On June 30, 2020 Generation Climate Europe held their first webinar on the topic “Mobilising corporates for sustainable use of nature – the role of measuring impacts and dependencies on biodiversity”. This webinar was the fruit of almost two months of preparation of the Information Pole on Land and sea use change within the newly created Biodiversity Working Group.
The objective of the webinar was to allow youth to better understand the link between achieving global biodiversity targets, such as those that will be set at the COP15 and those included in the 2030 European Biodiversity Strategy, and the role that corporates need to play to achieve them. We particularly focused on the developing field of measurement approaches for business dependence and impacts on nature, the emerging sphere of regulation on biodiversity reporting and its potential to incite corporate action. The webinar benefited from informed presentations of four knowledgeable and experienced speakers in the domain:
- Francis Ogwal and Basile van Havre, the Co-chairs of the Convention on Biological Diversity’sOpen-ended Working Group on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, started the panel with an introduction to the 2050 goals and the 2030 targets, as well as a part on youth engagement in the post-2020 process.
- Nathalie Borgeaud, the Europe Director of Four Twenty Seven, a climate-risk data provider, punctuated the conversation with a contribution on investor interest in biodiversity measurement approaches, expectations for meaningful and robust biodiversity indicators as well as on current R&D.
- Johan Lammerant, Lead expert on Natural Capital and Biodiversity within ARCADIS, a globalengineering and consultancy company, completed the discussion with a presentation on the challenge of and current tools and initiatives to assess biodiversity impacts and dependencies of businesses. He further enriched the conversation with a translation of the concept of planetary boundaries to the company level.
We were not only delighted about the speaker’s commitment to exchange with youth on this important topic, but also about the high interest among young people to educate themselves on ways that make it possible to bring the corporate sector in the boat to reach biodiversity goals. Poll questions and an extensive Q&A allowed for a unique and engaging experience with the 40 participants we were delighted to welcome. To our pleasure, we reached participants from all occupations, origins, and age groups. Students, architects, and policy advisors from 17 countries in and outside of Europe, born between 1957 and 2001 took the time to join us – thank you!
