The momentum behind making nature part of everyday business decision-making continues to grow. Here Michael Ofosuhene-Wise, Head of Global Engagement at Business for Nature, looks at how the conversation has shifted, as nature becomes a central item on many business agendas. 

Five years ago, when I talked to companies about nature, the framing was around corporate responsibility, and how they could actively reduce any environmental harm they caused.  

But the conversation has broadened. Companies are increasingly looking not only at their impacts on nature but at how their operations and business models depend on it.  They’re realizing how much they need the resources that nature provides, and as a result, factoring in nature is becoming an integral part of business operations and corporate strategy for many organizations. 

Nature is being discussed through the lens of business resilience, risk and opportunity. Previously, the importance of nature, and the fact that it underpins the global economy, was simply overlooked. Nature and biodiversity were marginal issues, discussed by scientists and conservationists, not “business-people”. 

Now as businesses see and experience resource pressures and supply chain risks first hand,  the realization has hit home. There’s much greater understanding about how business success is completely wrapped up in a healthy ecosystem, from reliable water, and productive soils to pollination and the raw materials companies depend on. Nature is the ultimate supply chain, and it needs to be nurtured. It isn’t separate from the economy, it’s part of the infrastructure the economy depends on.  

We want them to integrate nature into their operations but that doesn’t mean creating parallel  processes and strategic documents. It’s about mainstreaming nature into day-to-day decision-making so that the message spreads across the whole business. Departments like finance and procurement also need to understand nature’s role in the business, yet in the past they’ve often been left in the dark. 

Companies are putting a lot more effort into understanding how they interact with nature and carrying out materiality assessments to look at their impacts and dependencies. This gives them the raw data, the insights and the understanding they need to start making changes. 

We’re seeing companies start to set strategies and targets that will help them change the way they do things, altering their operations so they help to protect and restore nature.  

One business we’ve worked with through the It’s Now for Nature Accelerator is the global food group Greenyard, which has shifted its operations to help farmers adopt more regenerative practices. Another is the infrastructure company Jan De Nul, which has developed new ways to deal with the silt it dredges from channels, diverting it from deep-sea dumping to creating new mangrove forests. 

These examples show that leadership is already emerging across business. But to scale these efforts, we need more than voluntary company action. Ambitious public policy can create the incentives, certainty and level playing field that enable businesses to act at scale. Acting as a reinforcing loop, business leadership helps build the case for stronger policies. 

Yes, large companies still tend to be the ones that lead on this because they have a better understanding and awareness of their impacts and dependencies. They also have the resources to work on initiatives such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, which recently reported more than 800 companies had signed up to the framework. That represents a 100% year-on-year increase, and is a testament to the growing momentum around businesses and nature. 

But importantly we’re also starting to see a ripple effect, with larger companies now having expectations of the smaller businesses and SMEs they work with across their supply chains. We’re not expecting these businesses to carry out complex assessments of their operations, but just starting to think about their role in nature is an important step forward. 

Over the last few years, we’ve certainly seen a growing number of businesses being a lot more cautious around their external communications. I guess there’s a political element to some of this, and companies feel they need to be tactful about what they say publicly.

But overall, I think it’s been more of a reset than a retreat. Action hasn’t stopped and we’re seeing more companies engaged in doing the core work of understanding how their operations impact nature; they’re putting in the hard yards to scrutinize their operations and build the business case, before saying anything publicly. 

On the whole, nature is still a non-partizan issue. Regardless of which side of the political divide companies find themselves on, they still need water security and a plethora of resources that only nature can provide. 

Businesses played a crucial role in adopting the Global Biodiversity Framework when the biodiversity COP met in Montreal in 2022; it showed that businesses had ambition. Four years on, COP in Armenia will focus on delivering the Framework and action on the ground. We need to start to make progress towards goals such as Target 15, which encourages businesses to progressively reduce their negative impacts on nature, while increasing the positive effects they have. 

Progress on Target 18 (reforming harmful incentives and subsidies) is particularly off track. That’s why it’s our top priority at COP17 – to create a system where more of the estimated $2.6 trillion a year of public money and subsidies goes towards enhancing nature, not harming it.  Reforming these incentives is not just an environmental issue; it’s about changing the economic signals businesses respond to, so public policy supports rather than works against businesses investing in resilient supply chains.  

The more businesses that get behind this campaign, the more likely that policymakers will have the confidence to make the changes that are needed.