'Biodiversity should be focus of businesses’ efforts to mitigate their environmental impact'

Biodiversity, the variety of plant and animal life in the world, is a fundamental component of ‘natural capital’ that businesses are dependent upon but which often gets overlooked in assessments of their environmental impact, according to a new report by members of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI).

 

When businesses are looking to understand and mitigate their environmental impacts, biodiversity needs to be at the forefront of their assessment.
  -  Bhaskar Vira

The report also sets out four steps that can be taken to put biodiversity at the forefront of decision-making about environmental impact.

The report argues that the importance of biodiversity is often missed by organisations looking to understand and mitigate their impacts on the natural environment, as it is perceived as one of the benefits of protecting natural assets, rather than an asset that itself generates benefits.

Human society across the globe ultimately depends on goods and services provided and replenished by the natural environment. Today it is widely recognised that average global consumption of this ‘natural capital’ far outstrips its ability to regenerate. Biodiversity plays a fundamental role in ecosystem functioning, and therefore underpins this ability to regenerate and the delivery of all ecosystem benefits, according to the report.


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Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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