biodiversity – Business for Biodiversity Ireland

Dr Maria Fitzpatrick is our new Executive Director

Business For Biodiversity Ireland is delighted to welcome Dr Maria Fitzpatrick as our new Executive Director.

Maria originally joined BFBI as our Business Development Manager and will continue to work closely with our business members as they embark on our Nature Strategy Accelerator Programme.

Maria has a PhD in Freshwater Ecology, looking at Irish headwater streams, and worked as an Environmental Consultant before moving to London to work at Queen Mary University of London and then to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to build and head up the Research Funding Services for Kew Science.

She is Circular Economy trained with a CSRD professional qualification and blends scientific expertise, project, relationship management skills, and a keen understanding of the environmental challenges our world is facing to build compelling cases for change.

Maria said: “At BFBI our mission is to empower every business to incorporate nature into decision making – we do this by creating awareness and building capacity within the organisations that we work with, strengthening their understanding, building resilience and supporting change throughout their operations.”

Curious about joining the 2026 Nature Strategy Accelerator Programme for Irish businesses? Register for the free Discovery Track to learn more or contact Maria at manager@businessforbiodiversity.ie

Webinar: Supporting Action for Business & Biodiversity

Event, News

Do you understand the value that nature and biodiversity brings to your business?

Every organisation impacts and depends on nature, and Business For Biodiversity Ireland is delighted to join with Waterford City & County Council Climate Action Team to offer this free webinar to explain how Irish businesses can act now to protect and enhance biodiversity by developing a strong Nature Strategy to add value and boost resilience for your organisation.

Speaker: Dr Emer Ní Dhúill, Head of Research, Business For Biodiversity Ireland
Date: November 11, 2025
Time: 11am-12pm
Location: Online over Zoom
Register HERE via Eventbrite

BFBI is proud to partner with Waterford City & County Council as part of their Business Pledge for A Greener Cleaner Waterford for members’ commercial rates energy discount – businesses can take our free Discovery Track, the first step in the BFBI Nature Strategy Accelerator Programme, with free training webinars and resources to inform an organisation’s biodiversity strategy, as an action as part of their pledge. #BFBICollaborations

Guest blog: Bridging the Biodiversity Financing Gap

News, Opinion

Dr Catherine Farrell, Assistant Professor in Business and Nature in Trinity Business School and BFBI’s Business Programme Lead, is co-ordinator of a module for final year business students with learnings on nature, society and economy. The module, the development of which was supported by BFBI, is called The Business of Nature Positive and explores ways for undergraduate students to work with businesses in Ireland to support the global Nature Positive Initiative. We are delighted to share guest articles on a number of associated course topics, beginning with the role of green bonds in sustainable finance.

In this extract, Ms. Meadbh O’Mahony, Senior Sophister student in Global Business in Trinity Business School, explores why these bonds are insufficient on their own to halt biodiversity decline; while highlighting the important role they must play a nature-positive future:

Bridging the Biodiversity Financing Gap: Why Green Bonds Are Not Enough

‘The planet’s rich web of life is unravelling, with ecosystems deteriorating at an alarming pace due to human-driven pressures. The UN’s Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) reports that 75% of terrestrial environments and 66% of marine ecosystems have been significantly altered by human actions, driven by deforestation, pollution, climate change and unsustainable resource extraction (Natixis, 2024).

The World Economic Forum estimates that $44 trillion, over half of global GDP, is moderately or highly dependent on nature. (Deutz A, et al, 2020). Despite the urgency of the crisis, current biodiversity financing falls far short of what is needed to reverse ecosystem degradation.

Despite significant progress being made in climate and sustainable finance, with green bonds channelling nearly $600 billion into environmental projects in 2023 alone (Popoola et al. 2024), they have largely focused on climate mitigation projects, such as renewable energy and carbon reduction and overlooked biodiversity.

In response to this imbalance, the financial industry is evolving beyond traditional green bonds and to a new generation of financial instruments, biodiversity bonds…’

Read the full article here: Bridging the Biodiversity Financing Gap – Meadbh O’Mahony

Biodiversity Duty Reporting Guidance for Public Bodies

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Minister of State for Nature, Heritage and Biodiversity, Christopher O’Sullivan TD, has launched the Biodiversity Duty Reporting Guidance for Public Bodies, developed by the National Parks and Wildlife Service with support from Business for Biodiversity Ireland.

The guidance provides practical steps to help public bodies fulfil their ‘biodiversity duty’ – a new legal requirement for public and state bodies to consider biodiversity in their decision making and daily operations. The guidance will also assist public bodies in fulfilling their biodiversity reporting obligations.

Launching the guidance documents to be issued to all listed public bodies, Minister O’Sullivan, pictured right, above with the BFBI team, said: “All of us have a role to play in protecting our biodiversity, and that includes our public and state bodies. Many of them, including ESB and Iarnród Éireann, are already leading by example and can see the benefits – for biodiversity, for the public and their own organisations.

“This guidance will help even more of our public bodies to make a commitment to biodiversity. It suggests areas of business activities within public bodies, from procurement, to construction, landscape management and organisational development, which can have a real impact on our biodiversity. It will also support public and state bodies to report on their progress over the coming months as required by the legislation.”

Biodiversity Duty Reporting Guidance for Public Bodies provides actionable steps and tools for public bodies to embed biodiversity considerations into their operations. It indicates areas of opportunity within public bodies where biodiversity can be incorporated, and sets out how biodiversity duty can be strengthened through clear targets, knowledge and skills development, collaboration and implementation.

The ESB is a member of the Business for Biodiversity Ireland platform, and has been working to develop a Nature Strategy in response to the recognised growing need for business guidance in transitioning to a nature-positive way of working.

Geoff Hamilton, Biodiversity Lead at ESB, pictured left, above, said: “Biodiversity action is a core part of ESB’s ambition to make a difference for planet, place and people; we aim to be nature-positive by 2030. In 2024, ESB appointed a Group Head of Sustainability, who has completed the establishment of a new Centre of Sustainability – including the creation of a new role of Group Biodiversity Lead, tasked with driving biodiversity action and transformation across ESB’s business units.

“We have recently published the ESB Networks Biodiversity Strategy ‘Networks for Nature’ and are currently in the process of developing similar strategies for other constituent business units of ESB. ESB wholeheartedly welcomes this new guidance document, which provides clear directions with regard to our annual reporting duty.”

Read more on the government website HERE and access the guidance document HERE.

Pictured, L-R: Geoff Hamilton, Biodiversity Lead, ESB; Fiona Smith, Communications, BFBI; Dr Emer Ní Dhúill, Research at BFBI; Iseult Sheehy, Operations, BFBI; Sinead Kilkelly, Executive Director, People & Sustainability, ESB; Dr Maria FitzPatrick, BFBI Business Development Manager; and Minister for Nature Christopher O’Sullivan TD.

The BFBI Nature Strategy Accelerator Programme

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Business For Biodiversity Ireland (BFBI) has released our Nature Strategy Accelerator Programme to guide Irish businesses to develop a strong, credible strategy to identify their impacts and dependencies on nature and ensure compliance with the new EU legislation regarding environmental reporting.

The Nature Strategy Accelerator Programme has been developed following a series of insightful sessions with the European Business and Biodiversity Platform and other national platforms, and reflects a model of best practice in line with current international developments, tailored to the Irish context and aligned with grants available in Ireland through Local Enterprise Offices, Enterprise Ireland, Údarás or the IDA.

All new and existing Business For Biodiversity Ireland members can avail of the introductory Discovery Track for free, with access to guidance and webinars to bring them up to speed on their relationship to biodiversity.

The Discovery Track offers:

Three biodiversity-focused training webinars throughout the year
Guidance on how to start your nature-positive journey
Curated videos and online training resources to help you on your way
A quarterly newsletter with details of upcoming biodiversity-focused events
Updates on EU regulations such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

BFBI Chair of the Board Susan Rossney, Sustainability Advocacy Manager of Chartered Accountants Ireland, urged all businesses to join up and start their journey, as time is of the essence to ensure a sustainable ‘Nature Positive’ future for the Irish economy. She said: “A whole-of-society approach is needed to deliver a nature-positive economy – an economy that results in increasing levels of nature over time and that no longer incentivises the overexploitation of nature. Nature provides a third of the climate mitigation potential we need to achieve our climate goals, so delivering a nature-positive economy is imperative for reaching our climate targets.

“A nature-positive economy is similarly vital to our long-term economic resilience: 55% of the world’s GDP is moderately or highly dependent on nature. Despite this, many businesses are unaware of their dependence on and impact on biodiversity, a risk made all the greater now that larger companies are legally bound to disclose information on their environmental impact via the CSRD.

“As the pivotal UN Biodiversity Conference ‘COP16’ takes place to address the global biodiversity crisis, and as the World Wildlife Foundation’s Living Planet Report tells us of 73% average decline in wildlife populations over the last 50 years, it is a fitting time for Business for Biodiversity Ireland to launch our Nature Strategy Accelerator Programme. With a mandate under the 4th National Biodiversity Action Plan, BFBI has built a powerful profile advocating for nature-positive business. This programme will empower businesses to deliver positive outcomes for people, planet and nature.”

Explore the benefits of our Discovery Track: How it all works

All members are invited to join the Discovery Track series of webinars.

Register now to join the next webinar on March 26, 2025, 9.30.

State of Nature Metrics opens for consultation

News, Opinion

The Nature Positive Initiative has launched a collaborative effort for a global biodiversity measurement and has opened an expert consultation to gather feedback on the proposed standardised metrics framework.

Nature Positive Initiative convener, Marco Lambertini, pictured, launched the State of Nature Metrics consultation at the inagural Global Nature Positive Summit in Sydney, Australia last week.

The consultation aims to foster a collective commitment to adopt a minimum number of metrics to help drive action and reporting on the state of nature and seeks input from expert stakeholders to strengthen the proposed metrics and build a broad consensus.

Currently, there is no common approach to measure nature’s decline or recovery. Hundreds of different metrics are being used to measure the state of nature, making it challenging to select the right set of metrics to evaluate success from global to local scales, so a standardised approach is crucial.

The aim is for the metrics to:
– provide consistency globally
– standardise biodiversity measurement
– track progress
– support transparency.

Have your say on measuring nature’s recovery until Nov 13: https://www.naturepositive.org/metrics/

Green Light for the EU Nature Restoration Law

News

After months of wrangling, the Nature Restoration Law has finally been enshrined into EU regulation after a last minute change of heart by Austrian Green Minister Leonore Gewessler, who defied her conservative coalition colleagues to cast a deciding vote in favour.

The new law, voted in by the majority of member states after months of tense negotiations, was strongly backed by Ireland’s Minister of State for Nature Malcolm Noonan and Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan, as well as boosted by major campaigns by groups of science and businesses leaders. It sets a target for the EU to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030 and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050.

The law will help achieve the EU’s climate and biodiversity objectives and enhance food security. Member states will have to adopt national restoration plans detailing how they intend to achieve targets, with Ireland’s plan currently being developed by National Parks & Wildlife Services.

Agriculture ecosystems

To improve biodiversity in agricultural ecosystems, EU countries will have to make progress in two of the following three indicators: the grassland butterfly index; the share of agricultural land with high-diversity landscape features; the stock of organic carbon in cropland mineral soil. Measures to increase the common farmland bird index must also be taken as birds are good indicators of the overall state of biodiversity.

As restoring drained peatlands is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce emissions in the agricultural sector, EU countries must restore at least 30% of drained peatlands by 2030 (at least a quarter shall be rewetted), 40% by 2040 and 50% by 2050 (where at least one-third shall be rewetted). Rewetting will remain voluntary for farmers and private landowners, with work already under way in Ireland by Bord Na Móna permitting Ireland to reach our targets.

Read more on the EU Parliament website.

Nature Positive Roadmap: Ask the right questions

Impacts and Dependencies, News, Roadmap to Nature Positive, Tool

Business for Biodiversity Ireland offers our members an easy-to-follow Roadmap to Nature Positive –  the Assess Phase covers getting started by making a commitment – and another key step is working out where your business stands within a sectoral and organisational context in order to create a solid biodiversity strategy. To do this, you need to know how to ask the right questions.

BFBI members can access our Business Template which will help map out your business model in terms of inputs, activities and outputs. It has been compiled with our community of practice businesses and cross-referenced with prevailing methodology and standards, such as the Global Reporting Initiative and the TNFD LEAP approach.

The Global Reporting Initiative is an independent, international organisation that provides a global common language to communicate environmental impacts with a suite of standards to help businesses report on various aspects of sustainability across regulatory landscapes.

The BFBI Business Template helps unpack your business model with a series of guiding questions, for example:

– What sector are you active within?
– What type of activities are carried out by your business?
– Where are your activities based geographically?

The template goes on to cover your raw materials, your procurement, your land footprint, your water footprint – with recommended tools to calculate these – as well as, you guessed it, your carbon footprint.

Creating a value-chain map

Then you’ll look through your business and value-chain relationships, with more guiding questions, giving you an opportunity to create a value-chain map. Every business has a value chain – you need to also consider what types of activities are undertaken by those with which you have business relationships?

Think about your sector and theirs – what are the nature challenges at local, regional, and global levels related both to your sector and to that of organisations in your value chain: e.g. deforestation, climate change, water stress, pollution, land use, invasive species, natural resource use?

What are the responsibilities with regards to compliance and regulation? These steps on the Roadmap will allow you to create high-level overviews to identify topics material to your business when it comes to new and existing reporting regulations.

This process must be revisited regularly and in consultation with stakeholders and industry experts. The policy landscape is evolving, reflecting the urgency to take action to mitigate risk from the connected biodiversity loss and climate change crises. It is therefore important to be aware of any policy changes that relate to your business, sector and value chain.

The BFBI platform will be on hand with updates – become a member here to access our full Roadmap to Nature Positive.

Next up: Nature Disclosures – knowing your reporting obligations & choosing the right framework

Nature Positive Roadmap – Step 2: Make a Commitment

News, Roadmap to Nature Positive

Business for Biodiversity Ireland offer our members an easy-to-follow Roadmap to Nature Positive – and the second step of Phase 1: Assess, after getting started, is to make a commitment to champion and support the objectives of the international Convention on Biological Diversity. Read more below…

Business For Biodiversity Ireland invites all our businesses to sign our Biodiversity Commitment. This comes after reviewing resources to expand your knowledge in the area of biodiversity loss and becoming familiar with the concept of Nature Positive, which is currently being defined and examined by the Nature Positive Initiative, a collective of the world’s largest nature organisations, business and finance coalitions.

Nature positive is a term that defines the actions and activities of a business that reduce negative impacts on nature across their operations and value chain, with concurrent business activities that redirect resources and financial investments towards the restoration and protection of nature.

Click to learn more about Nature Positive.

The Irish government declared a biodiversity emergency in 2019. According to the National Biodiversity Action Plan 2023-2030, all sectors of society including the private sector have a responsibility for nature’s conservation, to protect and restore ecosystems and the services they provide. Nature-positive business models are inherently more resilient to the impacts of climate change, create diverse employment opportunities and encourage innovative approaches to value-chain management.

The BFBI Biodiversity Commitment pledges to champion and support, by all means possible, the three urgent objectives of the international Convention on Biological Diversity: 

Conservation of biological diversity and ecosystem services 
Sustainable use of its components 
Fair and equitable sharing of the benefits that arise out of the utilisation of resources

This includes a commitment to analyse and monitor your business activities to understand both your direct impacts on nature and your direct dependencies on nature and the associated risks, including defining biodiversity loss as a business risk, incorporating it into your company risk management portfolio.

It is also necessary to commit to understanding the impacts within your value chain and use this information to incorporate nature into decision-making. This includes encouraging your suppliers to make a similar commitment to strive for a nature positive future.

Read the full Biodiversity Commitment HERE.

Become a BFBI member HERE.

The Journey to Nature Positive: Getting Started

Courses, News

Want to begin your journey to Nature Positive but not sure how to start? Business for Biodiversity Ireland Platform Lead Lucy Gaffney explains how our roadmap can help…

Over the last two years, Business for Biodiversity Ireland (BFBI) has been working with businesses of different sizes and across different sectors to understand what key challenges and barriers exist which might prevent them from starting to explore their nature-related risks.

We have found that there is a reasonable lack of understanding of the key issues around biodiversity loss and how those issues translate to business risk.

For some, like those in the primary industries of agriculture, extractives and energy, the risks are clear. But for others, the links to nature are intangible and blurry at best.

The Roadmap to Nature Positive

While developing our Roadmap to Nature Positive, which is aligned to the prevailing methodologies, broken down into easy-to-manage steps and translated into easy-to-understand language, we determined that the very first step on the journey should be focused on learning.

Most businesses need to fully appreciate what is at stake, not just from a operational perspective, but also from the perspective of the individual, families and communities. After all, business equals people.

To that end, the first step on our Roadmap to Nature Positive comprises a curated list of must-watch videos and a compilation of fifteen free ‘massive open online courses’ (MOOCs) delivered by higher education institutions like Rice University, University of Geneva and the University of Illinois through Coursera. We have also included courses provided by the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNEP) Environment Academy and Learning for Nature initiatives which cover topics like using spatial data for biodiversity and ecosystem restoration. You can choose the course(s) which best suit you and your business, and we’ll be adding more guidance on this soon.

This space is rapidly changing and more and more resources are becoming available to help people and businesses understand how our economies are underpinned by nature and biodiversity.

Join the Community

This must be a collective effort. No one business or sector can tackle the biodiversity crisis alone. If your business wants to mobilise for nature but you’re not clear on what to do or where to start, join the BFBI community and open up a world of opportunities for partnership, collaboration and learning. Your business can and must contribute to a nature positive world.

Register today and expand your knowledge!

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