IEMA hosts workshops with Government and business on the UN Global Biodiversity Framework

IEMA has published a new paper with the outputs of a series of workshops with business and Government on the UN Global Biodiversity Framework. Lesley Wilson, Policy Lead on biodiversity and natural capital tells us more.

In 2022 the UK, along with almost 200 other countries, signed up to the UN Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), agreeing to conserve 30% of land and sea globally by 2030, alongside reducing pollution, integrating biodiversity into policy and regulation, and disclosure for businesses (including SMEs) on biodiversity impacts as part of 23 international targets.

The KMGBF is a significant and important obligation to protect nature that requires action from all of us, especially Government and business. From June to July 2023, IEMA (Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment), and the UKBBF (UK Business and Biodiversity Forum), with support from Defra (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) held a series of events on the KMGBF, including online workshops between UK Government departments – including Defra, BEIS and Natural England - and representatives of business.

It was clear from the workshops that business wants to support the achievement of the KMGBF targets and IEMA has been able to create recommendations for business and Government out of the workshops. The recommendations are for both Government and business and can provide a solid ground that gives organisations – large and small – the confidence to take action to better understand and act on their impacts and dependencies on biodiversity.

The recommendations include that the Government should identify a standardized basket of biodiversity metrics and indicators for business, create a framework for SMEs to report on their impacts and dependencies, and create standard templates for contracts and supply chains to ease the burden of providing information in different formats for different customers/suppliers. Recommendations for business included upskilling staff and communicating biodiversity actions and targets, sharing data across businesses and suppliers, and making commitments to address biodiversity impacts through existing frameworks such as TNFD (Task Force for Nature-related Financial Disclosures) and CSRD (the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive).

IEMA is following up on the workshops with further discussions with Government organisations to drill down into some of the recommendations and we’ll keep you up to date on this.

The paper is free to IEMA members and is available to view online or to download and print here.