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NATURE AND BIODIVERSITYWhen ‘transformative change’ meets political reality
It’s been over half a century since the philosopher André Gorz coined the word “degrowth” (or rather, “décroissance”). “No-growth — or even degrowth — of material production is a necessary condition [for] the earth’s balance,” he asserted at a 1972 academic debate in Paris.
Gorz’s argument gained little mainstream traction before his 2007 death. So he might have been tickled by a text approved by more than 150 governments at an international conference on Sunday.
This was a report on business and nature by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) — established in 2012 to to give scientific assessments of the state of the world’s ecosystems, and guide policymakers seeking to protect them.
“A focus on growth, as measured by the gross domestic product, has been a driver of the decline of biodiversity,” said the report to policymakers, put together by 80 authors from 35 countries over three years.
At another point it suggests that
“alternative models and measures of economic welfare, such as bioeconomy, circular economy, degrowth, postgrowth, inclusive wealth, and decoupling, can enable transformational action by businesses to address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss.”
IPBES — the biodiversity-focused counterpart of the better known Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — has previously warned that about 1mn species are threatened with extinction, and that biodiversity loss presents long-term dangers to food security, human health and economic stability.
The latest report goes on to assert that “action is limited by systemic barriers such as profit-driven business models”, and speaks of a need for businesses to shift their focus from “financial returns and profit maximisation for shareholders . . . toward purpose-oriented models”.
This swipe at businesses’ pursuit of profit may seem like a rather radical position for an intergovernmental body like this to adopt. So too its warnings of an excessive focus on growth and proffering of alternative models — a line of argument that’s been resolutely ignored for decades by governments who view talk of “degrowth” as politically suicidal.
The report was nonetheless approved by all 153 of IPBES’s member states at the end of a six-day conference in Manchester, including all of the world’s largest economies (except the US, which announced its departure from the body and dozens of others last month).
That unanimous endorsement hardly means that these countries are about to turn their backs on growth and profit-focused business. An alternative reading is that member governments are happy to approve documents like this without feeling pressure to act on the contents.
“We don’t make recommendations; options for action are what is presented to governments,” Matt Jones, co-chair of the report project, told me. “I think the governments that are in the room recognise the urgency.”
The report contains a wide range of more specific policy suggestions around creating new nature-related incentives and constraints for businesses, with lots on the need for better data provision.
Some movement is happening on the data front, with the International Sustainability Standards Board — whose standards are being incorporated in a growing number of major economies — currently developing a new framework for biodiversity-related corporate disclosures, which it wants to publish by October.
And various governments have been tightening rules around conservation of nature — see, for example, the UK’s “biodiversity net gain” rules for land development, and the EU’s 2030 biodiversity strategy, which aims to dramatically expand protected areas.
But governments still need to pay far more attention to where the money is going, the IPBES study says. It notes the latest estimates from the UN Environment Programme that financial flows “with direct negative impacts on nature” amounted to $7.3tn in 2023, dwarfing the $220bn that went towards conservation and “sustainable use” of biodiversity. Strategic use of taxes and subsidies, it suggests, could play a key role.
A fresh test of nations’ seriousness on these questions will come at October’s UN biodiversity COP summit in Armenia. Meanwhile, there are suggestions in the new document for voluntary action by companies themselves, in particular around data gathering and engagement with suppliers. But without major policy moves to shift the incentives for business, it warns, the impact of these voluntary measures will be limited.
“There are things that businesses can do now, where there’s a business case currently,” said Stephen Polasky, another co-chair of the project. “We are all in favour of doing those. However, we don’t think that is going to get us to the kind of transformative changes that will actually turn the corner on biodiversity loss.”
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