Practical guidance on valuing nature for businesses and platform coordinators

The EU B@B Platform hosted three sessions at the We Value Nature 10-Day Challenge. The interactive sessions reached more than 200 stakeholders and already identified a series of next steps for the Platform and the webinars’ participants. Below you can find more information about each session.

Session 1. How to develop practical guidance on nature and biodiversity for SMEs in the agri-food sector?

The session aimed to engage SMEs and their partners on the following challenge: “How to develop practical guidance on nature and biodiversity for SMEs in the agri-food sector?” The session specifically focused on:

• identifying practical solutions implemented by pioneering SMEs;
• mapping the support tools, guidance and data already available to SMEs; and
• identifying the key elements that must be included in these guidance to ensure their relevance for SMEs.

Download the slide deck and summary and watch the recording.

Session 2. Navigating the landscape of biodiversity measurement tools for business

This session presented the latest work by the EU B@B Platform to better understand the emerging field of measurement approaches for biodiversity. Using the Biodiversity Measurement Navigation Wheel as a reference to guide decision-making, the session drove participants through a number of key criteria that inform businesses about which approach fits best their needs. The session presented this new decision framework and illustrated its functionalities by means of concrete case studies on how businesses have applied different biodiversity measurement approaches.

Key takeaways:

• There exist a broad range of approaches being applied across finance, food, cement, mining, manufacturing, and fisheries sectors. There is increased uptake and understanding among businesses of elements of alignment across approaches including with regard to business applications, baselines, boundaries, data inputs etc.
• There is a clear movement towards more scientifically robust approaches to measure biodiversity, aligned with global biodiversity indicators.
• There is increased recognition among the business community that the one and only biodiversity indicator does not exist and a clear tendency towards dashboard approach allowing the smart combination of tools.
• While measurement approaches are becoming more robust, there remain various challenges including lack of capacity of users calling for the development of training materials and courses to facilitate the uptake, lack of data collection, difficulty to link risks related to ecosystem degradation with financial risk, etc.

Download the slide deck and session summary and watch the recording.

Session 3. Peer-learning for business and biodiversity platform coordinators: Sharing challenges and tups for success in setting up and maintaining platforms

The session aimed to provide an opportunity for coordinators of business and biodiversity platforms to share their key challenges and learn from each other about the best practices and strategies to tackle them. the session was organised as an interactive peer-learning event, driven by participants’ questions, and delivered over MS Teams and a Mural digital board. Some of the topics covered included pre-platform preparation, financing a platform, choosing an engagement strategy, and maintaining momentum.

The session specifically focused on:

• (1) challenges in setting up a business and biodiversity platform; and
• (2) challenges in maintaining momentum and measuring success.

Download the slide deck and session summary and watch the recording.