What role can Japanese businesses play in creating a nature-positive future?

The term nature positive has generated significant interest in recent years, coupled with a growing awareness that the well-being of the economy and society is dependent on nature, which creates both risks and opportunities for business. It’s estimated that a nature-positive future could generate over $10 trillion in new annual business value and create 395 million jobs by 2030. Such emphasis on the private sector’s role in halting and reversing nature loss has become further pronounced since the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) at the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting (COP15) in December 2022, which includes a clear call for business to step up their action on nature.

Building on the impetus spurred by the GBF, the theme of nature and biodiversity continued to occupy a large share of attention at the G7 Ministers’ Meeting on Climate, Energy and Environment held in Sapporo, Japan, in April this year, where ministers made a commitment to increasing spending on biodiversity. The meeting also established a G7 Alliance on Nature Positive Economy as a platform for sharing knowledge and best practices between state and non-state actors, particularly the private sector. Among the proposed work of the Alliance, two themes – sharing experiences on business opportunities and corporate disclosure – have been selected as the focus areas for 2023.

Japan is no latecomer to the nature-positive movement. In fact, efforts to mainstream nature and biodiversity in the Japanese business community much predate the current surge of interest. For example, in anticipation of the introduction of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets at COP10, Keidanren, Japan’s largest business lobby group representing over 1,500 major companies across industries, launched the Declaration of Biodiversity and Action Policy in 2009, with more than 200 member companies pledging support.

More recently, the Japanese government established its own 30by30 Roadmap in April 2022, eight months prior to COP15, to domestically achieve the target of conserving or protecting 30% of land and sea areas by 2030. This led to the launch of the 30by30 Alliance for Biodiversity, a multistakeholder platform to promote the implementation of concrete actions laid out in the Roadmap, which boasts expanding membership of more than 300 companies, local governments and organizations. It is also symbolic in this context that Keidanren sent the biggest delegation to date to the latest COP15 meeting in Montreal.

These developments in the nature space mark an interesting contrast with Japan’s stance on tackling climate change, the country often being criticized for backtracking on international efforts to achieve the 1.5 degrees target. Unlike in the case of climate change, where some of the strongest resistance to ambitious goals tend to come from the business lobby, having powerful corporates on board for the nature-positive transition certainly signals a positive outlook for Japan.

Nevertheless, a high level of corporate interest does not readily translate into concrete actions. A recent study of the Fortune Global 500 companies found that, while an increasing number of businesses are making pledges to become nature positive, only few among the global major enterprises have established specific nature-related commitments. There is a risk that good intentions alone could end up being a passing fad, or worse, as greenwashing.

Nature positive is a term used to describe a world where nature is being restored and is regenerating rather than declining. But it is a relatively new concept without an agreed-upon definition, and this presents challenges for companies seeking ways to align with nature-positive outcomes. To address some of the confusion about the term, organizations such as the IUCN and WBCSD have provided guidelines on what nature positive means and are working to develop methodologies to measure and track contributions towards protecting and restoring nature.

The recent release of the first corporate Science Based Targets for Nature, as well as final recommendations for the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) framework expected in September, can also help businesses identify and manage nature-related impacts and dependencies. These developments will further provide guidance to companies to bring in more transparency on nature-related reporting based on global standards and data.

Once companies identify and understand the nature-related risks and opportunities for their business, the next step is to devise strategies on how to act. Salesforce, for example, has recently announced its own Nature Positive Strategy, which outlines the company’s vision and set of actions for a nature-positive future, drawing a number of lessons to be shared with other businesses.

There are different avenues for taking practical actions depending on the competitive advantages and sectoral specificities of an organization. But one of the common enabling factors towards systems change lies in collective efforts. Leveraging collaborations and partnerships can help promote impact at scale and enable cost-effective, high-quality work while minimizing risks associated with being a first mover.

One such example of collaboration for a nature-positive future is 1t.org, an initiative of the World Economic Forum to which Salesforce is a founding partner. 1t.org aims to mobilize, connect, and empower multistakeholder engagement to conserve, restore and grow one trillion trees by 2030 – contributing both to halting and reversing nature loss. It provides a global platform for companies from all sectors and regions to exchange knowledge, share lessons about best practices, and commit to action for forest ecosystem conservation and restoration.

Since its launch in 2020, the one trillion trees movement has steadily grown, along with the establishment of regional chapters in priority regions and countries including the US, India and China. To date, over 80 companies have pledged to conserve, restore, and grow more than 7 billion trees in over 65 countries, but 1t.org has yet to draw participation from Japanese entities. To companies in Japan and elsewhere looking to take practical steps to drive nature-positive outcomes, we would like to invite them to consider joining in this collective endeavour.

Nature is declining at an unprecedented rate, and the private sector has a responsibility and opportunity to play a bigger role in halting this trend and contribute at scale and speed to a shift towards a nature-positive economy. The momentum for business engagement is already there. Now is the time to turn commitments into concrete action.