Related projects
The project
Overview
The European Commission has decided to establish a technical support facility to promote the continued development of the EU Business and Biodiversity Initiative. The platform is open to civil society as well as to business in its activities.
The platform will work with the interested priority business sectors identified by the European Commission; Agriculture, Food Supply, Forestry, Extractive industry, Financial sector and Tourism to promote their awareness of and engagement in biodiversity protection.
The decision of the European Commission to establish a Business and Biodiversity platform was a result of the following process.
One of the key measures identified in the European Commission Communication, adopted in 2006 on "Halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010 – and beyond - sustaining ecosystem services for human well-being", is the building of more effective partnerships, including partnerships with Business both at the level of the EU and in the Member States, fully in line with the global commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Active engagement of the business community in support of biodiversity is necessary for the achievement of many objectives of the 2010 target. In addition to programmes on business engagement of international organisations, several Member States (e.g. France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United Kingdom) have actions ongoing at the national level.
The Portuguese Presidency of the EU identified the link between business and biodiversity protection as one of their priorities, and worked with the European Commission on the development of an initiative in this regard, called "Building Better Partnerships: linking Business to Biodiversity" (the EU B@B initiative).
After a series of stakeholder consultations with Member States, business and non-governmental organisations about the principles, objectives, added value, and possible elements for any EU level action, a high-level conference on Business and Biodiversity was held in Lisbon on 12-13 November, 2007. The "Message from Lisbon" confirmed the need to engage business in meeting the 2010 biodiversity objectives, and showed that there was interest from the business sector. Specifically, the message welcomed the launching of an EU Business and Biodiversity Initiative and called on the European Commission to follow up the conference by providing financial and technical support for further developing the EU initiative.
The European Council of 14 December, 2007 acknowledged the need to reinforce the link between Business and Biodiversity at the European level, and the spring Council of 2009 has- reinstated the need to engage business with biodiversity.
In December 2008 the European Commission published the Communication and its annexes on the Mid-term Report on the delivery to the EU Biodiversity Action Plan6 in which the actions so far at Community and Member State level are briefly summarized.
See Call for Interest for the European Business and Biodiversity Platform