April 26, 2013

Bringing Business Onboard

For the past few weeks, business has been the topic of focus on the Landscapes Blog. Centered around the Landscapes Initiative’s launch of Reducing Risk: Landscape Approaches to Sustainable Sourcing, the Blog has highlighted examples demonstrating a business case for more integrated approaches to agricultural land and supply chain management. Moreover, there are a growing number of initiatives and partnerships that recognize this and are promoting sustainable business practices. Late last month two major players in the area of business, economics, and environment released reports that underscored the shift in the approach to these topics.

The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity (TEEB) recently conducted a study assessing motivation for businesses to understand environmental externalities and include them in business decision-making. Organisational Change for Natural Capital Management: Strategy and Implementation  defines this Natural Capital Management (NCM) as a company’s sustainable management of the demand for natural resources and other ecosystem services, and impact on future supply. For the food and agribusiness industry, the importance of natural capital is particularly clear – freshwater, healthy soil, and a stable climate are the very foundations of food production.

Along a similar vein, Businesses for Social Responsibility (BSR), a global network of over 250 member companies, recently published a synthesis Private Sector Uptake of Ecosystem Services Concepts and Frameworks: The Current State of Play. The report identifies trends in corporate activity around ecosystem services, noting how natural capital is incorporated into business plans and is beginning to pervade all areas of decision-making, from corporate policy to on-the-ground operations. At the same time, a lack of openly accessible information about effective approaches, indicators to measure and assess, and tools to facilitate the process is hampering the transition from vision to reality.

While most of the companies fall into the gas, mining, or tourism sectors, agriculture is starting to catch on, as well. The British American Tobacco Biodiversity Partnership, who appeared on the blog previously, has committed to identifying areas of high biodiversity conservation value and understanding their impacts on ecosystem services. Another example, Nestle, is incorporating the value of natural capital to operations and the larger supply chain into their business planning framework.

At the end of the day, many of the messages of these two reports center on managing for present and future risks in companies’ supply chains and business operations. TEEB emphasizes how managing for a resource-constrained world can help businesses maintain a competitive advantage. BSR notes how conducting ecosystem services assessments can elucidate where business are dependent on ecosystem services and potential risks and threats to stakeholders.

Photo credit: Nathan Dappen
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