Our thinking

At the service of nature

1 January, 1970

It’s hard – maybe encroaching on impossible – to overstate the extent to which business (and life) is dependent on nature.

A recent article in the FT quotes a European Central Bank estimate that at least three quarters of companies are highly dependent on at least one ‘ecosystem service’ (think water, pollination, fresh air) and that the risk of environmental degradation could impact on the creditworthiness of 4.2 million companies. Our view is that a full accounting would lead to an even higher number. Can you think of a business that doesn’t rely on the natural world to exist?

So we’re big believers in the idea of thinking of nature as a service, and using this mindset shift to bolster attempts to address the damage we are creating to it. It dials up the way we may need market mechanisms to protect the oceans and forests, and find a way to account for them in measures of economic performance. And it underscores the universality of the issue, and the way it will impact on all of us in complex ways, which underscores the need to find collaborative, long-term and systemic ways to move forward. As the FT article suggests, climate degradation is exactly the kind of long-term, transnational problem that trans-national institutions were established to manage. We just hope there is greater recognition of the urgency of the challenge.

By Larissa Persons