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Registration is open for the 2023 European Business and Nature Summit (EBNS) which takes place in Milan on October 11-12 – the largest conference dedicated to crafting sustainable business models working with biodiversity at their core.

Last year’s edition was co-hosted by Business For Biodiversity Ireland alongside the European Business & Biodiversity Platform, while co-hosts at this year’s edition include Etifor, Forum Per La Finanza Sostenible and Regione Lombardia.

The event comes one year before the 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference COP16 and will put special focus on empowering businesses to take decisive transformative action to implement biodiversity targets lead the way towards a nature-positive society.

Register and access the programme HERE.

Environment Ireland takes place in Dublin’s Croke Park on September 14-15, 2023 and on Day 1, BFBI’s Lucy Gaffney will be joining the session on Biodiversity, presenting on the work of the Business For Biodiversity Ireland platform and the need for urgent business action to transition the Irish economy to nature positive.

Bringing together Ireland’s environmental stakeholders, the annual conference provides a wide range of expert speakers examining the overall state of our environment, with focused sessions on circular economy, climate, biodiversity and water.

Ireland’s circular economy strategy sees the National Food Waste Prevention Roadmap and the Deposit Return Scheme coming in November 2022. The Climate Action Plan 2023 has set out a roadmap for how Ireland can accelerate the actions required to respond to the climate crisis, putting climate solutions at the centre of Ireland’s social and economic development.

In the context of nature, Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss, at which BFBI also presented, called on the Government to hold a referendum on protecting biodiversity, while the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 aims to put us on a path to recovery by 2030.

Chaired by Kevin O’Sullivan of The Irish Times, event speakers include Ossian Smyth TD, Minister of State with responsibility for Communications and Circular Economy; Niall Ó Donnchú, Director General, National Parks and Wildlife ServiceLorraine Bull, Biodiversity Officer, Dublin City Council; Peter McEvoy, Director of Land Management, Ulster Wildlife; Tasman Crowe, Vice President for Sustainability, UCD, and Chair, National Biodiversity Forum and representatives from Coillte, Foodcloud, Teagasc and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications and more.

Access the full programme and info HERE.

BFBI’s Lucy Gaffney will present on the significant role of biodiversity at a major conference covering priorities for climate policy and action in Ireland hosted by the Westminster Forum Project’s Policy Forum for Ireland. 

The August 17th conference, with a keynote speech by Marie Donnelly, pictured, of the Climate Change Advisory Council, is billed as a timely opportunity to discuss next steps for taking forward Ireland’s third Climate Action Plan, published shortly after COP27, which provides for a system change in Ireland’s approach to climate policy.

The event will be chaired by, Richard Bruton TD, Member, Environment and Climate Action Committee and Darren O’Rourke TD, Sinn Fein Spokesperson for the Environment and Climate Action.

Delegates will examine the targets outlined in the Plan, which are underpinned by legislation outlined in the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021, with legally-binding sectoral emissions ceilings and carbon budgets, the first being to 2025.

Key stakeholders will come together to assess what support is needed for key sectors to stay within the emissions ceilings, and within the maximum emissions outlined in the carbon budget, as Ireland is currently not on course to meet targets.

It will also be an opportunity for delegates to discuss wider EU policy, such as Just Transition and the European Green Deal, and the implications for Irish business and industry, including enabling knowledge sharing in the meeting of shared goals, specifically Ireland’s roadmap to halving emissions by 2030, and becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

Sessions will assess the way forward for nature-based solutions, as well as key priorities for mitigating and addressing biodiversity loss in light of the Citizen’s Assembly report, which emphasised the need for urgent government action on biodiversity restoration.

Overall, sessions in the agenda will discuss:

  • meeting key targets: maintaining the carbon budget – supporting business and industry in adopting more sustainable approaches – improving climate education and advocacy
  • facilitating a Just Transition: diversifying local economies – delivering an inclusive approach to climate action – options for circular economy development – adopting more sustainable economic approaches
  • engaging citizens: engaging the public in climate action and advocacy – raising awareness of the potential benefits and necessities of climate action – developing a joined-up approach to meeting targets
  • key sectors: support across sectors in working within emissions ceilings – building sustainable practice – opportunities for decarbonising transport – priorities for scaling up renewable energy infrastructure
  • wider EU policy: implementing targets laid out in the European Green Deal – priorities for a Just Transition – implementing a worker-friendly shift to a low carbon economy
  • policy priorities: taking forward the CAP – developing effective governance of climate action to meet targets – assessing the pathway to halving emissions by 2030

The conference will be an opportunity for stakeholders to consider the issues alongside key policy officials who are due to attend from DAFM; DECC; Department for Communities, NI; Department for the Economy, NI; DETE; Department of Finance, NI; The Scottish Government and the Welsh Government.

Visit the Westminster Forum Project site to book a place online.

The Business Post’s 2023 ESG Summit takes place in Dublin’s Croke Park on May 30 and BFBI platform lead Lucy Gaffney is among the speakers.

View the full agenda here.

The event aims to explore the many challenges related to climate and sustainability. Many companies are struggling to navigate ESG reporting within their existing business processes and operating models.

The summit will explore how companies can develop effective data management systems and meet the demanding regulatory and standards requirements. The event will focus on best practices to meet the regulatory, data management and reporting challenges coming down the line for business.

Lucy will speak on biodiversity and natural capital and how companies are investing in nature and working to secure a sustainable future.

You can view the full speaker line-up and register on this site.

Image credit: Bending the curve of terrestrial biodiversity needs an integrated strategy | Nature

 

Our platform lead Lucy Gaffney has written a blog in conjunction with her upcoming presentation at the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management’s upcoming Irish conference: Delivering a Nature Positive Ireland, first published on the CIEEM website.

We are on the brink of the next revolution, the “real” Green Revolution and its emergence signals the end of the ecocidal industrial revolution of the 1800s. For the first time in human history, we are waking up to the notion that healthy ecosystems are the foundation on which we have built our civilisations.

Nature is the great provider. People have become wealthier, we’re living longer and we have the best standard of living that has ever been. But while that curve is on the upswing, there is another curve that is plummeting at an alarming rate – the richness and health of the planet.

We are here because we have burned through the planet’s natural resources with reckless abandon, without assuring that these resources were replenished, without stewardship, without regard to other living beings and indigenous peoples.

But the tide is turning. The business world is waking up to the reality that without investment and stewardship of the natural world, their business is at risk, the economy is at risk and society, as we know it, is at risk.

First Steps
So how can businesses realistically start mobilising for nature? The truth is, that nature is the bigger picture. Our destruction of the natural world undermines the planet’s ability to process excess carbon and greenhouse gases, and our excessive greenhouse gas emissions which cause planetary warming and ocean acidification, perpetuates the loss of biodiversity and interrupts natural cycles.

The first step is really understanding that climate change and biodiversity are two sides of the same coin and absolutely need to be tackled together.

Climate or Biodiversity?
The Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has identified five key industrial drivers of biodiversity loss.

– Pollution; solid, liquid and gaseous waste
– Invasive Species; non-native plant and animal species
– Ecosystem conversion; changing how we use our land and seas
– Climate Change; planetary warming, forest fires, ocean acidification
– Exploitation of natural resources


Many businesses are already planning or implementing sustainability projects and many of those projects are less to do with climate change and more to do with nature. Take single use plastics for example, yes they are made from petrochemicals, but the main reason we are ditching single-use plastics is to reduce pollution, a driver of biodiversity loss. There are of course cross-cutting benefits to eliminating single-use plastic, but pollution reduction is the most impactful.

Water stewardship is another corporate initiative that has a greater positive impact on biodiversity than climate change. Conserving water in areas that experience water stress has a high impact, not just on local flora and fauna but also on communities. As the summer temperatures rise, water stress is becoming a bigger issue, even in countries like Ireland. How many companies or services would grind to a halt if there was a prolonged drought?

Reframing our sustainability portfolio through the biodiversity lens might uncover that we are doing more for biodiversity than we first imagined.

Impacts and Dependencies
Every business depends on nature, whether directly or through its value chain. Understanding these dependencies on nature has the potential to expose hidden risks to your business and its future continuity.

Similarly, every organisation has an ecological impact. Whether it be through pollution, greenhouse gas emissions or buying palm oil for your products, some part of the natural world is being degraded. In order to develop a meaningful biodiversity strategy, businesses must understand these impacts and dependencies. There is no point in planting trees or wildflowers to tick the biodiversity action box, if a core activity in your business is responsible for deforestation somewhere else. That’s not nature positive.

There is a multitude of tools and frameworks available to help businesses, particularly corporates, understand their impacts but they can be quite technical and overwhelming for a lay person to navigate. In simple terms, a business could list core activities and explore how those activities might put pressure on those previously mentioned “drivers of biodiversity loss”. How can your business reduce that pressure? Through better recycling policies? By understanding where your raw materials come from? It doesn’t have to be complicated, any positive action is better than inaction, but it should be evidence-based.

The Role of the Consumer
It has long been my view that businesses need guidance and regulation to get to grips with these issues. But in parallel, there needs to be a shift in consumer sentiment and purchasing behaviour. We need to act quickly to avoid going over 1.5C in planetary warming and to halt nature loss, and the key to quick action is a change in consumer demand. It is happening, but there is still a lack of understanding of the issues in the mainstream. Do the public understand that buying products with palm oil, palm fat, palm kernels is causing deforestation in a tropical rainforest? Palm fat is in chocolate, peanut butter, stock cubes, most processed food, toothpaste, makeup.. the list goes on!

We need better labelling on products so that we, as consumers, can make more informed decisions and catalyse change from the ground up.

Into the future
In the next decade, “the competitive edge” will be redefined. The next great green revolution is coming and if business doesn’t evolve, then extinction is on the cards.

Lucy will be speaking at the upcoming CIEEM Irish Conference: Delivering a Nature Positive Ireland in Athlone, April 25. Book HERE.

 

 

Our platform lead Lucy Gaffney will be speaking on ‘The Business Journey to Nature Positive’ at the CIEEM Ireland Conference 2023 in the Radisson Blu, Athlone on April 25 – registration now open.

Nature Positive is a global movement that advocates for having more nature at the end of the decade than at the start. The Nature Positive mission is to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 and has been committed to by the G7 leaders as well as 50 countries, including Ireland and the UK, committing to protecting at least 30% of the worlds land and ocean by 2030.

But what does this mean in the context of the island of Ireland? What will success look like? What are we already doing to move towards this goal and what needs to change if we are going to be fully successful?

Registration is now open and the programme has been released.

The conference opening address will be given by Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform, Malcolm Noonan. Mr Noonan  oversees the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Heritage Council and the National Biodiversity Data Centre.

Other speakers include Ciaran Fallon of The Nature Trust/Coillte Nature,  Cameron Clotworthy, NPWS, and perspectives from farmers in a session from Caroline Lalor, Nature Based Agri Solutions Ltd and Jonathan Cahill, FarmPEAT Participant Farmer.

More information on the CIEEM site HERE.

COP15 in under way in Montreal, Canada and Ireland has sent a delegation to attend these negotiations that will hopefully deliver a plan to address global biodiversity loss.

The talks are centred around the Post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) which consists of 21 targets that will not only support the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but will serve to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.

We have eight years to halt the destruction of our natural world or it might reach a state where is becomes beyond repair. So why is COP15 and the GBF important for business in Ireland?

Of the 21 GBF targets, the business community should be tuned into two specifically:


Target 15: All businesses (public and private, large, medium and small) assess and report on their dependencies and impacts on biodiversity, from local to global, and progressively reduce negative impacts, by at least half and increase positive impacts, reducing biodiversity-related risks to businesses and moving towards the full sustainability of extraction and production practices, sourcing and supply chains, and use and disposal.

This essentially means that all Irish businesses, from your local hairdresser to global multinationals operating within the state will now have to understand how their actions and activities impact on nature. How do they contribute to pollution? How are they using land? Does the business contribute to or facilitate the introduction of invasive species? What is their contribution to climate change? Does the business drive the over-exploitation of natural resources?

They will also have to appreciate how their business depends on the natural world, and how the degradation of nature may pose risks to their ability to continue operating. Furthermore, Irish businesses will be expected to develop a strategy and action plan to reduce their negative impacts by half and start the healing process by investing in nature restoration.

Target 18: Redirect, repurpose, reform or eliminate incentives harmful for biodiversity, in a just and equitable way, reducing them by at least US$500billion per year, including all of the most harmful subsidies, and ensure that incentives, including public and private economic and regulatory incentives, are either positive or neutral for biodiversity.

In 2019, the Irish Government spent €4.1bn on environmentally damaging subsidies (Lee, 2019). These included subsidising the use of fossil fuels to the tune of €2.5bn, and €1.5bn to support agricultural activities that could cause significant environmental damage.

For example, rather than providing low income households with fossil fuel subsidies, that money would be much better spent retrofitting older properties to become more energy efficient. Most of the environmentally damaging subsidies are disguised as zero or low tax rates which incentivise the use of a potentially damaging commodity like chemical fertilisers.

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