Is a compromise between biodiversity and business possible? What do these relationships look like and isn’t it sometimes the case that for business to survive it has to take care of biodiversity? How can we effectively work for biodiversity? The panel participants sought answers to these and other questions:
Esa NikunenGeneral Director of Environmental Services in Helsinki;
Rebecca LeMoine – Swedish politician, member of the Rikstag, Miljöpartiet de Gröna;
Margaret GolinskaMember of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland;
Darius GatkowskiAdvisor to the Board for Biodiversity, WWF Poland Foundation.
The debate was moderated by Urszula JozwiakPresident of the Management Board of the XBW Ignacy Krasicki Foundation, expert at the ESG Institute.
Debate XXXIII FE Karpacz: If there is no biodiversity, there may be no us / photo: press materials
– In its 17-point strategy, the European Commission calls on member states to protect at least 20% of their land and water areas by 2030, including strict protection of primary forests. But is such intensification possible? What is the scale of the problem? How many species are threatened with extinction? How does business depend on nature and why is restoring biodiversity so important, also in cities? – asked the president. Urszula Jozwiak.
Cooperation with the natural environment
– We have really destroyed the environment on which we are very dependent to a large extent – said the director Esa Nikunen. He emphasized that our existence depends on nature and its importance in the business context does not only apply to such branches of the economy as agriculture or forestry. An example is the acquisition of sustainable acquisition of natural resources. This is a kind of cooperation with the natural environment, which should be carefully monitored. The participant of the debate emphasized that the second diversity program is already being implemented in Helsinki, which is a big challenge. Long-term monitoring helps in meeting the accepted obligations, allowing to assess whether the adopted direction of changes is the right one.
In his opinion, in cities we can strive to preserve and expand green areas, but areas outside cities are equally important. – We can weave greenery into new buildings, even in the form of home gardens, which need to be given some freedom to develop in order to see diversity flourish. In turn, in coastal areas we have placed plants that originally grew there. In this way we strive to restore the original state in areas destroyed by people – said Esa Nikunen.
Climate, biodiversity, lawn with flowers
Deputy Rebecca LeMoine She drew attention to the separate treatment of climate and biodiversity. – The state of biodiversity is reported seven times less often than the climate. We treat these spheres separately, although they are interdependent. Climate summits and biodiversity summits are convened separately, and these should be joint meetings. When you want to demonstrate effectiveness in caring for the environment, you talk about climate, then you calculate some profit. And when we start talking about biodiversity, we hear that we should not go down this path, because it could threaten fisheries or the mining industry. This is because biodiversity requires space. Here, you cannot creatively calculate the reduction of CO2 emissions, here you need to effectively allocate space – explained Rebecca Le Moine.
In her opinion, the biggest challenge is to find a way to obtain resources from the natural environment without destroying it. – Monocultures are the opposite of biodiversity, and flowers sown on grass are beautiful, but they are not biodiversity. A planted pine forest is a forest nursery, but not a real forest – said the Swedish MP.
Education of entrepreneurs, EU regulations
Envoy Margaret Golinska reminded that Poland demanded changes to the original draft EU regulation, because they would not bring the necessary changes. As a result, many provisions have a more rational wording. There is one, strongly criticized provision left, which assumes granting the European Commission competences outside the treaty. MP Golińska also emphasized that the way to popularize the importance of biodiversity among entrepreneurs is education. – It is about showing businessmen that biodiversity is not just a matter of butterflies and flowers. We have to show that biodiversity concerns issues related to the quality and availability of water, the quality of soil, the availability of fibers, wood, medicines and many other issues on which business very often relies. The deterioration of the quality of this area will cause entrepreneurs to feel it sooner or later. And the example of the Odra shows that failure to invest in new technologies after some time backfires and is much more expensive – warned Małgorzata Golińska.
The MP also noted that experiences should not be generalized, as each country has different farming conditions, an example of which is the directive on pesticide reduction. – We pointed out that if a country uses 50 tons of pesticides per hectare, and Poland uses 8 tons, then postulating that each country should reduce pesticide use by 50 percent is unfair – MP Golińska stated.
Nature Restoration Law in CSRD
– The population of wild species has decreased on a global scale by an average of 69 percent since 1970, when their numbers began to be monitored – he calculated Darius Gatkowski. He pointed out that in Poland it was found that the condition of only about 20% of habitats and 38% of species was considered appropriate. The crisis is visible and even deepening, the Index Planet indicator published every two years shows increasingly worse data. – The EU Nature Restoration Law regulation is a much-discussed law and seems to be a reasonable compromise, ambitious enough to be implemented – he assessed. The fact that this law does not assume forcing landowners to do anything is very positive. – Creating incentives is the key to success, because creating restrictive law can prevent the intended goal – stated the expert.
In his opinion, a good solution that would facilitate the implementation of the regulation is the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). It can make entrepreneurs aware of how they affect the environment and what they can do to make their impact positive and therefore – considering that they are in value chains – also profitable for business.
