What’s going on here?
The UN biodiversity conference COP15 closes on 19 December and there’s mounting pressure for the agreement to require companies to disclose their harm to nature.
What does this mean?
Target 15 in the draft Global Biodiversity Framework would require all large business and financial institutions to disclose their impacts and dependencies on nature. It also contains an objective to halve the negative impacts and boost the positive effects.
More than 330 businesses and financial institutions support such disclosure and have been urging countries to ‘make it mandatory’. Many of them have revenues of over one billion US dollars. These include grocery giant Carrefour, clothing colossus H&M, and soap superpower L’Occitane.
Why disclose harm to nature? It helps companies identify risks, makes them more accountable to concerned investors, and helps ensure the rights of indigenous peoples, among a host of other reasons.
Why should we care?
All human civilisation exists within nature – it’s not some separate thing that only David Attenborough visits. We depend on it for our survival: for food and clean air and water. Business for Nature, the coalition behind the Make it Mandatory campaign, says nature:
- provides economic value and security
- supports human development and equality
- makes us more resilient to climate change
But scientists expect business-as-usual to intensify its deterioration.
The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2022 reveals that 2 out of 3 of the world’s most critical risks to economies are related to nature loss. New data reveals that the world’s businesses are not disclosing their impacts fast enough to reduce those risks, says Business for Nature.
Be curious!
- Learn more in the Make it Mandatory press release
- Read our rewilding update from October
- Check out Client Earth’s regular updates from COP15
Photo by Alenka Skvarc on Unsplash
