Writing For Conservation Projects

A new blueprint for sustainability from the IPBES Nexus Report! The latest IPBES (they're like the IPCC for nature) nexus report is a must read for all of us working toward a sustainable future. It highlights the inextricable links between biodiversity, water, food, health, and climate—and how these interconnected systems must be tackled together, not in silos. Here are some key insights: ➡️ Biodiversity has declined 2–6% per decade across all assessed indicators for the past 30–50 years. ➡️ Over 50% of the global population lives in areas experiencing severe impacts from biodiversity loss, water scarcity, food insecurity, and climate change. ➡️ Nature-dependent sectors account for $58 trillion annually—more than 50% of global GDP—but we’re incurring up to $25 trillion annually in external costs due to unsustainable practices in fossil fuels, agriculture, and fisheries. ➡️ Meanwhile, the private sector generates $5.3 trillion annually in activities that directly harm biodiversity, and public subsidies incentivizing damage total $1.7 trillion each year. Despite the challenges, solutions exist: ✔️ Protecting 30% of the world’s land, waters, and seas by 2030 could provide broad benefits if managed effectively for both people and nature. ✔️ Urban nature-based solutions—like green spaces and wetlands—help cities tackle heat, pollution, and water quality issues while also improving health. ✔️ Indigenous Peoples and local communities offer proven models for conserving biodiversity sustainably, such as reduced deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon after securing tenure rights. The stakes are high, but so are the opportunities. By shifting investments, leveraging equitable and integrated solutions, and fostering cross-sector collaboration, we can close the $1 trillion annual financing gap for biodiversity—and bridge the broader $4 trillion gap for SDG goals. Let’s rise to the challenge and create a future where biodiversity thrives, economies prosper, and no one is left behind! I'll be doing more analysis and discussion in the coming days of the 70+ solutions laid out in the report. So watch this space! Check out the report: https://lnkd.in/dux3zajy #Sustainability #IPBES #Biodiversity #Nature #SustainableFinance #Innovation

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has released a comprehensive report highlighting the intricate connections among #biodiversity, #water, #food, #health, and #climatechange. This "Nexus Report" emphasizes that addressing these global challenges in isolation is ineffective and may exacerbate existing issues. Here are five key takeaways from the report: Interconnected Crises Amplify Economic Losses: 👉 The report estimates that neglecting the interlinked crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, water scarcity, food insecurity, and health risks results in unaccounted costs ranging from $10 trillion to $25 trillion annually, equivalent to about a quarter of global GDP.Sectors such as agriculture, energy, and fishing contribute significantly to these losses by failing to consider the broader environmental impacts of their activities. 👉 Delayed Action Increases Future Costs: Procrastination in addressing these interconnected issues leads to escalating expenses.For instance, inaction on climate change could add $500 billion annually to future costs, while postponing measures to combat biodiversity loss may double the associated costs if delayed by a decade. 👉 Misaligned Financial Incentives Perpetuate Environmental Harm: Current government subsidies, totaling approximately $1.7 trillion annually, often support environmentally detrimental practices, including fossil fuel production, overfishing, and unsustainable agriculture. These subsidies, along with $5.3 trillion in private financial flows that damage biodiversity, exacerbate the crises they aim to mitigate. 👉 Holistic Approaches Yield Significant Benefits: The report underscores the necessity of integrated policy efforts that consider the complex interconnections among biodiversity, water, food, health, and climate change. Implementing holistic solutions can unlock $10 trillion in business opportunities and support 395 million jobs globally by 2030. Proven strategies, such as agroforestry and nature-friendly renewable energy schemes, demonstrate that it's possible to address multiple environmental challenges simultaneously. 👉 Addressing Inequalities is Crucial for Transformative Change: Persistent economic and political inequalities, often rooted in historical contexts like colonialism, hinder efforts to halt biodiversity loss. The report calls for transformative change that includes recognizing and addressing these inequalities to create a more equitable and sustainable future. https://lnkd.in/dyz2_-HM

Nature loss is now a national security issue. Last night, ITV News reported on a Joint Intelligence Committee assessment, drawing on analysis from MI5 and MI6, warning that biodiversity loss could leave UK GDP 12% lower by 2030. That figure did not appear in the public summary. It only became public following a Freedom of Information request. A 12% GDP hit is larger than the economic shock of the financial crisis. This isn’t about wildlife. It’s about: • Food security • Water security • Energy and transport continuity • Economic stability When ecosystems degrade, productivity slows. Insurance retreats. Infrastructure strains. Growth weakens. These risks are not theoretical. They are compounding. But here’s the part that matters. We already know how to reduce this risk. Landscape recovery projects, like the Evenlode Catchment initiative, show what practical, place-based resilience looks like: • Slowing floods • Reducing drought exposure • Improving water quality • Restoring biodiversity • Storing carbon • Protecting homes, farms, businesses and critical assets This is more than environmental policy. It is economic defence. And it can be financed by blending public capital with long-term institutional investors, including pension funds whose time horizons align naturally with nature recovery. Nature is infrastructure. And infrastructure is investible. If the intelligence community is calling this systemic risk, capital markets should be paying attention. If you have 9 minutes this weekend, the ITV What You Need to Know report is worth watching. It reframes the entire conversation. Well done to Martin Stew and the ITV News team for bringing this into the public domain. 🔗 ITV report (9 mins): https://lnkd.in/dKT_zcC6 #NatureAsInfrastructure #NationalResilience #ClimateRisk #NaturalCapital #PensionFunds #LandscapeRecovery

We need to be more honest about #biodiversityloss. The recent UK national security assessment reframed biodiversity loss for what it is: a systems failure with consequences that cascade through food systems, water security, supply chains, social stability, and national security. Biodiversity loss isn’t an environmental issue sitting politely beside others. When ecosystems unravel, everything built on top of them becomes more fragile. Including our economies. Including our institutions. Including our assumptions about growth, safety, and control. What makes this moment confronting isn’t just the scale of loss. it’s how quietly it’s happening. Species don’t collapse on quarterly reporting cycles. Ecosystems don’t issue profit warnings. They fail slowly, then suddenly. And our current models are dangerously good at missing that kind of risk. Being honest about biodiversity loss means admitting we treat nature as an externality and the ramifications have never been neutral. We’ve known they are a deferred cost, whose dividend is about to be paid. It also means recognising this isn’t about saving “nature” as something separate from us. It’s about safeguarding the living systems that make stability, prosperity, and security possible in the first place.

Biodiversity is reorganising at a planetary scale. A landmark Nature study by François Keck and colleagues synthesised 2,133 studies, covering nearly 98,000 impacted and reference sites across land, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. They measured three dimensions of change: local diversity, composition shifts, and homogenisation, across the five main human pressures: land use change, resource exploitation, pollution, climate change, and invasive species. The global picture is clear. Community composition changes strongly and consistently under human pressure, and local diversity declines across all biomes. Pollution and habitat change are among the most potent drivers. The long-assumed universal trend towards homogenisation is not supported; instead, its direction depends on spatial scale. Larger scales tend to show more homogenisation, while smaller scales often reveal differentiation. The authors’ findings have direct relevance for implementing the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Targets that fail to account for spatial scale risk masking real changes. Monitoring systems should track composition shifts alongside richness, and include microbial and fungal communities, which often respond earliest to pressures or restoration. In freshwater systems, this matters for places like the beautiful Shkodër Lake, walking distance from where I live, with its many endemic and threatened molluscs, fish, and water birds. Regional and local distinctiveness must be maintained alongside global targets. From my perspective, four imperatives follow. First, direct finance, procurement, and regulation toward cutting pollution and safeguarding habitat integrity. These offer the fastest ecological gains while supporting broader recovery. Second, make biodiversity monitoring scale explicit in all GBF implementation plans, financing frameworks, and corporate disclosures. Third, invest in the capacity to monitor microbial and fungal communities as early warning indicators alongside plants and animals. Fourth, include shifts in species composition, not just measures of species richness, to indicate degradation or restoration, as the total number of species at different points in time can mask significant changes in what species are present. These steps, taken together, create a pathway for policy, finance, and restoration to work with the living patterns of ecosystems, rather than chasing statistical illusions. #Biodiversity #KunmingMontrealGBF #NaturePositive #PollutionControl #EcosystemRestoration

GRI has released a new practical guide to support companies in strengthening their biodiversity reporting and aligning with the new GRI 101 Biodiversity Standard, now in effect as of January 2026. The guide, Decoding biodiversity impacts, provides technical direction on how organizations can assess biodiversity impacts across operations and supply chains, integrate nature-related information into governance and decision-making, and improve the quality and reliability of disclosures. It also emphasizes the importance of location-specific data and structured approaches to address persistent data gaps. This release comes at a critical moment. The latest IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment, approved by representatives from 150 governments, highlights that business activities continue to accelerate nature loss, while many companies do not fully internalize the financial implications of their biodiversity impacts. As a result, expectations around biodiversity disclosure are rapidly increasing across regulatory, investor, and stakeholder environments. The introduction of GRI 101 Biodiversity establishes a clear global benchmark. Biodiversity disclosure is becoming a structured process that enables companies to identify operational dependencies, assess risk exposure, and incorporate nature-related considerations into governance, strategy, and capital allocation decisions. This reflects a broader shift in corporate reporting. Biodiversity is no longer treated as a peripheral sustainability topic, but as a material factor that influences operational resilience, supply chain stability, and long-term financial performance. Source: Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), 2026

𝐄𝐒𝐆𝐢𝐧𝟑: 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐦 𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 – 𝐂𝐎𝐏𝟏𝟔 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬! With COP16 coming to a close, market momentum continues to build around the critical importance of nature and biodiversity in the broader sustainable development agenda. Ecosystems are increasingly at risk and with >50% of global GDP moderately or highly dependent on nature & its services (according to WEF report), regulators and stakeholders are prioritizing nature-related impacts in the context of material financial risk to organizations (those with high biodiversity risks could be more vulnerable to future disruptions and financial losses) and the capital markets. Early insights from Cali suggest there were some wins and some continued opportunities, and now we now look towards COP29, the Climate Finance COP. Transparency and reliable disclosure are critical to driving accountability, and a system that enables consistent and comparable reported sustainability information will help unlock capital to finance the transition considering the inextricable link between nature and climate. 🌎 In connection with COP16, >500 global orgs committed (https://lnkd.in/e2uKX_FW) to following the 2023 #TNFD recommendations (https://lnkd.in/emwmbj3A), a 57% increase since January. And important steps are progressing with the #TNFD and #ISSB to establish a clear path to integrating nature and biodiversity into the global baseline for sustainability reporting to the capital markets. 🌎 IFAC recently released a call to action: Building a Just World and a Sustainable Planet: G20 Call to Action 2024 | IFAC (https://lnkd.in/eVJYFyuN ) to G20 policymakers to, among other things: advocate for a global framework built on the #ISSB standards and #ISSA5000 for assurance; and support the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) in developing global public sector sustainability standards, emphasizing the importance of the recently released public consultation IPSASB Issues Draft of Climate-related Disclosures Standard for the Public Sector (https://lnkd.in/eG-Yrxqg) to meet the public sector’s unique sustainability and climate-related reporting needs. 🌎 Building on the market attention emphasizing the importance of disclosure as a tool to drive performance and action, in this 1st year of the most sweeping sustainability disclosure regulation of our time (EU #CSRD) European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) (EU financial regulator) published its 2024 enforcement priorities. My colleague Veronica Poole highlights key points (https://lnkd.in/e3eq97k4), including; critical role of governance and assurance, the need for detailed materiality process disclosure and emphasis on the sustainability statement format, and connectivity to financial reporting. The time to act is now!  #deloitteesgnow

#Nature and #biodiversity are the next big frontier in corporate disclosure. Over the past decade, we’ve seen climate move from a niche ESG topic to a core part of corporate reporting. Now, the conversation is expanding as investors, regulators, and companies see that nature loss, water stress, and ecosystem degradation create financial, operational, and legal risks. Two developments underscore this shift: 1. The work of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) on nature‑related standards, building on frameworks like the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), signals that global baseline reporting is going beyond greenhouse gases to broader nature dependencies and impacts. 2. The CDP questionnaire now integrates nature across climate, water, forests, and biodiversity questions. This is pushing companies to disclose their dependence and impact on natural systems, and how they manage those risks and opportunities. Happy to connect with others who are working at this intersection of climate, nature, biodiversity, and disclosure. #water #climate #naturalsystems

Our friends at the GRI just released a new free resource on biodiversity impacts with case studies and is a welcome move. It reinforces that biodiversity reporting has to be practical, impact-based, and useful for decision-making. GRI says GRI (standard) 101 helps organizations identify the direct drivers of biodiversity loss linked to operations and supply chains, map where impacts occur, and assess effects on ecosystems and communities. It also states plainly that “information on impacts is necessary to make decisions for change.” That is exactly why this matters to projects. If your projects are not identifying biodiversity impacts, assessing them, and creating a pathway for that information to support non-financial reporting, then your organization is only telling part of the story. The Project Management Institute GPM (Green Project Management®) P5 Standard for Sustainability in Project Management was built for this. The Free P5 Standard says it “addresses sustainability performance and impacts from a project” and provides inputs to support ESG disclosures, GRI, UNGC, and other sustainability reports. It is even more direct than that: “Most guidance on reporting requires that the organization determine material topics starting with identifying actual and potential impacts as a first step. In practice a P5 Impact Analysis accomplishes this for the project.” And our PMI-GPM reporting guidance closes the loop. The Sustainability Management Plan is supposed to include a “Sustainability Reporting Summary” describing how the project and its outcomes contribute to the organization’s sustainability strategy and are used as material for sustainability reporting. Sustainability is a project delivery issue. Get their resource here 👉 : https://lnkd.in/gt44jaFb? #GRI #Biodiversity #GRI101 #P5 #SustainabilityReporting #ESG #ProjectManagement #Materiality #Nature #PMI #GPM