Part of a series of blogs from Emma Burlow, Founder of Lighthouse Sustainability.
Biodiversity– knowing your Bees and Seas…
Businesses are becoming more competent at understanding their carbon emissions, identifying target areas and starting to act; but we see a wide knowledge gap when it comes to the impact businesses have on Biodiversity and their reliance on Biodiversity to function. A rare few are yet to set policies or act decisively, and most have little or no internal sense of direction when it comes to their responsibility or indeed the scope for opportunity around Biodiversity.
Reminiscent of carbon 10 years ago, the breadth of understanding of Biodiversity in business is narrow. When asked, most businesses struggle to articulate their impact, or refer to bee hives or ‘no mow’ areas of the car park as relevant actions.
We believe Biodiversity will be the ‘next climate change’ with regard to external forces on business. The same ‘getting up to speed’ will occur and there will be a rapid need to upskill senior teams, procurement teams, sales teams and establish a common language that we can all work to.
Many businesses are now familiar with the language around Scope 1, 2, and 3 carbon emissions- so perhaps a similar approach can translate to Biodiversity? Adam Hall explored this in our recent Biodiversity Webinar, where he outlined how you might apply scopes to Biodiversity:
- Scope 1 – Direct effects on Biodiversity i.e., within the grounds of the business – greenspace, trees, birdboxes, wildflowers, bee bricks
- Scope 2 – Indirect effects to the local biodiversity, local natural areas that may well be affected by the business’s presence to that area, or where employees live, travel through or like to visit.
- Scope 3 – All other indirect effects to wider biodiversity (as with Scope 3 emissions this accounts for the largest and most difficult to tackle effects) – the impacts of the materials you use and the supplier operations – think cotton production, palm oil, raw material mining, pollution from factories into natural areas.
Again, referencing back to the now more familiar language of carbon reporting – where carbon ‘hotspots’ are highlighted to focus the business on the ‘biggest wins’ -taking a Scopes approach could help to bring businesses up to speed quickly on their approach to Biodiversity and the all-important early actions they can take.
We are planning to launch short (bitesize) and mid (half-day) training on Biodiversity in Business in the Autumn, working with Adam Hall, Gerry O’Brien and using live examples from business.
If you’d like to be kept in the loop or indeed take part in our pilot phase – drop us a line.
– Emma Burlow
Founder, Lighthouse Sustainability
