawing on existing literature on social change to offer a practical framework for understanding and operationalising transformative change for business and biodiversity,” the paper’s abstract reads.
“We define and describe the role of transformative change towards a nature positive ambition and summarise the different types and scales of transformative actions that companies could take into a simple framework, which we illustrate with case studies from food retail and mining.”
Overall, the framework is designed to be used to help companies develop and plan transformative actions, set targets, and monitor progress over time, as well as hold them accountable to ‘transformative’ claims.
Key principles for ensuring nature positive actions include a clear operationalisation and implementation of commitments such as through measurable targets, action plans, public disclosure, and regulator monitoring, evaluation, and adaptation, as well as the need for companies to provide sufficient evidence to support commitments, plans, and claims.
The paper also outlines how business models, value chains, and scale should be treated when enacting the necessary transformative change.
An initiative has emerged in the UK with a similar goal of aiding the private sector to come to terms with its biodiversity impact, a recent Carbon Pulse interview highlighted.
The authors now invite companies to test the proposed framework for their own planning, decision-making, and disclosures.
By Roy Manuell – roy@carbon-pulse.com
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