On Biodiversity Day (22 May), leading sustainability authority, Bureau Veritas is encouraging manufacturing firms to take the natural next step in updating their sustainability strategies with a ‘nature positive’ principles.
This year’s Biodiversity Day – created by the United Nations in 1993 to increase understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues – is centred on the theme ‘we’re part of the solution’. The awareness day coincides with a growing body of evidence that nature positive initiatives such as ecological restoration – protecting and restoring natural forests and habitats and allowing native trees to repopulate deforested land – could help remove large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere.
As such, in December, a group of leading scientists, academics and campaigners called on governments and businesses to go beyond ‘net zero’ in their efforts to tackle the escalating climate and ecological crisis – with a greater focus on ecological restoration1.
With this in mind, Bureau Veritas, which has helped some of the world’s largest organisations improve their sustainability performance, is calling on UK manufacturing businesses to consider evolving their sustainability strategies towards a ‘nature positive approach’.
This is especially important, adds the firm ahead of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), set to be hosted by the UK in November.
David Murray, Technical Director for Sustainability at Bureau Veritas, explains: “Where in recent years, manufacturing companies focus on cutting carbon emissions, the natural next step in improving their sustainability strategies is aligning it with an overall positive approach to the natural environment.
“Hence, Biodiversity Day is a pertinent reminder to manufacturing businesses to consider introducing initiatives such as habitat restoration, regenerative agriculture or nature-friendly procurement options, which can take their sustainable impact to a whole new level.
“We acknowledge it is a challenging time for firms in this area – there’s currently several new best practice frameworks including the popular Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), Ecosystem Accounting Framework and Nature Based Disclosures to name just a few.
“Coming up with a strategy that fits your business is an inherently complex task requiring specialist knowledge and expertise – thus it’s never been a more apt time to consult a third party such as Bureau Veritas to independently verify any sustainability goals.”
According to Bureau Veritas, businesses looking to incorporate nature-based solutions into their operations could look to the recently launched Science Based Targets for Nature (SBTn) which sets out initial guidance for companies can restore and protect nature.
David adds: “Taking a holistic view on how companies can assess, prioritise, measure, address and track their impacts and dependencies on nature in line with science, from our experience many global firms are looking to the SBTn framework for guidance. Those businesses that take the time now to understand its approach and invest in its delivery, will ultimately, benefit the natural environment for now and generations to come.”
Bureau Veritas has experience and technical expertise in helping some of the world’s largest organisations improve their sustainability performance in a number of sectors including food, pharmaceutical, financial and manufacturing. With a proven track record in verification of environmental, health & safety and social data, including conducting audits against the requirements of ISO 14064 Part 3, Bureau Veritas is also a GRI Community Member, an AA1000AS Licensed Provider and a UKAS-accredited ISO 14064-1 Verification Body.
