November 2018: The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) published a report on mainstreaming international biodiversity goals for the private sector. The publication aims to help the international biodiversity goals become more visible and relevant to everyday business activities.

The publication titled, ‘Mainstreaming International Biodiversity Goals for the Private Sector: Main Report and Case Studies,’ was financed by the Valuing Nature Programme (VNP), which funds researchers investigating the “value” of nature in different contexts to work within new disciplinary, institutional or applied settings. The researchers evaluated 70 business case studies received from all over the world, following an open call for business case studies, of which they chose 14 to detail in the report.

The publication was created both for businesses that are already undertaking actions for biodiversity – to support them in making the links between their actions and international policy clearer – and for businesses only starting to explore relevant actions that they could undertake to address their impacts and dependencies on nature, and contribute this way to the international biodiversity goals.

Many businesses perceive the international biodiversity goals as having been written by governments for governments.

The researchers chose to focus the report on five international goals for biodiversity, which encompass features of multiple Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), including the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the SDGs:

1. Mainstream biodiversity;
2. Reduce pressures on biodiversity;
3. Safeguard biodiversity;
4. Benefits for all; and
5. Enhance implementation.

The authors explain that, while there is a clear role for the private sector to contribute to the international biodiversity goals, the goals are perceived by many businesses as having been written by governments for governments, and fail to resonate with and inspire action from the private sector. To address this issue, the report: reframes the international biodiversity goals to illustrate their relevance to the private sector; and illustrates the various avenues of action that businesses can take for biodiversity, using the selected 14 case studies.

The publication first maps the SDGs to the selected five international biodiversity goals in order to demonstrate the multiple crossovers. The report then translates these international biodiversity goals into “corporate biodiversity goals,” using language that aims to resonate with businesses.

The publication further provides a comprehensive list of possible business actions for biodiversity in line with the corporate biodiversity goals. It uses 14 case studies to illustrate these actions and translate them across different business sectors so that they would relate to varying scales, locations, and forms of biodiversity. These cases, the authors note, illustrate a range of reasons why businesses are driven to undertake action that is beneficial to biodiversity, including compliance with environmental regulations and operational, reputational and financial incentives. They also highlight the co-benefits that biodiversity actions can deliver for the environment, society, and businesses themselves.

The publication’s release coincided with the the 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 14) to the CBD, which took place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, from 15-29 November 2018. [Publication: Mainstreaming International Biodiversity Goals for the Private Sector: Main Report and Case Studies]