Is “Nature Positive” the new “Net Zero?”

Here’s the intro from this Tim Mohin newsletter:

On Monday, COP16 – the United Nations Biodiversity Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity – kicked off in Cali, Colombia. Despite previous UN meetings on biodiversity being the realm of NGOs, activists, and governments, companies are now flooding in – this year’s event is expected to have more than 1,000 private-sector participants, and ‘nature positive’ goals are moving up the corporate agenda.

The new term of art is “Nature Positive” – defined as limiting and reversing biodiversity loss, with a goal of increasing nature by 2030. However, with so many companies brandishing the term around, some wonder if it is becoming a buzzword and if biodiversity is the next area ripe for greenwashing.

Conserving nature is harder to measure than climate, which has clear units of measurement (tons of CO2e). Advocates are pushing for a global biodiversity framework with comparable and consistent metrics. Marco Lambertini of the Nature Positive Initiative said: “The climate community did a super important thing: straight after Paris, they developed a net zero pathway, and then they attached a global standardised way to measure emissions. Now, we need to do the same for nature.”

The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) had a series of announcements at COP16, including that they were nearing 500 members. CDP also made an announcement that the number of companies making biodiversity data disclosures has increased by 43% since COP15 (2022).

However, more guidance is needed for companies on how they can help preserve nature, which was one of the goals of this COP. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development announced plans at COP16 to meet this need for more guidance and harmonize nature-related metrics used by corporations to help them track progress toward the nature-positive goal. These guidelines will be released in 2025 at COP30 (the climate COP) in Brazil.