Beyond Sustainability – Encouraging the shift to nature positive businesses
Echoes – A Voice from Uncharted Waters, by Mathias Gmachl, a sound and light installation in NY that urges passersby to pay attention to nature and the environment surrounding us
Join me as I will be speaking on this topic on Oct 18 at IBM Z Day!
Nature positive companies are gaining momentum. Going beyond the sustainability paradigm – viewed as a stepping stone but not enough – they include and transcend conventional and incremental corporate social responsibility and ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) strategies. Nature positive companies also move beyond a focus on simply mitigating harm by reducing the negative impact of their operations, and rather seek ways to regenerate by contributing positively to natural and human cycles.
What if we not only minimize harm but actively restore nature?
In a landmark development in 2022, the world’s nations negotiated a deal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030. Just a few months later, a historic agreement was reached to protect the world’s oceans. Meanwhile, work is under way to secure a legal binding agreement to end plastic pollution. Naturally, the real challenge will be to turn such pledges into reality, but nevertheless such international accords indicate that the regulatory tides may be turning and constitute the foundation for action which companies need to build upon.
To successfully adapt to climate change and biodiversity loss in a regenerative way, requires a similar effort to the transformation in health and safety achieved by the private sector in previous decades. A nature-positive approach halts and reverses nature loss by increasing the health, abundance, diversity, and resilience of species, populations and ecosystems. In turn, it can enhance the resilience of our businesses, societies and planet.
No matter what business you’re in, there are no profits on a dead planet.
Legendary quotation by Sierra Club executive director David Brower
Rather than simply trying to do less bad, nature positive businesses bring more life, vitality and viability to the ecosystems that they depend upon, placing nature at the heart of business decision-making in parity with financial returns and human wellbeing. Certain companies have already embarked on this path and are helping to define emerging regenerative practice in their sectors.
Nature positive is an evolution from sustainability, accompanied by a proactive and transformative mindset
Some Nature-Positive Businesses Guiding Principles
Regenerative Mindset
Business cannot succeed in ecologies and societies that fail. Nature positive is an evolution from sustainability, accompanied by a proactive and transformative mindset demonstrated when companies become aware they are integral part of the biosphere and actively engage in bringing more aliveness to the ecosystems they depend upon and co-evolve with. This may include supporting reforestation, habitat restoration, or soil enrichment for enhancing biodiversity and ecological health.
Circular Economy
Nature positive businesses tend to follow the principles of a circular economy. This means designing products and systems that minimise waste, encourage recycling and upcycling, and extend product lifecycles.
Decades before recycling became a widespread practice, Patagonia was actively reusing materials. The company strives to close the loop in the fashion industry by ensuring that their products have a second, third, or even fourth life and only when a garment is truly at the end of its life, they find innovative ways to recycle them. Their example has inspired other clothing manufacturers to move towards a zero waste circular economy.
Certain companies have already embarked on this path and are helping to define emerging regenerative practices in their sectors.
Biodiversity Conservation
Conservation of biodiversity is a core principle of nature positive business. These seek to protect, restore and regenerate habitats and support the preservation of species diversity.
Conservation of biodiversity is a core principle of nature-positive business. It seeks to protect, restore and regenerate habitats and support the preservation of species diversity. And IBM supports biodiversity around the world. In fact, in 2021, IBM established a global program focused on creating or restoring habitats for pollinators at IBM locations, playing a vital role in enhancing the aliveness of local ecosystems and in increasing and preserving biodiversity in urban environments. In addition, IBM is extending the impact of this program to the communities where it operates through employee engagement.
Salesforce has published a strategy to make its business nature positive, including by conserving and growing 100 million trees. In its materials, Salesforce defines nature positive as a ‘world where nature — species and ecosystems — is being restored and is regenerating rather than declining’.
Carbon Neutrality and Beyond
Nature positive businesses not only aim for carbon neutrality but actively work to sequester more carbon than they emit, contributing to climate change mitigation and driven by science-based targets springing from the Paris Agreement. The pathway is clear: from reduction to neutrality towards sequestration.
Made of Air believes the next frontier of emissions reduction is in materials. Their company creates a bioplastic from forest and agricultural waste through a biochar process. The material not only sequesters carbon but also has versatile applications, from furniture to building facades. This recyclable material contains 90% carbon and for each tonne of plastic can sequester about two tonnes of CO2.
Community Engagement
Nature positive businesses often work closely with local communities or even emerge from the community themselves. They aim to ensure that their activities benefit communities through job creation, fair wages and community development projects.
Oluwamayowa Salu is the Founder of Brickify, a Nigerian business which collects plastic waste from the streets and businesses in Lagos and turns into large Lego-like bricks for constructing low-cost homes and furniture. Their mission is to tackle plastic waste as well as homelessness.
The natural world needs to rise up the corporate agenda
Transparency and Accountability
ESG reporting provides a platform for businesses to communicate their environmental, social and governance performance transparently to investors, customers, employees, and regulators. This transparency fosters accountability and trust. Is integrating ESG issues into business strategies enough for nature positive businesses?
Retailer Kering Group employs environmental profit and loss accounting. This involves assessing over 5,000 indicators related to various environmental factors such as carbon emissions, water consumption, air pollution and waste. This approach helps the company analyse how factors like the source of raw materials, the country of sourcing, and the manufacturing process influence the sustainability profile of a new product.
Ethical Sourcing
Nature positive businesses that rely on raw materials from nature (e.g., water, agriculture, forestry, mining) are committed to ethically sourcing these materials. This involves avoiding activities that contribute to deforestation, habitat destruction, or human rights abuses.
Unilever Climate & Nature Fund, AXA Climate, and Tikehau Capital have established a partnership to explore the idea of an investment tool that will help accelerate the transition to regenerative agriculture. Each company is committed to investing €100 million to be deployed over the fund’s life in initiatives and regenerative agriculture practices.
Responsible Leaders for BMW Foundation use their knowledge, networks and influence to deliberately work for a better world.
Networking and Capacity Development
At the heart of regenerative thinking is a recognition that there are multiple ways of knowing. Nature positive businesses tend to become beacons of inspiration, engaging in exchanges, education and advocacy efforts to support the emergence of new models that transcend the doing less bad mindset.
AXA Climate has developed over 40 hours of digital training content for companies who are eager to support their employees to expand though horizons in regenerative ways. The programme is offered to the agri-food, industrial, financial and public sectors to help them successfully adapt to climate change and biodiversity loss in a regenerative manner.
BMW Foundation connects more than 2,300 Responsible Leaders (RL) across over 100 countries. RLs are committed to playing an active role in shaping the network. This includes connecting with others, sharing knowledge or experiences, collaborating, and co-creating. It also means joining lively, uncertain, unpredictable events and retreats where new ways of knowing are developed. Responsible Leaders use their expertise networks, and influence to deliberately work for a regenerative world.
The principles presented here reflect a holistic approach to doing business that not only minimizes harm to the environment, but also actively contributes to its regeneration and well-being. Nature positive businesses recognise the interconnectedness of purpose, planet, people and profit, and strive to balance these elements for a regenerative future. It is encouraging that there is growing business awareness on nature’s true value, and that our planetary challenges extend beyond carbon offsetting and the energy transition. Now we must ensure such an understanding becomes the business norm.
For engaging in these discussions and to learn more about how to design beyond sustainability join me and a line up of global thought leaders in the Sustainability Track of IBM Z Day annual event
Secure your free access by registering now. Live, remote and free all day Oct 18 2023
My guests in this conversation include:
Justina Nixon-Saintil – IBM Vice President Corporate Social Responsibility
Jessica von Farkas – BMW Foundation Americas Network Coordinator