The TEEB for Business Coalition will be hosting a breakfast workshop in Rio on the 17th of June to explore
‘Taking account of nature: what changes corporate behaviour?’
This will be a unique opportunity to shape leading thinking on valuing natural capital in business, looking at three main questions:
- What are they key initiatives currently looking at ways to value natural capital?
- How can these be made meaningful for business?
- What do businesses need in order to account for natural capital?
This will no doubt be an exciting affair!
The interactive workshop will bring together various stakeholders and explore how cross-business initiatives are valuing ecosystems and biodiversity dependencies and impacts. Executives from businesses will discuss the challenges they are facing in building a business case for managing the valuation of ecosystems and biodiversity impacts and dependencies, the specific resources/inputs that matter to them, and the main organisational barriers in implementing ways to manage these dependencies and impacts.
We will then look at next steps in formalising a high-level process for moving forward on creating standards for businesses to internalize ecosystem and biodiversity impacts and dependencies, how business organisations can get involved in these activities, and the specific next steps that need to be taken.
What is the TEEB for Business Coalition?
ICAEW (the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales) together with HRH The Prince of Wales’s Accounting for Sustainability project, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), WWF-UK (World Wildlife Fund UK), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and a number of other organisations, are engaged in the exploratory process to develop the Coalition. The Coalition will drive forward the TEEB for Business workstream by creating a common platform to catalyse research and action on corporate environmental externalities.
Among other things this includes implementation and standardisation of methodologies for measuring and valuing impact as well as engagement on public policy reforms. UNEP, which continues to host TEEB initiatives has also joined the Coalition and the UK Government has formally backed the endeavour in Defra’s Natural Environment White Paper published in June 2011. The Coalition is generously supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The Coalition will be based in Singapore with the support of the Singapore Economic Development Board. This will give the Coalition a strong presence in the emerging economies of Asia which is vital to the present, and even more so to the future of the corporate world.