Together with the Italian co-organisers, Etifor, ItaSIF and the Lombardy Region, and with the support of 21 partners, the European Business & Biodiversity Platform brought together its community to transform business for a nature positive society! For two days, the European Business & Nature Summit (EBNS) hosted more than 80 speakers in around 20 sessions to discuss the challenges and opportunities to meet the goals of the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. This historic framework, adopted last year, sets out an ambitious pathway to reach the global vision of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050. Marking its 10^th anniversary, the EBNS 2023 focused on empowering businesses to take decisive transformative action to implement biodiversity targets. The Summit offered a mix of inspiring keynotes, high-level policy and business dialogues, and technical workshops designed to: a) monitor, assess, and disclose biodiversity; b) reduce impacts and regenerate ecosystems; c) unlock financial resources through innovative mechanisms; and d) foster inclusive partnerships to accelerate action.

The rooms were buzzing with energy and the conference was driven by a growing understanding among business and financial institutions that “nature needs to become an ally for business,” as highlighted by Florika Fink-Hooijer, Director General for the Environment, European Commission.

Here are five key take-aways from the Summit:

1.       The European business and biodiversity movement continues its growing momentum

Virginijus Sinkevičius, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries opened the Summit, highlighting that “An impressive number of businesses and financial institutions now favour strong and ambitious EU policies for nature. We need more of them in order to deliver on our commitments under the Global Biodiversity Framework. We need everyone on board to continue benefitting from nature’s invaluable and threatened services.” The business community has been growing year after year since the first meeting of the EU Business and Biodiversity Platform in 2014. Almost 450 representatives from business, finance and other stakeholder groups attended the Milan edition and many more were online. The momentum is clearly picking up.

The Summit welcomed new signatories of the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge, a group of 153 financial institutions spread across from 24 countries representing € 21.4 trillion of combined assets. These signatories committed to collaborating, sharing knowledge, engaging, assessing their own biodiversity impact, setting targets and publicly reporting on biodiversity matters by 2024. In addition, the Summit also launched the European Business and Nature Charter through which companies and financial institutions can signal their support to the nature agenda. So far 37 companies and financial institutions signed the Charter committing to progress on their nature journey across the various high level business action for nature: assess, commit, transform and disclose (ACT-D). Finally, the EBNS, as a long-standing high-level event hosted in a different European country each year, also continues to create positive spill-over effects on the ground. This edition marked the birth of the Italian Business and Biodiversity working group. The working group was established by the EBNS co-organizers Lombardy Region, Etifor | Valuing Nature and ItaSIF, with the aim to raise awareness about the links between business and nature among Italian businesses,  and to build bridges with the EU B&B Platform and the global network of companies and financial institutions collectively striving toward a nature-positive future.

2.       We are moving from commitments to action, but action mut come faster, and at wider scale

There is a growing common understanding that nature is foundational to our survival and our economic prosperity. While there is positive progress, with many actions being taken, biodiversity and nature are still being destroyed at unprecedented rates.  A sustainable global future for people and nature is still within reach, but achieving it requires rapid transformative change that must be driven by unprecedented far-reaching actions. Positive signs of the acceleration of action were seen during this year at EBNS, which saw a clear shift in discourse among participants, who touched much more on “what they are doing” rather than on “what they are going to do”.  The growing belief among private sector actors that we have the knowledge available to move from commitments to implementation, going beyond tree planting and installing beehives, is resulting in structural private sector action. Frameworks, regulations and standards, like the Corporate Sustainability Directive (CSRD) and the Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), represent real game-changers accelerating transformation. Big players like Illycafé and Henkel welcomed guidance and regulatory incentives to create a levelled playing field and a healthy market environment. Yet, still only 5% of the world’s top 500 companies have biodiversity targets and relying on voluntary action will not suffice. To accelerate action, Eva Zabey, CEO from Business for Nature, announced the upcoming launch of a new global campaign: ‘It’s Now for Nature’. The campaign aims to rally all businesses to act on nature and contribute towards a nature-positive world by 2030. Through a new Nature Strategy Handbook, the campaign will encourage businesses and financial institutions to develop and publish a nature strategy. This will enable them to make a meaningful contribution towards the global goal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030. As Eva said: “It is time to put a real value on nature. Up until now it has always been zero.” Join one of the global launch webinars on 9 November to find out how to get involved.

3.       The finance sector is evolving rapidly, and there's a notable shift in perceptions: Neglecting nature-related risks is now widely regarded as a failure to fulfil their mandate

The finance sector was well-represented, with a delegation of 25 financial institutions representing the members of the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation, amongst many others. They showed growing awareness that "destroying nature equals destroying the economy" as highlighted by Frank Elderson European Central Bank Executive Board member during the Summit, and a conviction that more regulation and pre-competitive collaboration can still avert a dangerous collapse of society.  Biodiversity is no longer a side dish for sustainability financials, and biodiversity-related risk assessment is becoming a core part of their mandate. This is increasingly driven by regulation from supervisory authorities, following the visionary leadership of Frank Elderson and others. Mario Nava, Director General of DG Reform, and Alexandra Jour-Schroeder, Deputy Director-General of DG FISMA, also called for further mainstreaming biodiversity across policies, and fully integrating it in the financial system, providing incentives for business to act. They recognised that there are still blind spots and loopholes, but, their stance was unanimous: businesses should expect growing attention to efforts reducing pressures on nature, as well as considering the ecosystems on which businesses depend on, and the provision of support for the regenerative economy.

4.       Realising a net-zero, equitable and nature-positive future requires a high level of pragmatism and agility

The Summit highlighted the need for transforming our current economic paradigm towards a net-zero, nature-positive and equitable economy that prioritises environmental and social impacts. Business and finance must break away from the status quo, creating a new vision in which nature is fully integrated and nature-positive business models can thrive. ‘Nature Positive’ is gaining traction but what it means in practice for business is yet to be fully defined. However, there is growing common understanding and guidance sprouting from the bottom-up, coming from pioneers in the private sector. Businesses across various sectors are developing their own nature-positive pathways as they progress on their journey. Although there is no one-size-fits-all, there was a strong call for approaching biodiversity with alignment as well as pragmatism. Businesses need to understand their specific interactions with nature in the context of the sector in which they operate to identify priority actions to avoid and reduce the negative impacts, mitigate nature-related risks and unlock opportunities across value chairs. Business for Nature, the World Economic Forum and The World Business Council for Sustainable Development have developed new guidance for 12 sectors. Compared to previous years,  secondary sectors with a less direct impacts on biodiversity like Salesforce and smaller actors are also increasingly engaging on nature-related topics, preparing to serve a growing market of consumers and clients. Small and medium enterprises - although comparatively underrepresented at the conference - are by nature more flexible and agile and can act as real disrupters in the sector, bringing innovative ideas to the table. There was a clear call to have them more involved and supported, both by policy and through the value chain.

5.       Lessons can be drawn from the climate agenda: addressing climate and biodiversity-related risks together is starting to become the norm, but burdens and benefits need to be shared equally

We are not starting this journey from scratch. Rather, we begin by the lessons learned from the climate agenda: despite their different underlying drivers, both climate change and biodiversity loss are deeply interlinked, and one crisis cannot be solved without solving the other. Addressing the synergies between mitigating biodiversity loss and climate change offers many opportunities to maximize benefits for people and planet and meet global development goals. More and more businesses are recognizing the integrated nature of sustainability issues and taking action by implementing ambitious climate and biodiversity targets, driving reductions in the use of natural resources across their value chains, or by transforming their products. Using similar discourses when talking about biodiversity, and mirroring guidance and tools for biodiversity, makes it easier for newcomers to get onboard. Unravelling the understanding of the climate-nature nexus remains challenging, as trade-offs and synergies between the two are not yet understood by all. The local aspect of biodiversity was highlighted in the Summit, as well as the need to involve local communities in restoring and protecting nature, and the imperative of sharing the benefits and burdens along the supply chain to ensure no one is left behind.

How can we bring nature back into our lives and our economy?

Check out all the material from the Summit now available on the website, including:

·       Pictures, slides and sessions summary:  #BusinessNatureSummit (europa.eu)

·       Videos of all sessions: EBNS2023 – Recordings

·       Press release from the European Commission: Biodiversity: Businesses pledge to protect nature at Milan summit (europa.eu)

·       Sign the Business Charter to show your organisation is ready to act on its commitments for nature.

·       Join the Italian Business @ Biodiversity Working Group: Sharing your contact details

Share and spread the voice on your social media using: #BusinessNatureSummit #ForNature #NatureIsEveryonesBusiness #MakeNatureCount