It’s time for business to step up to protect biodiversity

A recent report from The Environment Agency found a quarter of England’s mammals and almost a fifth of UK plants are threatened with extinction. With only an abysmal 50% of biodiversity remaining, the UK today ranks in the bottom ten of all countries globally. The present situation may look grim, but the future is potentially bleaker if we don’t act fast. The UN predicts the colossal extinction of one million species by 2039 - it’s clear we need to take action now to drive the change in the world, and humanity’s very survival, needs.

The absence of an urgent response from global leaders to the crisis has taken the loss of the world’s biodiversity to a crisis point, as it now poses as great a risk to humanity as global warming. Ongoing deprioritisation over more immediate global problems, such as the cost of living crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic has stagnated action and accelerated the loss of biodiversity. The delaying of the world’s foremost biodiversity conference, the COP15 summit, four times is proof of this. But humanity sleepwalking into extinction is a disaster, even if it takes fifteen years, and is worthy of urgent global attention.

With COP15 finally penciled in the calendar for December in Montreal, Canada, you’d expect this to be a decisive moment in tackling biodiversity loss. However, a lack of engagement and “painstakingly slow”proceedings at the conference precursors in Nairobi and Bonn suggests hesitation to commit to targets, lack of agreement and further delays to creating a unified approach to protect the world’s natural life.

Eighty percent of current draft legislation is undecided and bodies such as Greenpeace are describing the recent talks in Nairobi as having “a notable absence of high-level political engagement”. Despite the UN also proposing countries commit to preserving 30% of natural areas to prevent biodiversity loss, getting some countries to consider committing to collective targets has been an uphill battle - Brazil even completely resisting change, despite being a perpetrator of habitat destruction through the logging of the Amazon rainforest.

The loss of biodiversity evidences how environmental and economic challenges are intrinsically linked. This covers habitat destruction and cultivation of monocultures in agriculture, plundering of natural resources, the human incursion into wild areas and pollution. These don’t just pose a risk for the world’s forests, grasslands, lakes and rivers but also the integrity of global food supply chains and the natural resources underpinning the global economy.

Looking to the action that has already taken place in the UK, the government has regulated to make property developers commit to a minimum of 10% biodiversity net gain. While this is a positive first step, we need biodiversity to be ingrained in all areas of business and concerted action at system level.

In the UK the management of biodiversity is usually delegated to local government authorities, ill-equipped with insufficient funds and access to sector expertise to provoke the full-scale recovery needed. Collaboration across sectors and the mobilisation of businesses, citizens and government authorities toward the problem is absolutely vital if we are to even consider tackling the 21 targets set by the UN to reduce the threat to biodiversity before 2030.

As landowners and guardians of green spaces, businesses have a responsibility to ensure further loss of biodiversity is not sanctioned through destroying large swathes of natural areas in favour of building motorways, housing and other infrastructure.

One obstacle to understanding biodiversity loss at a local level is that currently there is no quantifiable measure of biodiversity or net gain, as biodiversity remains in a state of relative infancy in the UK. The lack of universal definition makes it harder for businesses trying to make a positive impact, as there is an absence of tangible evidence if their action is helping them reach biodiversity targets.

Currently the remaining pockets of biodiversity in the UK are preserved by the actions of bodies such as Natural England. Likewise, water companies, railway operators and property development companies are also the custodians of large amounts of green space that are left mainly to nature and provide a valuable foothold for native species of flora and fauna. All of these players, as well as small businesses have an important role in driving diversity net gain, and their collective action is worth more than the sum of its parts.

We are thankfully beginning to see cross-sector collaboration materialising and growing action from more pioneers across the private sector. Growing action by the private sector is only going to become more vital in building back the UK’s green infrastructure and biodiversity in hopes to inspire the navigation of game-changing legislation.

COP15 is an important milestone in driving forward the biodiversity agenda, and biodiversity remains an extremely complex issue. However, responsibility to preserve the earth’s natural life sits on the shoulders of every human on this planet. Humanity has demonstrated how it can survive extreme situations through its hallmark intelligence and community, but we need to apply this across a global level to protect our future and the natural life we share the planet with.