The role of business
and the link between more creative and intelligent
markets and the wider sustainability agenda,
is not confined
to climate change.
Towards the end of 2010-the
UN's International Year of Biodiversity-a
landmark report by The Economics of Ecosystems
and Biodiversity, hosted by UNEP, will be
published.
Already some of the
figures are emerging: An investment of $45
billion could secure a global network of
protected areas whose services are worth
close to $5 trillion annually.
A return of 100:1.
Some companies, including
some in this room today, are making the
business case for investing in natural resources
whether they be in productive soils or biodiversity.
Climate and Natural
Resource Scarcity-the Defining Challenge
Business and its experience
will be key as to whether governments are
persuaded to support new kinds of markets-for
example in water and nature-based services-that
bring value to these natural assets in order
to conserve and sustainably manage them.
REDD may be the first,
but eventually markets or funds could transform
the economics of other terrestrial ecosystems
via greater incentives for, for example,
sustainable agriculture.
And what about marine:
there is an urgent need to capture the true
value of coastal ecosystems in terms of
their role as nurseries for fish and coastal
defense but also for also carbon storage.
The Green Economy is
emerging, in part driven by the financial
and economic crisis.
And in part because
of a growing realization that the blunt
and limited markets of the past are unlikely
to sustain six billion people, rising to
nine billion by 2050.
From its day-to day
operations, to its ecological footprint
and across its supply chains, managing environmental
risks like climate change and the scarcity
of natural resources, will increasingly
define a company's business and political
life in the 21st century.
Sustainable development
is not a choice, but an imperative and the
only course possible in our 21st century
world.
A Green Economy will
happen, either by design or default.
I am sure that any prudent
and forward-looking business man or woman,
would back a well-thought out, design-led
path rather than the alternate one.
By its very nature,
pressing the default button rather than
the design route will be disruptive, unpredictable
and bad for business.
