By bizn_fun 
It feels like groundhog day: another week, another warning about the seriousness of the biodiversity crisis. This time it was the financial sector’s turn, as on Monday a major report, approved by more than 150 governments, said that many companies face collapse unless they better protect nature.
From healthy rivers to productive forests, the natural world underpins almost all economic activity. But human consumption of the Earth’s resources is unsustainable, driving what many scientists believe is the largest loss of life since the dinosaurs. And companies are not immune to the consequences.
More after this week’s most important reads.
Essential reads
In focus
According to an assessment by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the ongoing loss of nature poses a systemic risk to the global economy. Its findings echo much of what we already know: governments subsidise activities driving nature’s destruction by $2.4tn (£1.8tn) each year. In 2023, an estimated $7.3tn of public and private finance flowed into business activities that are harmful to nature, while just $220bn goes to activities that conserve biodiversity.
“The loss of biodiversity is among the most serious threats to business,” said Prof Stephen Polasky, co-chair of the IPBES assessment. “The twisted reality is that it often seems more profitable to businesses to degrade biodiversity than to protect it. Business as usual may once have seemed profitable in the short term, but impacts across multiple businesses can have cumulative effects, aggregating to global impacts, which can cross ecological tipping points.”
Despite the risks, there is little sign that humanity is responding with the urgency that the science demands. With a few notable exceptions, warnings about the consequences of nature loss for business have gone unheeded. Less than 1% of public companies mention biodiversity in their company impact reports, according to the assessment. A brilliant series of graphics, laid out by my Guardian colleague Alex Clark this week, shows that economic growth has long been tied to pollution and environmental destruction.
Eva Zabey, CEO of Business for Nature, a coalition of business associations and companies pushing for greater action on conservation, says: “The IPBES assessment is a scientific reality check: biodiversity loss is now a systemic risk to the global economy and business itself. We have the frameworks. We have the solutions. There is no excuse for inaction. We welcome this report as an urgent wake-up call. Businesses, the financial sector and governments already have access to enough information to turn their intention into impact. Let’s put in place the systems and incentives to make it happen, fast.”
It is easy to direct anger at businesses. From the fossil fuel companies driving global heating to extractive companies destroying ecosystems for raw materials, there are obvious examples where stronger action is needed. But the vast majority of companies have bigger immediate problems; indeed, it is unlikely that this assessment will even cross the desk of any major CEO. They need direction from governments and there are more and more examples of backsliding. Just four years ago, almost every government on the planet agreed, at Cop15 in Montreal, to transformational change for nature by the end of the decade. Once again, it seems clear that we will fall short.
At the report’s launch, I asked the authors if we can realistically expect meaningful action from businesses while there is such weak leadership from politicians.
“I don’t think we can expect businesses to take all the action,” said Matt Jones, a co-chair of the assessment. “That is not what this report says. We do not say that businesses have to act voluntarily. For the change that we really need, we need collective action. And that includes government. They are in an incredible position to set the way for businesses to then respond.”
The world desperately needs leadership on nature in the era of Trump. Where will it come from?
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