Biodiversity objectives and the support of Irish business

The ‘Irish Business and Biodiversity Project’ has launched its report to the National Parks and Wildlife Service on how Irish businesses can better support national biodiversity objectives.

The report comes in a critical year for biodiversity globally, with the UN meeting in Kunming, China due in May, and the National Biodiversity Action Plan up for review.

The project team of Optimize, Natural Capital Ireland, and AECOM, along with former EPA Director Micheál Ó Cinnéide, conducted a survey of 122 Irish businesses to gauge their knowledge of – and action on – biodiversity.

The project also assessed the appetite for developing a national Business and Biodiversity Platform to support businesses in protecting and restoring biodiversity.

Key findings:

• Irish businesses are taking some action on biodiversity – such as engaging staff, growing pollinator-friendly plants, and installing beehives
• Conversely, businesses do not tend to account for their strategic environmental impacts:
• Only 22% have completed a review of their direct environmental footprint and 13% have completed a review of environmental impacts in their supply chain
• Just 20% say that their policy to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals is complete.
• Businesses could be missing out on opportunities to gain competitive advantage and win market share, with less than half (43%) viewing action on biodiversity as a business opportunity.
• There was broad support for the establishment of a national Business and Biodiversity Platform, as a forum for peer-to-peer learning on biodiversity, with networking and advice from the Government.

The failure of businesses to recognise the gravity of the biodiversity emergency chimes with a recent CEO Survey from Ibec, in which only 11% of respondents considered the low carbon transition to be a major challenge for 2021.

The report findings were presented at a recent Business and Biodiversity seminar, which is available to watch here.

The report addresses Action 1.1.12 of the National Biodiversity Action Plan 2017 to 2021 and builds on the discussion and commitments made at the National Biodiversity Conference in Dublin in February 2019.

About natural capital

Natural capital is a concept that frames the world’s renewable and non-renewable resources like plants, animals, air, water, minerals, and soils as assets or stocks that combine to yield a flow of benefits to all of us. The natural capital approach makes environmental risk and opportunity visible in economic systems and decision-making.

The policy backing for natural capital has never been stronger. At the European level, the European Green Deal states that “all EU policies should contribute to preserving and restoring Europe’s natural capital” and the new EU Biodiversity Strategy states that by 2050, “the EU’s natural capital will be protected, valued and appropriately restored”.

About Natural Capital Ireland

Natural Capital Ireland is a non-profit membership organisation made up of individuals from the academic, public, private, and NGO sectors who are interested in the development and application of the natural capital approach to environmental and economic issues in Ireland.

Natural Capital Ireland advocates the use of the natural capital approach, including accounting methods, to inform environmental debates.

This approach involves measuring and valuing our natural assets, revealing all the ways in which the environment delivers essential benefits and services to society and the economy. These natural capital assessments can be used to support more sustainable decision-making.

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