Business and Biodiversity – Choice or Codependence

This week, a new global report published by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) examines the interdependencies between business and biodiversity. In a world that has to grapple with new ways of achieving economic growth, without further degrading nature, the assessment is that despite data quality and methodologies improving, global business remains too tangled in complexity to deliver meaningful nature-positive action: better measurement, data and incentives are needed.

Our industry depends on nature, so protecting and enhancing it is an investment in our future productivity, wellbeing and the bottom line

For farmers and land managers, the findings highlight that while global business might struggle to act on biodiversity, we should be taking opportunities to invest in our assets and critical infrastructure – our soils, water, woodlands and other habitats – as part of a strategy for our own business resilience. The fundamentals remain – our industry depends on nature, so protecting and enhancing it is an investment in our future productivity, wellbeing and the bottom line, be it through better yields or the ability get a crop in the ground in the first place, lower costs, higher quality, or new income streams. We don’t need to wait for others to act, we can work with nature to deliver positive change now and secure our businesses for the long term.

Biodiversity losses put the future of businesses, economy and society at risk. The recent UK Government national security report warns that global ecosystem degradation threatens UK national security, that “every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse” and that UK must invest in its food system and supply chain resilience, including ecosystem protection and restoration, to safeguard future food security.

Less than 1% of publicly reporting companies mention their impacts on biodiversity in their reports (IPBES 2026)

Financial institutions report more often than other sectors and the most cited barriers include lack of access to reliable data and models. The IPBES report highlights that businesses struggle to measure their dependence on nature and related risks. Even companies trying new reporting frameworks (e.g. Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD)) are not yet operating in an environment that enables them to redirect sufficient funds towards nature conservation and restoration.

Global financial flows are heavily skewed against nature:

For every dollar invested in protecting nature, $30 are spent on destroying it (UNEP 2026)

$220 billion of global public and private finance flows in 2023 were directed towards positive outcomes for biodiversity, against a backdrop of $7.3 trillion in finance flows towards environmentally harmful activity. (State of Finance for Nature 2026, UNEP)

Business and Biodiversity Assessment Summary Messages

Because we haven’t factored nature into our economic and financial systems, we are losing biodiversity and the benefits nature provides to people. The full IPBES report is expected later this year, but the Summary for Policymakers is available here: IPBES (2026). Some key messages:

Transformative change requires action by all businesses

• All businesses both depend on biodiversity and affect it. Yet individual businesses often do not internalise those impacts, and positive action has historically been driven by regulation.

Unclear and uncertain expectations from consumers, investors and governments make it hard for businesses to contribute to global biodiversity goals

• Today’s business environment generally does not reward nature-friendly practices. Misaligned incentives encourage businesses to stick to business-as-usual, since there are neither adequate rewards nor penalties to drive sufficient positive action.

• Collaboration is essential. To align business interests with benefits to biodiversity and society, we need widespread changes across policy, financial systems, culture, technology and data.

• We have a better-than-ever science base for measuring how businesses impact and depend on nature, but uptake is low and uneven globally. Bottom-up methods (for example as biodiversity surveys and mapping) and top-down methods (such as macro scale economic models and indices) both need to play a role.

• We need more standardised, comparable, transparent and practical metrics, integrated into business accounts to turn disclosure into action. It would make it easier for businesses and financial institutions (insurers, investors, lenders) to choose nature-positive investments.

It is still uncertain how methods and data will translate into real action, globally. One thing is clear – globally, businesses will only play a central role in halting and reversing biodiversity loss if the conditions in which they operate change, and this will require action from entire governments and society.

How do these global lessons translate to on-farm action?

In short, while businesses grapple with these challenges globally, farmers can’t afford to wait – we can lead the way in integrating nature into our business models.

• Know your natural infrastructure – by understanding your baseline you put yourself in control of future opportunities. Recognising how the natural assets on your land – soils, water, habitats, including their quantity and condition - do or could impact your bottom line is the first step. The Corporate Natural Capital Accounting framework developed in 2015 seeks to create a baseline and a balance sheet for natural capital assets to answer:

  • What assets does the business rely on?

  • What do they deliver (in direct benefit and risk mitigation) and how much is it worth?

  • What does it cost to maintain or improve these?

  • How does the cost compare to benefit over time

• Anticipate policy and market shifts. Beyond being aware of emerging regulations, global trends and customer demands, identify opportunities to adapt early where appropriate – opportunities of today may be obligations of tomorrow.

• Clarity needs to come from within your business. Environmental practices are like any other investment – they need to add value, be it improved soil, healthier animals, lower inputs or reduced risk. Where environmental improvement also strengthens the business, set clear goals and act on them on your own terms.

• Build confidence and learn what works. One of the many messages from this week’s BASE-UK conference was loud and clear: our biggest threat is not volatility, it’s not taking control of change and assuming that our farm businesses should look the same tomorrow as they looked yesterday.

In an era of increasingly extreme weather, market volatility and wavering policy, building natural infrastructure on our farms is one resilience strategy within our control.