Nele Mariën, Friends of the Earth International
Last week, IPBES approved the Business and Biodiversity Assessment. The report offers a comprehensive synthesis on the interlinkages between business activity and biodiversity loss. It analyses how businesses depends on and impacts biodiversity.
There is much to welcome. The assessment documents in detail how corporate activities across sectors – from agribusiness and mining to infrastructure and finance – are major direct and indirect drivers of biodiversity loss. It also shows that regulatory frameworks, when well designed and enforced, are among the most effective measures for shifting corporate behaviour.
An Assumption That Deserves Scrutiny
A recurring premise in parts of the assessment is that if businesses better understand biodiversity risks, are equipped with appropriate tools, and operate within enabling environments, this will catalyse meaningful change. In other words, knowledge plus tools plus incentives are expected to drive transformation.
This is actually an unverified assumption.
There is abundant evidence that many corporations already understand their environmental impacts in detail. Internal reporting systems, risk assessments and sustainability departments are well established in major companies. And yet destructive practices continue. Indeed, many companies proactively lobby to avoid regulation.
Policies That Truly Serve Biodiversity
Investigations have repeatedly shown that companies proceed with deforestation, ecosystem destruction and pollution despite clear knowledge of the ecological consequences.
For example:
-
Major agribusiness actors have been linked to ongoing deforestation in tropical forest frontiers, despite public zero-deforestation commitments.
-
Fossil fuel companies have long been aware of climate and environmental impacts while expanding extraction.
-
Mining and infrastructure projects continue to advance in biodiversity hotspots, even where cumulative impacts are well documented.
These are not failures of awareness. They are failures of incentives, governance and power structures.
Understanding alone does not override power assymetries, short-term profit imperatives, shareholder pressure or competitive market dynamics. Voluntary tools, reporting initiatives and partnerships do not automatically change core business models. Worse, they are treated as substitutes for strong public regulation.
Importantly, the IPBES assessment clearly documents:
-
That voluntary approaches alone have shown limited effectiveness.
-
That regulatory measures – including binding standards, liability regimes and enforcement mechanisms – are consistently associated with stronger biodiversity outcomes.
However, these insights are not always reflected with sufficient force in the framing of high-level messages. The emphasis on enabling environments and corporate uptake risks overshadowing the structural reforms that the evidence itself supports.
The approval of this assessment creates an important political moment for future CBD decisions. It is important they engage with its evidence carefully and make decisions that are commensurate with the scale of biodiversity loss.
These would include:
-
Clear prohibition of biodiversity-destructive practices;
-
Binding obligations and tight implementation control;
-
Robust liability and access to remedy;
-
Stopping harmful subsidies and incentives;
-
Strong public oversight of corporate claims and disclosures;
If biodiversity is truly the priority, then policies must be designed around what demonstrably works – not around what is politically convenient or institutionally comfortable.
Sources
1. desmog.com/2025/06/24/corporate-lobbying-eroded-flagship-eu-sustainability-rules-report
2. sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378025000433
3. ran.org/issue/the-businesses-driving-deforestation
4. sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032125000322
5. researchgate.net/publication/381428628_Biodiversity_Loss_Due_to_Mining_Activities
6. Playing Nice with Business Won’t Save Biodiversity. foei.org/playing-nice-with-business-wont-save-biodiversity