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Joël Houdet INTEGRATING BIODIVERSITY INTO BUSINESS STRATEGIES the Biodiversity Accountability Framework

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Joël Houdet INTEGRATING BIODIVERSITY INTO BUSINESS STRATEGIES the Biodiversity Accountability Framework Joël Houdet INTEGRATING BIODIVERSITY INTO BUSINESS STRATEGIES The Biodiversity Accountability Framework Joël Houdet Biodiversity advisor Orée – Entreprises, Territoires et Environnement PhD candidate (CIFRE fellowship), CREED – Veolia Environnement Doctoral school ABIES, AgroParisTech UMR 8079 Ecologie Systématique Evolution - 3 - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Sylvie BENARD, Nathalie FRASCARIA-LACOSTE, Ghislaine HIERSO, François LAURANS, Nadia LOURY, Maryvonne TISSIER, Mathieu TOLIAN, Michel TROMMETTER and Jacques WEBER for their assistance with the completion of this work. Thanks go also to the whole team at Orée, and in particular to Marc BARRA for his help on the companies’ self-assessments with respect to the Business and Biodiversity Interdependence Indicator (BBII). Lastly, I would like to thank all the people and organisations who have contributed articles and self-assessments, and CREED-Veolia Environnement for funding the research project (CIFRE fellowship – PhD thesis). - 4 - The concept of biological diversity, or biodiversity, presents a real challenge to businesses. In response to this challenge, in February 2006 the Institut français de la biodiversité (IFB, one of the two organisations that merged to give rise to the Fondation pour la recherche sur la biodiversité, FRB) and Orée initiated a Working Group “how can we integrate biodiversity into business strategies”. Some thirty businesses, including both multinationals and small and medium enterprises, as well as local governments and representatives of non-profit organisations and government ministries, participated in the study group. It was co-chaired by Jacques Weber, director of the IFB, and François Laurans, then deputy director for research of Veolia Environnement, who was succeeded in 2007 by Mathieu Tolian from ‘‘ Veolia’s Department of environmental performance. Bruno David, chair of IFB’s scientific committee, and Michel Trommetter, a member of the same committee, have actively participated in the Working Group. A CIFRE fellowship (PhD thesis) on the topic, funded in part by Veolia Environnement, has been carried out concomitantly to the Working Group’s work. Three years after the Paris Conference on “Biodiversity: Science and Governance”, the IFB-Orée Working Group has succeeded in demystifying the concept of biodiversity for businesses and has shown them that their dependence on biodiversity is even greater than their effect on it. “Integrating biodiversity into business strategies: the Biodiversity Accountability Framework” is thus an eagerly awaited book and a remarkable demonstration of the IFB’s ongoing commitment to its mission of knowledge transfer and communication of expertise. The FRB is pleased and proud to co-publish this work and looks forward to pursuing the cordial and solid relations already established, within the context of this Working Group, with a substantial number of businesses who are now its partners. Xavier LE ROUX, Director, FRB - 5 - ’’ PREFACE Businesses and biodiversity: us?” This question presupposes a view of the living economics and life world as merely the sum of its parts, but scientists In 1979, René Passet published a groundbreaking work are now in agreement that biodiversity is the outcome on environmental economics, “L’Economique et le of the interactions among organisms in changing vivant”, in which he represented the world as composed environments. Medicine can tell us about the muscles, of three concentric spheres: the ecosphere or economic bones, nerves, genes and proteins of an organism, sphere, the sociosphere or social sphere and the bios- but can it tell us how a collection of organs becomes phere or living world, which encompasses the other alive? two. These spheres, says Passet, are not autonomous: Viewing the world as composed of a collection of matter, energy and information are exchanged between juxtaposed species is consistent with the type of them. This representation of the world, though sche- thinking about nature from which the naming and matic, is extremely interesting as an illustration of the classification of species developed. When all the interdependence of the economy and society with the species of the world had been identified and samples biosphere. of every species had been collected, we would have Passet’s conception has the additional merit of presen- lost biodiversity, which resides in the interactions ting the biosphere as a whole, which fits with the between these species. current scientific understanding of biodiversity. The Suppose there was only one planetary living system, term itself was coined by E. O. Wilson in 1988, four with the capacity to adapt to local conditions (tempe- years before the 1992 Rio Conference, and has been rature, pressure) in all types of environment, from defined in many ways since then. The French National mountain peaks to ocean depths, under every sort Biodiversity Strategy (MEDD, 2004), has adopted this of extreme conditions. One way for this living system one: to adapt would be to produce adaptive emergences, “Biodiversity is an essential dimension of life. It takes which we call species. Humans themselves would the form of genetic diversity, diversity of species be simply the result of one adaptive emergence and diversity of ecosystems. It carries the evolutio- within this living system, occurring in the Rift Valley nary potential which guarantees the adaptability in East Africa a few million years ago. of species and ecosystems in the face of global This definition is one of the most comprehensive change. Biodiversity is a vital issue for human socie- available and the most relevant to the subject of ties because of the goods and services it provides. this work, in that it accentuates the importance of The uses which have been made of it have marked diversity and adaptability in the dynamics of living the landscapes and have shaped it in return. It is systems. It also highlights the dependence of the permeated with symbolic, cultural and community economy on the living world. Accordingly, the erosion values. We humans must preserve the diversity of of biodiversity can have nothing but negative effects the living world on ethical, cultural, biological, ecolo- on business. gical and economic grounds”. Interaction is the keyword of life. We must interact Some people argue that technology can overcome to co-operate, to procreate, to change the environ- the consequences of species loss and, to paraphrase ment in which we evolve and to adapt to the natural the public query of a prominent member of the evolution of that environment. In the same way, French Academy of Medicine “after all, what does interaction with the entire living world is vital for the extinction of whales or giraffes have to do with us: we eat nothing but living organisms - vegeta- - 6 - bles, fruit, meat - and we co-operate with living as religious and cultural aspects of our relationship organisms to obtain other products, such as those with living systems(2). The Stern Report, published in which require fermentation - beer, wine, cheese and 2007(3), assessed the economic consequences of inac- bread, among others. Our buildings are largely tion with respect to climate change by the year 2050 composed of material derived from living systems. and created quite a stir. Fossil fuels and limestone are also inherited from A conference at the Elysée Palace in February 2007, the biodiversity of past eras, as is the very air we arranged by President Jacques Chirac, assigned the breathe. same degree of priority to biodiversity and climate Businesses too are involved in those interactions change on the international political agenda and with the living world: envisaged the need for reform of the ways in which From it they derive raw materials and biotech- economic activity world-wide is regulated. A proposal nologies, so-called because they are derived or was made to create a global ecological organisa- copied from living systems (bio-mimetism(1)). tion for this purpose, which would co-ordinate all They disrupt it by waste discharge and emis- UN agencies’ policies. sions, infrastructural development and selective In 2008, the European Commission undertook a pressures which modify the evolutionary poten- similar project to assess the costs of inaction if the tial of biodiversity. 2010 target of halting the erosion of biodiversity is Up until 2005, the year of the Paris Conference on not met (which we know it will not be). The group “Biodiversity, Science and Governance”, it was in charge of this project has released an interim common to hear people say that biodiversity was report with instructive preliminary results for busi- too complicated an issue for businesses to get nesses(4). involved with, except perhaps as sponsors of some The group began by developing an analytical frame- environmental initiatives lead by non-governmental work based on the work of the OECD and the organisations. It was different from the issue of Millennium ecosystem assessment. climate change, for which an accounting unit was available, the tonne of carbon. Biodiversity was seen as an exogenous constraint, to be addressed by OECD helping preserve some charismatic species, which Baseline would in return be beneficial to the company’s repu- scenario Change Change tation. in Change in Land use, in Economic Climate, Biodiversity Change Value A lot has changed since 2005! Pollution, in The Millennium ecosystem assessment, published Water Ecosystem International use services in May 2005, has had a considerable
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