To promote greater engagement of the business sector in the discussions of the Conference of the Parties (COP), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) organized this year a specific space for the private sector, the Business Forum. The forum began on the 12th and will last three days. During these days, we participated in several events and debates on the relationship between companies and biodiversity.
The first day of Business Forum revolved around discussions on how to integrate biodiversity into business practices. Some important challenges were put on the table, including the lack of knowledge by companies about what biodiversity actually is and how this topic relates to their business.
Despite some recent advances, it is still difficult for most companies to understand that they depend on ecosystem services (for which biodiversity is the basis) to survive in the market. The relationship often seems obvious – just imagine a beverage company, highly dependent on an environmental service (fresh water), with operations in a polluted basin… But knowledge of this relationship of dependence does not always translate into concrete actions to conserve biodiversity. And this is exactly what needs to change.
Another major challenge discussed was the demonstration of the famous business case. O business case is nothing more than an instrument that allows predicting the results of a business decision, providing necessary information from a business point of view, to determine, from some specific example (case), whether or not the action justifies the investment. Although we already have a number of examples of companies that are trying to integrate biodiversity into their practices, we still lack a business case concrete that really encourages a larger group of companies to act.
Finally, the valuation of natural capital was the third major challenge discussed. This topic deserves a specific discussion (I promise a post just about it!), but basically this discussion places on different sides those who defend the need to price nature and those who understand that valuing is not pricing and that it would be impossible to put a price on an invaluable resource.
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