Biodiversity And Business

These days, the business and sustainabilityA agenda is fast-moving. Business finds itself absolutely on the front line of the battle being waged between humankind (as the dominant species on the planet) and the rest of the living systems and creatures with which we share the planet. This will be seen in retrospect as a collective aberration of monstrous proportions (we are, in effect, making war on ourselves), but it is taking us a very long time indeed to wake up to the consequences of this aberration. The Business of BiodiversityA nails that mis-prioritisation with splendid eloquence. Once business people come to see that biodiversity still represents the primary resource for all our business activitiesA, then the business case for embedding biodiversity right at the heart of corporate strategy grows stronger by the day. By the same token, the societal case for putting biodiversity at the top of the agendaA rather than treating it as an irritating afterthought becomes overwhelming.

This book is a product of the TEEB study (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity). It provides important evidence of growing corporate concern about biodiversity loss and offers examples of how leading companies are taking action to conserve biodiversity and to restore ecosystems. This book reviews indicators and drivers of biodiversity loss and ecosystem decline, and shows how these present both risks and opportunities to all businesses. It examines the changing preferences of consumers for nature-friendly products and services, and offers examples of how companies are responding. The book also describes recent initiatives to enable businesses to measure, value and report their impacts and dependencies on biodiversity and ecosystem services. The authors review a range of practical tools to manage biodiversity risks in business, with examples of how companies are using these tools to reduce costs, protect their brands and deliver real business value. The book also explores the emergence of new business models that deliver biodiversity benefits and ecosystem services on a commercial basis, the policy enabling frameworks needed to stimulate investment and entrepreneurship to realize such opportunities, and the obstacles that must be overcome. The book further examines how businesses can align their actions in relation to biodiversity and ecosystem services with other corporate responsibility initiatives, including community engagement and poverty reduction. Finally, the book concludes with a summary and recommendations for action.

This report sets the economic and business case for urgent and ambitious action on biodiversity. It presents a preliminary assessment of current biodiversity-related finance flows, and discusses the key data and indicator gaps that need to be addressed to underpin effective monitoring of both the pressures on biodiversity and the actions (i.e. responses) being implemented. The report concludes with ten priority areas where G7 and other countries can prioritise their efforts.

Biodiversity loss is one of the major resource problems facing the world, and the policy options available are restricted by inappropriate economic tools which fail to capture the value of species and their variety. This study describes in non-technical terms how cost-benefit analysis techniques can be applied to species and species loss, and how they provide a measure of the efficiency of conservation measures. Only when conservation can be shown to pass such a basic economic test, the authors claim, will it be incorporated into policies.;David Pearce has also written Blueprint for a Green Economy.

In the past decade, the growing realization that biodiversity and human wellbeing are inextricably linked has led to the adoption of numerous environmental policies. The concept of the Green Economy has gained particular attention as an economic system where growth is possible within environmental limits. The preservation of ecosystem services and the halt of biodiversity loss are identified as key pillars of the Green Economy. Despite the concept’s momentum there is still no clear understanding of how biodiversity fits within a Green Economy. In the current debate, biodiversity is rarely acknowledged in economic sectors other than agriculture, forestry, fisheries and tourism, and when it is acknowledged biodiversity and its conservation feature more as buzzwords than as concrete and tangible components of the Green Economy. This book aims to identify, understand and offer pragmatic recommendations of how biodiversity conservation can become an agent of green economic development. This book establishes ways to assess biodiversity’s contributions to the economy and to meaningfully integrate biodiversity concerns in green-economy policies.

Human induced biodiversity loss is greater now than at any time in human history, with extinctions occurring at rates hundreds of times higher than background extinction levels. The field of biodiversity economics analyses the socio-economic causes of and solutions to biodiversity loss by combining the disciplines of economics, ecology and biology. This field has shown a remarkable degree of transformation over the past four decades and now incorporates the analysis of the entire diversity of biological resources within the living world. Biodiversity Economics presents a series of papers that show how bio-economic analysis can be applied to the examination and evaluation of the problem of various forms of biodiversity loss. Containing insightful bio-economic research by some of prominent practitioners in the field, this volume will be an essential research tool to those working on biodiversity issues in the academic, policy and private sectors.

This book sets out the building blocks of an economic approach to biodiversity, and in particular brings together conceptual and empirical work on valuation, international agreements, the policy instruments, and the institutions. The objective is to provide a comprehensive overview of the issues and evidence, and to suggest how this very urgent problem should be addressed. Whilst there has been an enormous growth and research focus on climate change, less attention has been paid to biodiversity. This collection of high-quality chapters addresses the economic issues involved in biodiversity protection. This book focuses on the economics, but incorporates the underpinning science and philosophy, combining the application of a number of theoretical ideas with a series of policy cases. The authors are drawn from leading scholars in their specific areas of economics, philosophy, and conservation biology.

Winner of the 2018 James M. Blaut Award in recognition of innovative scholarship in cultural and political ecology! Enterprising Nature explores the rise of economic rationality in global biodiversity law, policy and science. To view Jessica's animation based on the book's themes please visit http://www.bioeconomies.org/enterprising-nature/ Examines disciplinary apparatuses, ecological-economic methodologies, computer models, business alliances, and regulatory conditions creating the conditions in which nature can be produced as enterprising Relates lively, firsthand accounts of global processes at work drawn from multi-site research in Nairobi, Kenya; London, England; and Nagoya, Japan Assesses the scientific, technical, geopolitical, economic, and ethical challenges found in attempts to ‘enterprise nature’ Investigates the implications of this ‘will to enterprise’ for environmental politics and policy