Nature or biodiversity is relevant to all businesses, irrespective of their sector or size. Sometimes there’s a really obvious link to biodiversity – for example a housing developer will need to achieve 10% Biodiversity Net Gain on a new development and will need to restore or create habitats to more than make up for what will be lost. Some businesses will need to delve a bit deeper into their supply chain. A fashion retailer would look at where their garments are manufactured to find the impacts the manufacturing process is having on biodiversity. For example, the production of raw materials is likely to be where the biggest impacts on biodiversity lie (e.g., from intensive farming of cotton or sheep grazing).
Nature Positive Business is a nationally-recognised issue, with the Confederation of British Industry stating "Firms must understand how their activity can lead to nature loss.. you can't be net zero without being nature positive" and The Green Finance Institute has established the Group of Financial Institutions for Nature (G-FIN) which is committed to the development and expansion of high integrity nature markets in the UK.
We're supporting businesses across Oxfordshire to get Nature Positive when making decisions about what to buy, how to manage land, or how to reduce, reuse and recycle. By choosing the best options for nature we can, collectively, make a huge, positive contribution and grow Oxfordshire’s Nature Recovery Network.
Explore how these businesses are making Nature a part of business as usual.
A tool to help businesses begin to identify where their biggest biodiversity risks lie.
For example, do you have operational, management or corporate citizenship drivers? An example of an operational driver is that you have a direct footprint impact on biodiversity through your operations and want to address this. A management driver could be that you want to engage your staff in corporate volunteering days to help create healthy and resilient workplace culture. A corporate citizenship driver could be that you want to invest in local nature-based solution projects that create positive outcomes for nature and the climate in Oxfordshire.
Find who can take the lead on being responsible for biodiversity in your business and make sure they have the capacity and seniority to make an impact.
Nature's WorkForce has resources and step-by-step conversation guides for employees on how to kickstart changes and help your company become nature positive.
Connect with others to support each other on your journey - You can do this at the local (Thames Valley Business and Nature Recovery Group), national (UK Biodiversity and Business Forum), and global scale (Global Business for Nature).
Familiarise yourself with the frameworks and standards out there to help guide your business on its Nature Positive journey (see our handy resources to help).
- The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) has developed a set of disclosure recommendations and guidance that encourage and enable business and finance to assess, report and act on their nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities. TNFD use the Global Biodiversity Framework as a way of assessing a businesses' impact on nature.
- WWF Risk Filter is a corporate screening tool to help companies to prioritise action on what and where it matters the most to address biodiversity risks for enhancing business resilience and contributing to a sustainable future.
Start with some quick wins! e.g. corporate workdays, helping nature thrive on your business premises, or partnering with a local nature charity.
- Check out our Directory for the nature conservation organisations in Oxfordshire who offer corporate workdays.
- There are about 100 Community Groups working across Oxfordshire to bring the wild back into their neighbourhood for the benefit of wildlife and their community. Use our map to help you connect with community groups in your area. Work with them to create great volunteering opportunities for your team, and ideally develop this relationship into a long-term partnership. Linking your employees up with a nature group close to where they live or work creates brilliant links with your local community in addition to helping nature. These groups sometimes need help with practical work like hedgerow-planting, but often also need help with organizing events, engagement, and applying for funding.
- Everyone can create space for nature, in whatever patch of land they have. Wild Oxfordshire have a resource library about how best to do this on your own land, garden, patio, or windowsill. If you own green space, think about how it could be used in different ways to support nature and wellbeing (e.g. space for activities, meetings, walking routes, etc). Understand which groups you engage with (e.g. employee, local communities) and what barriers they face to nature connection that small greenspaces could address; consider whether you could fill a gap that meets the needs of people who don’t otherwise get an opportunity to connect with nature
- Supporting a local charity has many advantages. You will be supporting action for nature in your local area, and contributing to your goal of being a 'nature-positive' business which is so important for staff wellbeing and customer satisfaction.
- The Oxfordshire Local Nature Partnership has a group focused on nature finance and is seeking to create mechanisms for leveraging private money to fund high-integrity nature recovery and nature-based solutions. Watch this space, and sign up to their newsletter, as we’re hoping this will develop into a fund which any business can input into, with the assurance of good outcomes for nature.
Begin to understand the full scale of your biodiversity impacts, and the scale of your Nature Positive ambition, to plan action on the ground.
If you’re right at the beginning of your nature-positive journey, you could record the number of plants and wildlife in your area, or work with an ecologist to establish your biodiversity baseline. There are different types of surveys depending on the habitat or species you need to measure. You could also measure ecosystem services, which are the services that we get from nature, such as climate regulation, food, and recreation.
After you’ve established your on-site baseline, you could measure the business ‘biodiversity footprint’ which is the impact of your business activities on nature. For example, the University of Oxford has conducted a comprehensive assessment of the biodiversity losses associated with its activities. The University uses activity data from the University activities (such as data on purchasing, travel, and food), and various tools to convert this activity data into biodiversity impacts.
Measuring the biodiversity impacts of a business can help understand what activities damage biodiversity and what activities need to be addressed to reduce and mitigate its impact on nature. For example, the University of Oxford found that most of the harms to biodiversity are driven by the products that it purchases for research (including chemicals and lab equipment) and the day-to-day running of buildings (including paper and IT).The University can also impact biodiversity directly through the management and development of its estate.
- Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment (TOE) has lots of guidance on Biodiversity Net Grain. Although this is primarily focused on the planning & development sector at the moment, the metric can be a useful way of calculating the impact of your business on nature in terms of land-use. https://www.trustforoxfordshire.org.uk/
- You can measure the value of landscape design using the Urban Greening Factor (UGF) Calculator https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/planning/implementing-london-plan/london-plan-guidance/urban-greening-factor-ugf-guidance
- Check out how the University of Oxford measured their biodiversity footprint Analysis: the biodiversity footprint of the University of Oxford (nature.com)
Talk to your suppliers and find out what they are doing for biodiversity. A good starting point can be to look at catering, and where your food is sourced from. Local, seasonal produce, farmed& grown in a sustainable way is the best option when possible.
1. Leverage existing capabilities - The track and trace capabilities being put in place to capture Scope 3 emissions and modern slavery risks can be repurposed for biodiversity. Many of the most significant biodiversity impacts are found deep within supply chains at the raw material or extractive level –areas where organizations typically have the least visibility.
2. Partner for success - When mapping supply chains to identify biodiversity risks, organizations should look for opportunities to collaborate in impact hot spots. Think about collaborating with suppliers - Typically, the smaller a supplier the less capable they are of providing quality biodiversity reporting. But smaller companies are often closer to nature and local communities – their participation in global supply chains is an important economic input to their region. So you may need to actively engage with and educate suppliers – and even invest in reporting systems or achieving certifications. At an industry level – Improving biodiversity is a system-wide challenge that can be efficiently tackled at an industry level so join together with other companies within your industry in the groups we mentioned earlier.
3. Engage to protect biodiversity - As well as acting ahead of legislation, businesses should actively engage with regulators and standard setters to encourage sufficient biodiversity protection. The global Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures are likely to drive significant change across industries, and organisations should engage early and often to ensure these initiatives are fit for purpose.
The pledge is for UK businesses of all sizes and sectors who want to reduce their negative impacts on nature and make nature positive decisions.