ChangeNOW and The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), with the support of INSEAD, are releasing today a study aiming to accelerate biodiversity integration into the strategies of large organisations. The study kicked off on March 26th, with interviews of more than 30 CEOs and top executives of large French and international groups.
The study covered three areas of insights: where large organisations stand on integrating biodiversity into their operations and strategy, understanding the roadblocks and challenges faced by companies to engage more on this issue and lastly, sharing innovations and best practices that meet the identified goals.
Focused largely on unpacking the visions of CEOs on biodiversity integration, this study provides clear, targeted actions and feasible recommendations for businesses to incorporate biodiversity into their strategies. It’s main findings are the following:
- While the climate issue is now widely taken into account in the strategies of large companies, biodiversity remains an emerging subject. In 2020, while 33% of CAC40 companies had designed a specific strategy regarding biodiversity conservation, only 5% of them declared in their annual reports biodiversity loss as “highly impactful” for both shareholders & stakeholders
- Companies should act on biodiversity loss now, as pressure to act from regulation, investors and consumers will surge after 2021, with the acceleration of intergovernmental agreements (COP 15 in Kunming)
- Global leaders are already tackling the biodiversity loss issue, but pain points must be lifted to go further, such as lack of information, the difficulty to define biodiversity, align on targets and universal KPIs, as well as lack of governance and incentives to support these strategies
- Once they have realized biodiversity is both a major risk and an opportunity, there are ways for companies to become biodiversity-positive businesses:
- Assessing their maturity on biodiversity framework and building action plans
- Selecting the 3 to 4 most relevant biodiversity objectives to be addressed by each company
- Put into action: control their footprint, drive innovation, and support biodiversity even beyond their own business
Successful companies will go beyond an approach of impact reduction to adopt a positive logic of regeneration of the ecosystems in which the company’s activity takes place.
Materials
Our executive summary here
The full study here
Quote Kevin Tayebaly, Cofounder ChangeNOW
“Just a few months ahead of the next COP15 in Kumming, we are calling the business community to take action now in favor of biodiversity preservation. This starts by understanding what biodiversity is, how much it is in danger and what can be done to preserve it. This last point is obviously where all the effort needs to be put and action taken. I am convinced a small group of business leaders taking publicly a strong stance for biodiversity preservation has the potential to influence many decision-makers to follow. We all have the duty and the opportunity to become biodiversity champions”.
Quote Francesco Bellino, Managing Director & Partner, Head of Social Impact & Sustainability Practice at BCG Paris
“Just as they consider the climate challenge, companies must seize the subject of biodiversity and integrate it into their strategic agenda as well as into their operations. More than an obligation, protecting biodiversity must be understood as a source of innovation: going beyond an impact reduction approach to adopt a positive logic of ecosystem regeneration can enable the company to develop new business models and become more attractive to all of its stakeholders.”
Quote Katell Le Goulven, Director, Hoffman Institute
“This study points to the powerful potential of biodiversity as a driver of the global economy. For too long, we have heard about the loss of critical habitat and species extinction. The study gives leaders sound business reasons to heed the call to properly value nature and sustainably manage our natural resources. With sustainability in focus as the world begins to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, this is an ideal moment for companies to invest in biodiversity”
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About ChangeNOW
ChangeNOW is a startup founded in 2017 by Santiago Lefebvre, Rose-May Lucotte, and Kevin Tayebaly, whose mission is to bring out solutions and new models to address major environmental and social emergencies. The startup organizes the annual ChangeNOW summit, which in 3 years has become the largest global event of solutions for the planet. The third edition, in January 2020, gathered 28,000 participants, 1,000 solutions, 350 speakers, with more than 100 countries represented. The fourth edition takes place online on May 27, 28, and 29, and gathers 500 speakers from everywhere in the world including Sir David Attenborrough, Richard Branson, Kate Raworth, Chivona Renee Newsome, Tom Szaky, Inger Andersen, Satish Kumar...
The startup also conducts actions throughout the year with schools, companies, and institutions to support them in their transition commitments. It organizes the "ChangeNOW my job" impact recruitment fair, inspirational seminars, on and offline conferences and leads influence actions to support the impact ecosystem. In March 2020, ChangeNOW partnered with the Les Echos-Le Parisien group to amplify its actions.
More information about ChangeNOW: www.changenow.world
About BCG
Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we work closely with clients to embrace a transformational approach aimed at benefiting all stakeholders—empowering organizations to grow, build sustainable competitive advantage, and drive positive societal impact.
Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives that question the status quo and spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting, technology and design, and corporate and digital ventures. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, fueled by the goal of helping our clients thrive and enabling them to make the world a better place.
More information about BCG: https://www.bcg.com/
About the Hoffmann Global Institute for Business and Society
An INSEAD institute exploring the intersection of business and society. The challenges of our times are unprecedented, and the decisions made by leaders today determine the future. Our aim is to equip them to make decisions in ways that deliver positive outcomes for business, communities, people and our planet in line with globally agreed sustainability goals.
