5 things you should do... part #2

What the news from COP26 means for brands, businesses and your clients.

#2 - Get familiar with the term “Nature+Positive”

What’s new? This week saw a new phrase enter the lexicon - ‘nature-positive’. Launched at COP26 by a coalition of over 70 NGO’s involved in nature-based solutions, this is an urgent idea that - quite frankly - needs to work.

As an idea, it needs to get brands, businesses and governments to start to get familiar with the impact their operations and decisions have on vital natural ecosystems, and it needs to encourage them to include nature as a factor or criteria in every decision they make henceforth - every investment decision, every purchasing, policy and operational decision. What impact will this decision have on nature, on biodiversity, on rivers, on oceans, on the atmosphere?

Tell me more? Everyone (surely?) is familiar with the term ‘net zero’. But here's the thing - net zero is only half the story. We are in the midst of TWO crises, not one. Climate change and nature-loss. And we need to address both together. We need to halve emissions AND reverse nature loss by 2030 to avoid catastrophic consequences. Our future needs to be both ‘net zero’ and ‘nature-positive’. It is not an either/or.

Why is it important? The aim is to make ‘nature-positive’ as familiar, as urgent and as commonplace a term as ‘net zero’. Most people, brands and businesses are utterly unaware of the magnitude of the crisis going on in nature. And that needs to change.

Nature - the biodiversity, air, freshwater, land, and oceans that we depend on - is in rapid decline. Some of the stats are mind-blowing. In the last fifty years, we’ve destroyed at least half of land-based ecosystems and wiped out 68% of global wildlife populations. 25% of the land on Earth has been degraded by humans leading to desertification and poor soils. Humans have never lived on a planet with so little biodiversity. 

MSQ/Sustain are the lead creative agency for the Nature+Positive campaign. This week, we have helped Nature4Climate and their coalition of over 70 other NGOs launch the idea of ‘nature-positive’ on any and every channel, as well as from the Nature+Zone pavilion at the heart of the COP26 ‘blue zone’ venue in Glasgow. 

At the same time (ambitious, I know), MSQ/Sustain have helped The Science-based Targets Network launch the world’s first and most rigorous ‘science-based targets for nature’ - to go alongside, in tandem with, 'science-based targets for climate'. These are targets, actions, tools and guidance for brands and businesses to start to take steps to mitigate their impact on nature across their supply chains, and measure the results.

Breaking News....soon, every business will be expected to be working towards being BOTH ‘net zero’ AND ‘nature-positive’.

What to tell your client? Break the news to them (gently) that it’s not enough to have a net zero strategy - they also need a ‘nature strategy’ too. Two strategies, working together, to combat twin crises. While they may have put enormous energy and effort into their climate commitments, they now need to double those efforts.

And MSQ/Sustain can help them connect to the right people to start their journey towards contributing to a nature-positive future. Give me (or SBTN) a call.

Part #3 of "5 Things You Should Do: What the news from COP26 means for brands, businesses and your clients" ...coming next week....