We can do it again!

The Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) has set out, at the highest level, how the private sector needs to help protect and restore nature worldwide – but how do we act on it?

ANIMONDIAL was at the Convention on Biological Diversity COP15 in Montréal in December, where the GBF was agreed and announced. We were working with the biggest players in the international travel industry to help focus and co-ordinate the industry’s response to the ground-breaking call to action. And we were there when the World Travel & Tourism Council, the UN World Tourism Organisation and the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance announced their collaboration to advance Nature Positive Travel & Tourism and help the industry become a Guardian Of Nature.

What it means for business

So how is all this high-level policy action going to impact individual businesses? The GBF identifies three core areas: company reporting, value chains and mainstreaming. Expectations are clearly going to rise, particularly in ESG investment criteria and among customers and consumer groups, and regulations may not be far behind.

The T&T industry response

It won’t take long for this to become internalised within the industry itself, with agents, clients and suppliers looking to see how their partners are shaping up. Fortunately, the industry’s leading bodies are on board, meaning that support, resources and representation will be available for the transition.

We’ve done it before

Darrell Wade, Co-Founder and Chair of Intrepid Travel, gives a simple and impactful explanation of the challenge in an inspiring video clip from WTTC. Acknowledging that we need to look deeper at what nature protection means for our industry, he enthusiastically observes: “… we can do it – we’ve done it before, we’re doing it with climate change …”.

Learning lessons from carbon

This comparison has been made before, with the GBF often called the ‘Paris Agreement for Nature’. In fact, the international conventions on these two issues both originated in the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Back then they were acknowledged as parts of the same problem, so in many ways this is just a process of biodiversity catching up with climate change on the international agenda.

We can do it again

In 2015 the Paris Agreement seemed like an impossible challenge to many businesses. Now carbon accounting is a common part of business practice – mandatory for many companies and provided voluntarily by many more. So, we know that the challenge with biodiversity loss is one we can rise to.

Joining the mainstream

Fundamental to achieving this is ‘mainstreaming’ – bringing nature and biodiversity issues into decision-making in all business functions at all levels. This may seem like a huge task but, as we know, it gets easier and easier as you go along. The trick is knowing where to start.

We have the tools

One great place to start is the Toolbox Of Nature Positive Tourism Resources, published as an Annex to the WTTC Nature Positive Travel & Tourism report. Following the four-phase Nature Positive Tourism Roadmap (as seen on the ANIMONDIAL homepage) this provides a wealth of links, tips, sector-specific advice and deep-dives into the key issues. It also incorporates a handy glossary and a selection of case studies from our sector and further afield. With regular reviews and updates, the Toolbox is there for the whole industry to help make mainstreaming easy.

The support you need

  • Trying to assess your impacts and dependencies on nature but not sure where to start? The Toolkit has a framework to fill out, complete with SDG links (p4-5)
  • Want to understand more about the challenges and issues facing your sub-sector? The Toolkit has a table of sector priorities for all five drivers of biodiversity loss (p6-7)
  • Need to track the integration of the Nature Positive approach throughout your business? The Toolkit has a checklist with pointers to the relevant sections of the full report (p14-18)
  • Wondering what sectors like Consumer Goods are doing to incorporate nature protection into their supply chains? The Toolkit has insightful case studies with links to further information (p27-28)

Getting Up To Speed…

The Future Of Biodiversity Compliance

For many years, scientists have been telling us that the loss of nature around the world amounts to a global biodiversity crisis.

The media and the public have taken the message on board, but the political response has been much slower. Finally, at the end of last year, we saw the breakthrough we have been waiting for – and it means that we will all have to raise our game.

The Paris Agreement for Nature

On 19th December 2023, the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) was adopted by the CoP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The framework is sometimes called the ‘Paris Agreement for nature’, as it heralds a seismic shift in how the world will tackle the biodiversity crisis. That’s great news for the planet, but what does it mean for businesses?

What the GBF?!?

The framework is a call to action for all national governments, detailing what they need to do in order to help achieve the four Global Goals for 2050. This plan takes the form of 23 Global Targets, setting out actions to halt and reverse biodiversity loss that need to be initiated immediately and completed by 2030. Eight of these involve directly reducing threats to biodiversity, while the other 15 are concerned with sustainable use and benefit sharing. Three of them in particular have far-reaching implications for the private sector.

Target 14 addresses ‘mainstreaming’ – the full integration of all the values of biodiversity into policies, strategies, regulations and even national accounting. The aim is to align all private and public sector activities with the Goals, especially sectors with ‘significant impacts on biodiversity’ like Travel & Tourism. This means that companies will need co-ordinated biodiversity strategies that look at all their activities across all departments and operations.

Target 15 centres around monitoring, assessing and reporting impacts on biodiversity, not only in operations but also in supply and value chains. It urges governments to ‘encourage and enable’ businesses to do this – especially large and transnational companies – with ‘legal, administrative or policy measures’.  It also stresses the importance of progressively reducing negative impacts and increasing positive impacts on biodiversity. This confirms what we expected: that, as with carbon emissions, businesses will increasingly need to provide detailed biodiversity monitoring and reporting together with demonstrable efforts to reduce damage and restore nature.

Target 16 is about tackling unsustainable consumption at all levels, especially reducing food waste, overall waste generation and the ‘global footprint of consumption’. The approach is to support individuals to make sustainable choices, but  policy, legislative and regulatory frameworks are specifically mentioned as mechanisms for doing this. This means that businesses will need to have a full understanding of environmental impacts up and down their value chain to be sure they comply with new regulations.

A Framework for Change

The GBF represents a huge commitment at the highest possible level to fundamentally change how biodiversity is valued by governments, businesses and people. The Targets give concrete steps for achieving this, and as they are implemented country-by-country they will start to affect us all. Like the Paris Agreement, they mark the global transition from talk to action. Fortunately, ANIMONDIAL is here to help you make that transition.

The Nature Positive Equation

By talking about reducing negative impacts and increasing positive ones, the GBF echoes the Nature Positive Tourism approach promoted by ANIMONDIAL and presented by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) in their Nature Positive Travel & Tourism report. The Roadmap found in the report and on our homepage shows how any business in the sector can become a beacon of Nature Positive Tourism. By following these simple steps, with support from resources in the online Toolbox and ANIMONDIAL’s consultancy services, travel companies can get ahead of the game in meeting the obligations set out in the GBF.

Leading the Way

Travel & Tourism can present a huge threat to biodiversity, but it also has huge potential to be a Force for Good. At CoP15 an unprecedented coalition of the WTTC, the UN World Travel Organisation and the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance united behind the Vision for Nature Positive Travel & Tourism, calling on the industry to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. This announcement set the stage for a Nature Positive Travel & Tourism Partnership, an initiative which ANIMONDIAL plans to be at the heart of, and which we hope to have more news on very soon…

What you can do to become GBF-ready: