Nature Risk Rising: Why the Crisis Engulfing Nature Matters for Business and the Economy

The World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Risks Report (GRR), through its comprehensive risks perception survey, ranks biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse as one of the top five risks in terms of likelihood and impact in the coming 10 years. Yet general confusion persists on what amount of nature loss has occurred, why it relates to human prosperity and how to confront its loss in a practical manner, especially in the business world. Following on the heels of the 2020 GRR, this report provides a deep dive into how nature loss is material to businesses in all industry sectors and makes a clear argument for nature-related risks to be regularly identified, assessed and disclosed by business – as is now increasingly the case for climate change risks. This will help prevent risk mispricing and inaccurate capital buffers, as well as guiding action to mitigate and adapt business activities that degrade and destroy nature.

The series of New Nature Economy (NNE) reports is being developed under the umbrella of the Nature Action Agenda, a platform for committed actors to join up ideas and efforts in the run-up to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity COP15 – in Kunming, China, in October 2020 – and in support of the related Business for Nature agenda. The NNE reports aim to contribute to the Agenda’s fact base, focusing on the business and economic case for action.
The series will span three reports that focus on the following priorities:
1. Make the case for why the nature crisis is crucial to business and the economy, including:
– The scale and urgency of the nature crisis
– The potential consequences for society if the crisis goes unchecked
– The interests of business to make the crisis a critical consideration
2. Identify a set of priority socioeconomic systems for transformation:
– Target areas in which individual and collective action from business and other actors (such as state-owned enterprises, investors and financial corporations) is urgent and indispensable
– Ecosystems that are closer to irreversible tipping points, and hence have more global relevance if tipped, and in which the drivers of degradation are more deeply connected to economic and business activities. Actors in this space therefore have more value at stake and a greater ability to influence the transformation.
3. Scope the market and investment opportunities for nature-based solutions to environmental challenges:
– Research solutions across the biodiversity, climate mitigation, climate resilience and ocean agendas
– Assess their economic and nature-building potential
– Identify areas and approaches that are most interesting for private-sector finance to engage in

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_New_Nature_Economy_Report_2020.pdf