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PRETORIA, December 4 (IPS) - Nature is a double-edged sword for global business. A groundbreaking report will reveal how businesses profit from exploiting natural resources while simultaneously impacting biodiversity.
An incisive scientific assessment, the Business and Biodiversity Report, set to be released by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) probes the impact and dependence of business on biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people.
Business and Biodiversity
This report, the first of its kind, examines the ways in which business benefits from nature and the ways in which global business operations impact nature. Representatives from 152 member governments are expected to approve it at the IPBES’ 12th Plenary session in the United Kingdom in February 2026.
Speaking at a media briefing ahead of the report launch, IPBES Executive Secretary Luthando Dziba said the assessment was commissioned by member governments for them to understand global business relationships with biodiversity. The report is to strengthen the knowledge to support the efforts of global businesses that are dependent on biodiversity and that also impact biodiversity.
“Biodiversity decline also represents a major risk for businesses,” Dziba said, highlighting that there are huge economic risks associated with biodiversity, whose loss is ranked among the top 10 global risks to business.
Dziba noted that the report is set to help businesses understand and measure how they depend on as well as how they impact biodiversity, which can determine actions they take to reduce their impacts on nature.
“Governments have an interest in understanding how other sectors impact biodiversity but also how they depend on biodiversity,” Dziba said. “Considering the unprecedented rates at which biodiversity is declining, this should hopefully be a wake-up call that presents significant risks, for instance, for businesses if biodiversity that they depend on is in such a dire state.”
Governments can design policies and regulations to create an enabling environment for companies to act sustainably by understanding how businesses benefit from and affect biodiversity, according to Dziba.
IPBES, an independent intergovernmental body established to strengthen the science-policy interface on biodiversity and ecosystem services, had published several scientific assessments over the years. The assessments have provided policymakers with up-to-date knowledge on the current situation and challenges relating to nature, biodiversity, and nature’s contributions to people.
Biodiversity Loss: a Loss to Business
IPBES’ seminal publication, the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, released in 2019, found that 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, many within decades. Changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change pollution, and invasive alien species are the leading causes of changes in nature.
Nature provides several ecosystem services, like pollination, water purification, climate regulation, and raw materials for business, which make trillions of dollars in value globally. At the same time, global businesses have a negative impact on nature through mining, agriculture production, manufacturing, and gas and oil exploration.
The World Economic Forum has warned that 50 percent of the global economy is threatened by biodiversity loss, calling for a radical change from destructive human activity to a nature-positive economy.
The World Economic Forum’s New Nature Economy Report II, warns about the risks of destroying nature, stating that “USD 44 trillion of economic value generation—over half the world’s total GDP—is potentially at risk as a result of the dependence of business on nature and its services.”
The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2022 ranked biodiversity loss as the third most severe threat humanity will face in the next decade.
In 2024, IPBES launched two reports that highlighted the importance of tackling the biodiversity crisis to unlock business and innovation opportunities. Swift action on protecting biodiversity could generate USD 10 trillion and support over 390 million jobs by 2030, according to IPBES. Failing to act on climate change adds at least USD 500 billion a year in more costs to achieving biodiversity goals.
IPS UN Bureau Report
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