How will we reverse nature loss?

Business for Nature’s Policy Recommendations

In addition to more than 1000 companies calling for ambitious nature policy, over 200 companies have worked with Business for Nature to develop five policy recommendations on nature. Coupled with continued business action, these policies - once adopted -  have the potential to unleash new opportunities and encourage business to do more, which in turn leads to more ambitious policies. 

Business for Nature is currently in the process of updating these recommendations. This page will be updated accordingly soon.

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Business for Nature calls on governments to adopt the following five policy recommendations to accelerate business action by aligning policy frameworks and transforming economic and financial systems.

1. Adopt targets to reverse nature loss: Provide direction and ambition

Businesses need long-term certainty to invest in changing business models. Concrete evidence-based targets informed by science are needed to provide clear direction and ambition for business action to reverse nature loss by 2030. These targets should be relevant and translatable from the global to the local level.

Policy action is required to:

• Publicly recognize the planetary emergency and commit to both reversing nature loss by 2030 and keeping global warming below 1.5 degree Celsius.

• Adopt global targets and indicators informed by science to reverse the loss of nature and provide direction for business actions, including to a) significantly reduce production and consumption footprints; b) halt and reverse the loss of habitat and species and restore their resilience; c) conserve ecosystem services and; d) protect natural areas appropriately respecting the rights, practices and wishes of indigenous peoples and local communities.

• Adopt strong implementation and ratchet mechanisms informed by science to increase action and ambition in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

2. Align, integrate and enforce policies for nature, people and climate: Ensure coherence

Climate change, nature loss and social inequality need to be solved together to achieve a just transition. Policy coherence and efficient implementation and enforcement at global, national and local levels is needed to create a level playing field that supports business action.

Policy action is required to:

• Bring the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) into alignment ahead of Rio +30 in coherence with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

• Pursue an integrated approach to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) and National Action Programs (NAPs) to combat desertification that recognizes the synergies, co-benefits and trade-offs to enable a just transition.

• Mainstream nature into all relevant policies, ministries and finance regulators’ mandates, addressing the major direct threats to nature identified by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) (i.e. land/sea use change, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution, over-exploitation, invasive species, etc.), and stimulating investment and job creation.

• Ensure the adoption and effective enforcement of environmental laws and standards, including by providing capacity building to countries worldwide.

3. Value and embed nature in decision making and disclosure: Go beyond short-term profit and GDP

The value of nature for people and the economy needs to be visible and considered in decision making. Governments, companies and financial organizations would take better decisions if they used information ‘beyond short-term profit and GDP that includes impacts and dependencies on nature, as well as synergies and tradeoffs informed by science and planetary boundaries. The valuation may be qualitative, quantitative or monetary, to reflect the importance, value, and utility of natural capital, recognizing that nature’s intrinsic value cannot be fully captured in economic terms.

Policy action is required to:

• Develop and implement frameworks to integrate the value of nature in decision-making and global market mechanisms, including pricing the use of natural resources and ecosystem services, and penalizing the destruction of nature, while recognizing that the value of nature can never be fully quantified.

• Produce adequate national metrics such as a natural capital index or gross ecosystem product (GEP) to better enable countries to go beyond GDP and track progress on the SDGs by assessing and accounting for their impacts and dependencies on nature.

• Support and require business to internalize environmental externalities and integrate their impact and dependencies on nature in decision-making, risk management, supply chain management and external disclosure. This will require a) standardizing metrics, tools and guidance to undertake robust corporate natural capital assessments and accounting; b) promoting guidance on nature-related financial disclosures; and c) providing contextual natural capital data from national statistical systems.

4. Reform subsidies and incentive mechanisms: Finance a just transformation

The transformative change needed to reverse nature loss, climate change and inequality cannot be achieved without proper incentives and financial mechanisms. A systemic change is required in subsidies and incentives to reward business leadership to design innovative, circular and profitable business models that deliver positive long-term outcomes on nature.

Policy action is required to:

• Review, disclose and shift away from direct and indirect subsidies and tax policies that incentivize the degradation and over-exploitation of nature and redirect them towards sustainable use, resilience, restoration and circularity.

• Adopt mechanisms and quantifiable indicators to value ecosystem services delivery and reward sustainable natural resources management.

• Integrate nature and nature-based solutions into public procurement policies and infrastructure development guidelines and promote net gain requirements with adherence to the mitigation hierarchy for all major development sectors.

• Promote the rapid development and implementation of innovative financial solutions such as green financing, large public funds and blended finance schemes to finance nature including small and large-scale nature-based solutions.

5. Join forces for nature and empower everyone to act: Engage, enable and collaborate

Transformative change requires that all public, private and civil society actors work together to deliver on commitments for nature and to implement solutions. Governments play an important role in empowering society to collaborate and act for nature.

Policy action is required to:

• Integrate business commitments and sectoral plans on nature in national commitments.

• Conduct well-informed spatial planning and Strategic Environmental Assessments, incorporating important natural areas, including Key Biodiversity Areas, and inform national and sub-national development plans with specific consideration for the needs of vulnerable groups and local communities.

• Implement jurisdictional and landscape approaches through innovative multi-stakeholder collaboration models.

  Promote supply-chain and/or sectoral collaboration mechanisms such as multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral platforms and joint action plans, in particular for high-impact sectors.