External contribution: Solving biodiversity challenges

By Christine Rodwell, Camille Gelb and Orens Gasset

The importance of fighting climate change is gradually being understood and integrated into corporate strategies. However, still few decision-makers have decided to tackle the issue of biodiversity loss, which is yet critical as the sixth mass extinction is underway. Biodiversity and climate change are twin crises, which should be addressed simultaneously.

At the very least, biodiversity preservation is an efficient lever in the fight against climate change. Forest and ocean protection, as well as soil restoration, allow for the increase of carbon sinks. The capacity of the Earth to store the atmospheric carbon responsible for climate change is at stake.^[1] Carbon storage, however, is only one of the many benefits that companies and human beings can derive from biodiversity. Nature provides a range of ecosystem services, which can be sorted into four categories.

• Provisioning services are the material benefits people get from ecosystems – for example: supply of food, water, fibres, wood and fuels.

• Regulating services are the benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes – for example: the regulation of air quality and soil fertility, control of floods or crop pollination.

• Supporting services are necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services – for example: by providing plants and animals with living spaces, allowing for diversity of species, and maintaining genetic diversity.

• Cultural services are non-material benefits people gain from ecosystems – for example: aesthetic and engineering inspiration, cultural identity and spiritual well-being.

The value of ecosystem services is estimated to be around €125 billion. They are vital for human life and economic activity. Hence, social, economic and environmental costs could be dire if nothing was done to protect biodiversity. ^[2]

Vivae aims at bringing awareness and support to business and public leaders, as well as capitalising on best practices. Vivae is committed to the emergence of solutions tailored to each sector and territorial realities. Hand in hand with decision-makers, Vivae is determined to tackle biodiversity loss and transform it into an opportunity which will benefit both economic activity and our planet.

About the author

In 2023, Christine Rodwell founded Vivae (https://vivae.eco/), driven by her unwavering conviction that efficient solutions to tackle biodiversity loss will emerge from a constructive dialogue between all  stakeholders. Thanks to Christine’s extensive experience with a broad range of actors, Vivae gathers for the first time all stakeholders involved in the protection of biodiversity: companies, investors, civil society, public sector and academia. Both Vivae’s steering committee and partnerships reflect this dialogue approach.

^[1] In 2018, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) estimated that soil restoration activities could contribute to two-thirds of the mitigation measures required to reach the objectives set by the Paris Agreement.

^[2]IPBES states that by 2050 global agricultural productivity could decrease by an average of 10%. As the world population continues to increase and 99% of food destined for human consumption comes from terrestrial ecosystems, soil degradation is thus a direct threat to global food security.