International Biodiversity Day
Chronos’ Nature & Biodiversity team has been up and running for three years. Our expert team has grown rapidly under the experienced leadership of Gemma James, with specialist knowledge spanning from deforestation, regenerative agriculture and plastic pollution to exploitation of water and wild species.
To mark International Biodiversity Day, Dr. Rebecca Drury, Laura Fox and Tanya Cox, have identified three priority areas for delivering real world impact based on their experience working with companies, investors, and civil society.
To halt and reverse nature loss, corporates and investors need to address nature-related impacts and dependencies beyond direct operations to the upstream value chain. This will also help companies to recognise and act on the neglected, but highly material, drivers of nature loss hidden in company’s value chains, including direct exploration which is the second largest driver of biodiversity loss and the primary driver of marine biodiversity loss.
More attention needs to be given to indirect impacts which are rarely acknowledged, measured, or managed. Indirect impacts are those that are not directly caused by a company's activities but are a result of those actions or the actions of its upstream value chain. For example, increased extraction of living resources due to improved access enabled by industrial extraction, agricultural expansion and infrastructure development. Pollution is another prime example of an indirect impact which severely degrades nature, jeopardising the future resilience of resources that companies are directly dependent on.
It is now well-recognised that nature and climate are connected: one cannot be achieved without the other. In contrast, the many links between inequality, climate change and nature loss are less widely acknowledged. Upholding internationally recognised human rights and addressing inequalities are necessary to halt and reverse nature loss and should be considered an integral component of action taken.
A healthy ocean provides a vast range of ecosystem services that underpin global economies, stabilise planetary temperatures and regulate our climate. A failure to act on ocean issues amounts to failure to act on climate. With increasing data availability and ocean-related targets and metrics materialising, the multiple environmental and socio-economic benefits associated with ocean-sustainability is increasingly on the minds of many investors.
Read more about our nature-themed services here. To get in touch with our Nature & Biodiversity team email: gemma@chronossustainability.com
