The Business of Biodiversity

Professor Pavan Sukhdev, Study leader of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity report

 

Western Australia’s south west corner is well known for its biodiverse credentials. As one of only 13 biodiversity hotspots in the Asia Pacific region, and 34 world wide, it is part of an exclusive club of countries that contain the “richest and most threatened reservoirs of plant animal life on Earth.”

In July this year the first Global Biodiversity Conference was held in London. It coincided with the release of the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) report.

HRH Prince Charles opened the conference of 450 industry attendees who had come together to better understand the implications of biodiversity on the economy.

Pavan Sukhdev, study leader of the ground-breaking Teeb report addressed the conference explaining that considering biodiversity is a “new frontier for business” and should create new jobs and growth as “environmental resilience is key to economic resilience.”

Key to many of the participants interest was how their industries could benefit from factoring biodiversity into their balance sheets. This is an emerging trend and speakers, including, Rio Tinto’s CEO Tom Albanese agreed that the science of biodiversity has to communicate better with industry. TEEB report starts a discussion that will hopefully lead to the protection of only biodiversity hotspots such as the south-west of Western Australia but gain recognition that the biodiversity of all environments plays an essential part in the economy.

TEEB report for policy makers and business can be viewed at www.teebweb.org