Biodiversity: The Next Frontier of Sustainability Capability?

Biodiversity is rising rapidly up the corporate agenda. But for many organisations, turning growing awareness into practical business decisions is still a work in progress. This article explores why biodiversity is becoming an emerging organisational capability, what recent research tells us, and where businesses can begin.

During my research with leading sustainability decision-makers last year, three areas repeatedly emerged as the next frontier of sustainability capability in business: biodiversity, circular economy and AI. As we wrap up the month with Earth Overshoot Day on 30 July, it feels like a good time to talk about biodiversity and the role of business.

Tomorrow marks the point when humanity's demand for ecological resources and services exceeds what Earth can regenerate this year. Meanwhile, countries are currently meeting under the Convention on Biological Diversity to examine progress against the 23 targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

Why biodiversity in business matters?

Biodiversity is part of a much wider relationship between business and nature. Around 55% of global GDP, US$58 trillion, is moderately or highly dependent on nature, with dependencies found across all 163 economic sectors analysed by PwC. Think about:

🌳 Timber and pulp for construction, furniture and packaging, while forests face increasing pressure from wildfire, land-use change and degradation.

🌾 Wheat, rice, coffee and cocoa are exposed to changing rainfall, drought, flooding, heat, pests and declining ecosystem health.

💧 Lithium and copper are essential to the energy transition and everyday technologies, but have potential biodiversity impacts associated with extraction and water use. An estimated 50–80% of lithium and copper mines are located in areas experiencing water stress.

Yet corporate capability and accountability haven't necessarily caught up. Recent research shared by Stockholm Resilience Centre examining 180 influential companies found that while biodiversity commitments are becoming more common, many still lack the measurable targets and accountability needed to demonstrate progress.

So how can businesses start building biodiversity capability?

Businesses don't need to start from scratch. WBCSD's Roadmaps to Nature Positive, TNFD and SBTN provide increasingly sophisticated guidance on assessing nature-related impacts and dependencies, engaging stakeholders, setting targets, taking action and disclosing progress.

Perhaps the bigger capability challenge isn't teaching sustainability teams about biodiversity. It's ensuring the people who influence an organisation's relationship with nature have the knowledge, skills, authority and relationships to make different decisions because of it.

So where should businesses focus?

• Build capability where decisions are made. Biodiversity literacy needs to extend into boards, leadership, strategy, finance, procurement, risk, operations and product development. People don't need to become biodiversity experts, but they do need to understand how nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities affect their decisions.

• Build capability across the value chain. Suppliers, customers, local communities, Indigenous Peoples, NGOs and other partners can hold knowledge businesses don't have internally. Go beyond consultation to build the relationships and shared capability needed to tackle impacts and dependencies across supply chains and landscapes.

• Equip governance to ask better questions. Boards and governance teams need enough capability to challenge strategy, understand nature-related risks and trade-offs, scrutinise targets and investment, and hold the organisation accountable. Frameworks can provide the structure, but people still need to interpret and act on the information.

• Turn knowledge into different business decisions. Capability ultimately shows up in what a business does differently: what and where it sources, what it designs, who it partners with, where it invests, how it uses land and water, and how nature is considered alongside financial, climate and social impacts.

We know biodiversity matters, but the questions are: Do our organisations have the capability to make different decisions because of it? How is your organisation building biodiversity capability?🌿