The Natural Environment Research Council are funding a number of short projects / internships on ‘Business Engagement with Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services’.

The aims of the NERC-funded scheme are to
• Initiate collaborations between academics and business or third sector organisation partners, leading to the application of ecosystem services approaches in longer term self-sustaining activities undertaken by partners.
• Generate evidence and case studies of how businesses and other organisations have used or could use ecosystem services approaches, in collaboration with academics, to introduce innovation into their business.
• Provide evidence concerning the effectiveness of policies intended to facilitate the development of ecosystem services approaches by businesses and third sector organisations.

i) if you are a UK-based academic, please let your colleagues know of the opportunity and think about applying – full details of the call and the application form are available here.

ii) if you are a UK-based business and have an idea for a project that you would like to develop, then please use the discussion area on the webgroup forum to advertise / develop your collaborative ideas: click here
iii) project with Atkins
One business is already interested in the scheme – Atkins, one of the world’s leading engineering and design consultancies, is offering a project related to their work on the Water Framework Directive. For more details see here.

Further specific opportunities over the next few weeks as these are put forward by the business members of the network.

More information and to apply
The call is managed by the Environmental Sustainability Knowledge Transfer Network, on behalf of Natural Environment Research Council.
For more information contact the Environmental Sustainability Knowledge Transfer Network Administrator, Anna Baginska on anna.baginska@esktn.org or phone 01865 610505.

Deadline The call is now open, deadline is Friday 15 June 2012.

Tuesday 13th March 2012
The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) 1 Carlton House Terrace, London

Business has been put at the centre of the stage to deliver the sustainable economy that the Government pledges to provide in the Natural Environment White Paper (NEWP).This creates real opportunities for businesses, in terms of new markets (e.g. via Payment for Ecosystem Services/Offsets/Restoration) and new collaborations with delivery agencies and other institutions (e.g. via Nature Improvement Areas).

This one-day event, supported by professional and business bodies, will provide a forum for businesses to engage directly with some of the key researchers working in this area.

With top speakers including Prof. Ian Bateman (Co-Leader of the Valuing Nature Network), Prof. Rosie Hails, MBE, (Leader of the Natural Capital Initiative), Prof. Dave Rafaelli (Leader of NERC’s Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Programme) and Dr Rob Bradburne of Defra, as well as key business leaders, the day will provide a mix of speakers, discussion and project-development breakout sessions.

Outcomes of the day will include:
 Identification of specific areas where there are already tools that could be used or developed further by industry in collaboration with academia
 Identification of common themes of interest and actions that would address these
 Initiation of project developments for internship funding

To register for this free event and for full details of the day and directions to IOM please go to http://natural-capital.eventbrite.com.

Rather than spelling disaster for environmental funding, the current debt crisis could provide an opportunity to create a win-win scenario for the environment and economic recovery – that was the message from an Aldersgate Group panel debate in December last year, attended by the BES Policy Team and summarised in a debate report published today.

On the panel were; Janez Potočnik, European Commissioner for the Environment, Sir John Harman, Director of the Aldersgate Group, Paul Ekins, Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy at University College London, and David Baldock, Director at the Institute of European Environmental Policy.

The speakers agreed that at a time when businesses critically need to minimise costs, measures to improve resource efficiency and reduce waste could give them a significant competitive edge. However, there was consensus that barriers such as a lack of long-term policy coherence and the lock-in of existing infrastructure will need to be addressed in order to pursue this opportunity for green economic recovery, and that Governments will need to demonstrate increased investment in research and development and measures such as the reform of environmentally perverse subsidies.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has announced a review of the implementation of the EU Birds and Habitats Directives in the UK. Following the announcement of the review by the Chancellor in his Autumn Statement to the House of Commons, Defra have released details of the scope of the consultation, which will publish conclusions by the date of the 2012 budget, in March.

The purpose of the review is to assess: ‘the Habitats and Wild Bird Directives as currently implemented in England by the Habitats Regulations and Offshore Marine Conservation Regulations, focussing in particular on those obligations that affect the authorisation process for proposed development, with a view to reducing the burdens on businesses while maintaining the integrity of the purpose of the directives.’

The Habitats and Birds Directives are therefore presented as barriers to economic growth. Two of the areas of focus for the review include:
- Whether the approach taken by competent authorities is appropriate, particularly in relation to risk, or whether the requirements of the legislation are applied too or insufficiently rigorously; and whether competent authorities and statutory conservation advisers could explore more creative solutions; and
- Whether NE and JNCC’s approach to the provision of advice to competent authorities is appropriate, or takes an excessively or insufficiently precautionary approach.

The Government intends to examine other European Member States for examples of best practice in implementing the Directives and where the UK could learn from others’ experience in terms of applying the Directives whilst avoiding excessive burdens to business.

Wildlife and Countryside Link, of which the BES is a member, are in the process of establishing a taskforce to feed into the Review, with the aim of reporting by January 2012.

That was the question posed by an evening lecture at the Zoological Society of London on Tuesday, held as part of the ‘Communicating Science’ series. A panel of four speakers, including Prof. Charles Godfray, current President of the BES, considered whether, and how, ecologists and conservation scientists should assist industry in identifying areas of land ‘best’ to develop.

Prof. Godfray began by outlining the major challenge which ensuring food security will pose to global conservation. As chair of last year’s Foresight report on the Future of Food and Farming, Prof. Godfray was well-placed to reflect on the volatility likely to hit food prices as water scarcity and climate change become increasing concerns, and the impact that this might have on biodiversity. Prof. Godfray argued for ’sustainable intensification’, using existing and investing in new, knowledge in areas such as soil science and agronomy. Society must support a vigorous, efficient, globalised food supply, with greater access to markets for the poorest. In many senses, food security isn’t about a huge increase in food supply, but about minimising waste and ensuring the adequate distribution of produce. On the relationship between food and biodiversity, Prof. Godfray was clear that ‘if we fail on food, we fail on everything’; if global food prices rise to a great extent due to shortages, any gains in biodiversity will be wiped out by rampant land-grabbing to provide areas for food production.

Dr Christopher Stewart, Associate Director of Proforest, examined the benefits offered by certification schemes, allowing consumer choice and driving Corporate Socal Responsibility. The Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was highlighted in particular. He argued that palm oil actually represents an efficient, highly productive crop, with a large yield from a single plant; arguing for the replacement of palm oil with other, lower yielding plants requiring greater areas for production may not therefore make sense. Instead, conservationists and consumers, and Governments, should be working with RSPO to encourage producers to adopt sustainability standards and avoid deforesting the most biodiverse areas of Indonesia, Malaysia and, latterly, Africa and Amazonia, where palm oil cultivation is beginning.

Prof. Kathy Willis from Oxford University demonstrated how a very interesting tool, the Local Ecological Footprint Tool (LEFT) can be used to help developers and producers do just that; targetting where their developments can be placed to minimise ecological damage. At a resolution of 300m2 for vegetation cover, the tool draws on various readily available global datasets to create a composite picture of a particular site under consideration. For example, the FRAGSTATS programme allows the extent of habitat fragmentation in the target area to be examined, whilst GBIF has 2 million species records globally which can be interrogated. Comparison with ground-truth data in Honduras and Madagascar reveals that LEFT has a tendency to overestimate the number of threatened species in an area, never underestimate. Prof. Willis expressed real concern that the Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) run at the sites examined by LEFT hadn’t picked up the diversity of species and ecological damage which would have been caused were damage to go ahead, indicating that traditional EIA methods are insufficient at present to inform developers about precisely where will do least ecological harm.

And what to do if impacts are unavoidable? Kerry ten Kate, the Business and Biodiversity Offsets Programme (BBOP) discussed the merits of ‘biodiversity offsetting’; measureable conservation outcomes resulting from measures to compensate for the loss of biodiversity once damage to biodiversity has been ameliorated as far as possible. The BBOP consortium, which includes ZSL and Defra, along with banks, is aiming to create an international standard for biodiversity offsets, which will be shortly be available for consultation. Kerry ten Kate argued that there is a clear business case for corporates to engage with offsetting, as to not compensate for their negative impacts on biodiversity will damage their reputation, their bottom line and ultimately their license to operate. Interestingly, Kerry ten Kate said that the loan conditions for project finance have recently changed, obliging ‘no net loss’ and a postive gain for biodiversity.These have been endorsed by banks which provide 90% of major project finance. However, the conservation and ecological science communities will be required to assist the banks in assessing whether these obligations have been met, as banks do not have the specialist expertise to do so.

All speakers agreed that conservationists and ecologists had a duty to engage with businesses at an early stage of project planning, acknowledging that this could sometimes be uncomfortable but that pragmatism was necessary. The ‘elephant in the room’, suggested Kerry ten Kate, was however whether governments would have the political will to reconcile the competing agendas of biodiversity conservation, development and food security. Without this, a degree of market regulation, and without strategic approaches to land-use planning, the choice over what we can ‘afford’ to destroy will no longer be open to us.

Companies are increasingly seeking business opportunities in preserving biodiversity rather than viewing it as a threat to their profits, according to a new McKinsey survey. The survey of some 1,500 executives of companies in all global regions and industries found that 59% of respondents view biodiversity as an opportunity rather than a threat to their company. They identified opportunities to boost corporate reputations by taking action to preserve biodiversity or develop new products from renewable natural resources.

More from this week’s Society of Biology’s Science Policy Newsletter

Yesterday saw the launch of the ‘TEEB for Business’ report at the first annual Global Business of Biodiversity (GBOB) symposium, at the Excel Centre in London. The BES policy team was there, with other members of the Natural Capital Initiative secretariat, to see Pavan Sukhdev, TEEB study leader, unveil the report to an assembled audience of policy-makers, representatives from NGOs and business leaders. Although business still has a long way to go in terms of recognising the importance of biodiversity and sustainability in supply chains, it was encouraging to see that at least some companies have taken this to heart – and are showing leadership to others.

The Chief Executive of Rio Tinto delivered a presentation outlining why he thought that investing in biodiversity made sound business sense. Business is clearly first and foremost about the ‘bottom line’; economics and the profit margin. However, in order to maintain access to land and resources in perpetuity, Rio Tinto seems to have recognised that this depends on creating a reputation as a company which is not simply going to trash the environment to achieve the biggest profit, but on developing a reputation for ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’. CEO Tom Albanese said that Rio Tinto wants to create a ‘net positive impact’ for biodiversity.

Gavin Neath, Vice-President for Global Communications at Unilever delivered a presentation showcasing the company’s work in environmental stewardship. Unilever solely owns, and sustainably manages, its tea plantations. Flagging its sustainable practices up to the consumer has resulted in a consumer perception that tea processed in this way actually tastes better, delivering financial returns for the company.

A common theme to emerge from the day was the need for better communication and a ‘new language’ around the concepts of biodiversity and ecosystem services. This was perhaps most strongly illustrated by Pavan Sukhdev, who said that if he could have the opportunity once more he would re-name the TEEB study, ‘TEN’, the ‘Economics of Nature’. Pavan highlighted one of the next steps in the TEEB project, ‘TEEB for People’, which will see the creation of a website with social networks spinning off from this. It’s hoped that the public will engage with this resource – but there’s no doubt that either developing a new common language to describe the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem services, or working out means to better communicate using existing terminology, is vital.

Secretary of State at Defra, Caroline Spelman, delivered an address in the afternoon. The Minister used the opportunity to announce that in August, Defra will start a process of mapping the UK’s supplies of palm oil. The Government will work with companies and NGOs to produce a plan to shift the UK’s use of palm oil onto a sustainable footing. This is very encouraging. Less encouraging was the Minister quoting a figure of £3 million to support the implementation of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), where previously government had committed a much higher sum. The Minister’s answer to a query from the audience referenced the very difficult economic times ahead and the budget cuts which Government departments are being asked to make. By the Comprehensive Spending Review in the autumn it will be clear how other commitments are to be down-scaled: the conservation and ecological science communities have a role to play in advising Government in how to prioritise the cuts, making sure that harsh economic times to come do not compromise advances in environmental protection.

Overall, an interesting meeting. The role that business can play in highlighting the importance of biodiversity conservation, leading the way for consumers, was clear. The next steps must be to move from the conference centre to the board room of those companies not represented: to cease ‘preaching to the converted’ and to engage proactively with those harder to reach.