Global Partnership for Business and Biodiversity: Supporting Business Pioneers

20 Nov, 2018

Private Business Action for Biodiversity (PBAB) in collaboration with Global Partnership for Business and Biodiversity (GBPP) organised a side event ¬on “Supporting Business Pioneers” in the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP-14) at Egypt on 20th November 2018. Over 50 participants attended the event.

Mr. George Jaksh, Chair of Executive Committee (GPBB), welcomed the participants and introduced how GPBB is involved in connecting businesses with biodiversity issues at the global level. Ms. Aixa Sopeña, representing the Spanish Business and Biodiversity Initiative, presented a tool for mainstreaming biodiversity into habitat restoration as well as the contributions of the Initiative itself. Mr Andreas Gettkant, GIZ Germany, shared global experiences from private business action for biodiversity in three countries, especially in supply chains.

Mr. Vikas Kumar from the National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC, India), shared success story on how NTPC is working on the aspects of biodiversity conservation at their plan sites. Dr Pravir Deshmukh from the Confederation of Indian Industry–India Business & Biodiversity Initiative (CII- IBBI) elaborated Indian Businesses best practices and showed the interest from the businesses in investing in biodiversity for building resilient business. Mr. Matt Jones from the United Nations Environment Programme elaborated biodiversity metrics for businesses. The second part of the event focused on discussing critical aspects of Business & Biodiversity (B&B) relations and ways to address it in beyond 2020 agenda.

Important topics of discussion:

• What do we mean by mainstreaming in the B&B context?
• What needs to change/improve to enable substantial business participation?
• Are there successful examples which could be applied widely?
• How can we achieve more collaboration of government authorities, B&B organisations, and expert bodies (UN, NGOs, academia etc.)?
• Has the Business Forum shed light on these questions, enough for us to act differently in the future? What recommendations will we take back to our organisations?
• Ways to integrate Small and Medium Enterprises in the Biodiversity.