Named the UK Business and Biodiversity Forum, the new group will support British businesses as they try to tackle worsening biodiversity impacts and risks
A new coalition of British businesses launching today has pledged to work to reverse biodiversity loss and strengthen natural ecosystems in the areas in which they operate.
Backed by the UK's International Chamber of Commerce (ICC UK), the UK Business and Biodiversity Forum aims to bring the UK private sector deeper into discussions on biodiversity loss in advance of both the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow in November and the UN COP15 Biodiversity Summit in Kunming in May.
It aims to help UK businesses manage biodiversity impacts and risks in their supply chain, facilitate the sharing of knowledge and experiences across different business sectors and sizes, and act as a unified voice for UK businesses on the importance of nature, the organisers said.
"Protecting the planet and maintaining biodiversity is critical to continued economic growth," said Chris Southworth, Secretary General of the UK ICC. "Reversing the extreme losses we have seen in biodiversity will be absolutely fundamental to navigating our way through our delicate recovery from Covid-19, both in the UK and abroad. Governments cannot do that alone - the private sector has an important role to play here."
Public policy is increasingly striving to take the importance of preserving biodiversity into account, with goods and services provided by diverse ecosystems estimated to be worth at least $33tr, according to researchers - nearly the value of the economies of China and the US combined. Examples of the economic consequences of biodiversity loss include lower catches of fish, less productive agriculture, increased flood risks, and fewer plants from which to develop medicines.
Last month the UK government published a landmark report, the Dasgupta Review, which detailed how governments and economists needed to fundamentally overhaul how they measure economic success so as to better account for environmental factors and the loss of natural capital that is undermining the stability of the global economy.
Policymakers are starting to respond to these concerns and the draft Environment Bill, currently at report stage in the House of Commons, is set to introduce requirement for new developments to achieve a net gain in biodiversity. The post-2020 global biodiversity framework, which is currently being designed by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, is also expected to include calls for the private sector to contribute to reversing the global decline in biodiversity.
As such the new business-led forum launched today will aim to strengthen the UK private sector's voice in decisions relating to global questions of biodiversity protection and governance. Founding members include Barratt Developments, Skanska, and Balfour Beatty.
"We recognise that every business has a role to play in protecting the future of our planet, which is why we are putting the processes in place to ensure biodiversity is considered at every stage of our build process, from start to finish," said David Thomas, Barratt Developments CEO.