January 5 – Last year will be remembered as a real test of commitment for the global sustainability agenda. <\/p>\n
Political uncertainty and regulatory rollbacks, particularly the weakening of flagship EU legislation such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and yet another delay in enforcing the European Union Deforestation Regulation, signal a troubling loss of resolve. <\/p>\n
These decisions reward inaction and deter the very ambition needed to secure long-term economic and environmental resilience. But the crisis of nature loss should not be left to the shifting winds of policy; it requires businesses to step forward and lead the way.<\/p>\n
As we enter 2026, a pivotal triple-COP year for climate, biodiversity and desertification, it\u2019s time to look past the political noise. While compliance meets today\u2019s requirements, only a deeper commitment to the environment can protect a business against the lasting costs of nature loss.<\/p>\n
Nature includes freshwater, land, oceans, healthy soils, protection from storms and floods, raw materials like crops and wood, which all are underpinned by the diversity of life (biodiversity). Every single society, economy and business depends on nature, but we are losing biodiversity at an unprecedented rate. The transition to a nature-positive economy is now a strategic imperative; those who move first will define the next era of business.<\/p>\n
The real pressure isn\u2019t coming from regulations in Brussels or Washington; it\u2019s building inside companies. Dozens of major firms are publishing public nature plans through initiatives such as It\u2019s Now for Nature<\/a>, representing more than $700 billion in revenue and more than 1.6 million employees.<\/p>\n These leaders know that nature loss is a material issue, because the cost of inaction is staggering. The World Bank estimates that the collapse of select ecosystem services could result in a decline in global GDP of $2.7 trillion annually by 2030.<\/p>\n A Spanish fisherman brings in a catch of red prawns as the EU sets its 2026 fishing quotas. December 11, 2025. REUTERS\/Nacho Doce Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n At the regulatory level, the notion that the nature-positive transition is solely an \u201cEU project\u201d has been disproved, with pockets of leadership emerging globally:<\/p>\n \u2022\tCountries such as Nigeria and Brazil updated their National Biodiversity Plans (NBSAPs), signaling commitments to mandatory nature disclosure by 2030, joining others like China and Japan in translating global goals into national law.<\/p>\n \u2022\tChile\u2019s government and a dedicated business advisory group partnered in developing a Business Action Plan on Biodiversity<\/a>, setting out to create a context-specific mechanism to assess and report action for nature.<\/p>\n \u2022\tGovernments are starting to tackle environmentally harmful subsidies. Uganda, for example, has mapped those damaging biodiversity and is proposing reforms.<\/p>\n \u2022\tLeading companies are embedding nature into their strategies and plans. This was reinforced by the powerful collective of over 130 businesses at COP30<\/a> that united to urge governments to transition away from fossil fuels.<\/p>\n Yet this momentum is fragile. Policy backsliding, uneven implementation and powerful vested interests continue to slow progress, and there is no guarantee that current signals will translate into action at the necessary speed and scale.<\/p>\n A drone view shows an Iraqi farmer working on a palm grove in the ‘green belt’ area surrounding the holy city of Karbala, in an effort to combat increasing desertification. REUTERS\/Alaa Al-Marjani Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n As we look ahead to the three COPs in 2026, the moment demands two things: bold action from business and political courage from governments.<\/p>\n Business must hold the line on ambition and act together with clarity and consistency. Companies that invested in meeting the spirit of ambitious legislation must protect the integrity of those commitments. This means moving beyond box-ticking toward genuine accountability for nature impacts, and aligning corporate strategies with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.<\/p>\n Second, governments must rewire the system so that investing in nature becomes the norm. Lessons from successful government-led incentives<\/a>, such as those that accelerated the clean energy transition, demonstrate how well-designed policies can drive market uptake. These examples can help focus efforts strategically and positively to catalyse action for nature. Effective tools, such as blended finance vehicles, outcome-based payments, guarantees and tax incentives, can reduce risk, improve returns and make nature-positive projects bankable at scale.<\/p>\n This new era of leadership is not about waiting for the next regulation. It demands CEOs to act now \u2013 steering the transition, building long-term value and engaging responsibly with policymakers to shape the rules of a nature-positive economy.<\/p>\n The winners will be those who see nature not as a cost to be managed but the foundation of resilience, innovation and growth, and essential to every decision they make.<\/p>\n Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias. Ethical Corporation Magazine, a part of Reuters Professional, is owned by Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News.<\/p>\n Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n Eva Zabey is the CEO of Business for Nature, a global coalition of more than 80 partner organizations as well as forward-thinking companies driving credible business action and policy ambition to achieve a nature-positive economy for all by 2030. She previously led work on measuring and valuing natural, social and human capital in business at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), including developing the Capitals Coalition\u2019s Natural Capital Protocol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"January 5 – Last year will be remembered as a real test of commitment for the global sustainability…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,166404,295,166407,166403,166405,166402,166406,66,52901],"class_list":{"0":"post-392886","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-destecmii","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-n2clm","13":"tag-n2esg","14":"tag-rsbibiodiversity","15":"tag-rsbiindustry-insight","16":"tag-rsbinature-based-solutions","17":"tag-science","18":"tag-sustainable-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}