Business for Nature aims to create a global 'business movement to help reverse the loss of nature by 2030'
Firms around the world are being urged to join together to better protect the world's plants and animals, as part of a new coalition launched this week under the banner 'Business for Nature'.
Established by a group of leading climate, business, and nature bodies, including the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD), WWF, and the World Economic Forum (WEF), Business for Nature aims to spotlight corporate demands to better protect nature in the hope of encouraging more governments to act.
The steep rate of decline in biodiversity and habitats around the world - a crisis well documented by scientists - endangers not only the health of the natural world but also places severe costs on businesses and economies, the coalition's organisers argue.
They are calling on businesses to become part of the solution by joining the group and reshaping their operating models to align commercial activities with the needs of the natural world.
By demonstrating business commitment to the natural world, the group hopes to convince government to next year strike a Paris Agreement-style treaty to enhance nature.
"Our entire economy is a subsidiary of nature," said Paul Polman, former Unilever CEO and chair of the International Chamber of Commerce, one of the founding organisations. "Business needs to come together now, as we did for the Paris Climate Summit, to ensure that we collectively protect that which makes our very existence possible."
A landmark report released earlier this year warned of an "unprecedented" and "accelerating" rate of species extinction that means that one million of the world's eight million plant and animal species are at risk of disappearing altogether in the coming decades.
Alongside its high profile Conferences of Parties summits on climate change - COPs in the UN parlance - the UN also convenes regular COPs on biodiversity to help drive the global response to the biodiversity crisis. Pressure is building on nations to strike a formal agreement next year that will set out a post-2020 global framework for biodiversity.
Business for Nature aims to convene a "united business voice" ahead of next year's crucial summit, which will urge world leaders to support more ambitious policy measures, while also demonstrating that protecting nature makes economic sense.
"The rate at which we are currently losing nature is posing serious risks for business, both in terms of operations as well as the license to operate," noted Peter Bakker, president and CEO, of WBCSD. "We need to radically transform the main economic systems to be able to move to zero carbon and halt the destruction of nature. By bringing the needed innovations to the table, business is well-positioned to lead this transformation, accelerating impact and scale through the Business for Nature coalition."