New York, July 12 – Backed by strong evidence gathered over past decades that human activities caused the loss of the planet’s biological diversity, the United Nations and international organizations have been urging financial institutions to join the global fight to reverse the loss, which is putting economies at risk and negatively affecting humanity and the environment it is living in.
The call is coming before an international conference will meet October 11-24 in Kunming, China, to adopt a convention on protecting biodiversity for the future and an action plan on reversing biodiversity loss. Preparations for the conference, which started before the pandemic struck the world early in 2020, have intensified with a focus on including financial institutions that are holding some of the answers to biodiversity loss.
“The financial community has a critical leveraging role to pivot economic sectors towards more positive impacts on nature,” said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). “The call for the financial community to act will become ever louder—as the world strengthens its nature goals and builds new techniques to measure nature loss.”
A document published by the CBD Secretariat, Financial Sector Guide for the Convention on Biological Diversity, seeks to mobilize financial institutions because businesses they are financing and investing in depend on nature and a safe climate.
CBD said the financial sector has a great influence in curbing nature’s biodiversity loss by making responsible investment and aligning funds to businesses and projects that could result in positive nature outcomes. The guide advocates and calls for ambitious and transformative post-2020 global biodiversity framework, which includes taking steps that support the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), the UN Environment Program’s Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) and Business for Nature and Finance for Biodiversity Pledge.
The guide calls for reporting publicly on positive and negative contributions to biodiversity by using the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures or similar approaches.
“Raising awareness on nature’s importance for the financial sector is becoming increasingly crucial “ CBD said. “Continued biodiversity loss puts global economies at risk, and the financial sector, significantly exposed to nature, has a critical role to play to transform the current financial system, with a view to aligning financial flows for a nature positive world.”
“We are losing nature”
A global assessment made by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in 2019 warned that human activities have resulted in putting nearly 1 million species at risk of extinction and have significantly altered 75 per cent of the land surface, which could have severe impacts on people’s livelihoods, the economy, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.
The guide also cited a study by the World Economic Forum, whish said over half the world’s total GDP – US$44 trillion – is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its benefits or services and, as a result, exposed to risks from nature loss (World Economic Forum, 2020). At the same time, a nature-based transition could generate US$10 trillion in business opportunity and create 395 million jobs by 2030 (Future of Nature and Business Report, 2020).
The guide defines biological diversity as follows:
“Biodiversity means the variability among living organisms from all sources; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems. Biodiversity underpins ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services that are essential for human well-being. From an economic perspective, biodiversity and ecosystems constitute valuable assets and are therefore frequently characterized as natural capital. Conserving biodiversity and using its components in a sustainable manner will ensure that natural capital assets remain resilient and secure for the future. However, biodiversity loss impacts the security of investments in many sectors and affect their value (Dasgupta, 2021).”
The Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to be held in Kunming, Yunnan province, China, will be the 15th meeting and will be attended by 196 parties. Since its first meeting at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the CBD has been expanding and refining the issues of preserving nature and advocating the theme of human beings living in harmony with nature.
The convention expected to be adopted in Kunming, now in the form of a draft framework, would set goals on reversing biodiversity loss and meeting people’s needs to be achieved in 2030 and 2050 as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Beauty and biodiversity
Fashion and beauty industries have a close relationship with biodiversity as they depend on nature’s resources such as plants, species and animals for their products. But those industries are also drivers for biodiversity loss, according to the Union for Ethical BioTrade (UEBT) which has set standards for sourcing with respect.
Forbes and Business Insider estimated that the global beauty business was worth over US$ 500 billion and its annual growth rate is increasing every year. The United States, China and Japan are among top countries with the largest beauty markets.
UEBT said over 50 companies, including all biggest names in fashion, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals in the world such as Guerlain, Cosmo, Christian Dior, LVMH and Kenzo have joined the campaign against biodiversity loss and have committed “to cultivate, collect or procure ingredients sustainably and to address biodiversity loss as their contribution to the Sharm El-Sheikh to Kunming Action Agenda for Nature and People.”
“Consumers are increasingly demanding that businesses demonstrate a genuine commitment to ethical sourcing,” said Rik Kutsch Lojenga, Executive Director at UEBT. “We at UEBT are so pleased to see more than 50 companies stand up for nature with this shared commitment. In the coming years we will be supporting these businesses in reaching their time-bound targets on the ground in farms and wild plant collection sites all over the world.”
UEBT said The commitment sets “time-bound targets for companies to improve their policies and practices – from on-the-ground action in farms and wild plant collection sites, to processing, research and development, manufacturing and procurement practices. They have come together to stand for transformative change in business practices and inspire others to show their leadership and help resolve the biodiversity crisis. “
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