Humans have overfished the ocean, cleared forests, polluted water and created a climate crisis by burning fossil fuels. These actions are affecting biodiversity around the world, from remote islands to our own backyards.

Biodiversity can refer to all the different kinds of life that can be found in just one area of the world, or the teeming variety of animals, plants, fungi and microorganisms like bacteria that comprise all life on Earth. In either case, each species collaborates in ecosystems to generate everything in nature that we need to survive: food, clean water, clean air, medicine and shelter—these are what scientists call "ecosystem services."

The rapacious consumption of resources by a minority of humanity—and the resulting waste—is causing the variety of living things to diminish and ecosystems to deteriorate. A 2022 report found an average 69% decline in global populations of mammals, fish, birds, reptiles and amphibians since 1970. It is also estimated that more than a third of the world's land surface and nearly 75% of its freshwater is now devoted to crop or livestock production.

Even as businesses are engaged in this destruction, they depend on reliable and cheap access to the services ecosystems provide, such as food and clean water. According to a report by the World Economic Forum, US$44 trillion (£34 trillion) of economic value—over half the world's total GDP—is at least moderately dependent on nature and its services and, as a result, exposed to risks from nature loss. The same is true for finance. The European Central Bank estimates that almost 75% of all bank loans are made to borrower companies that depend highly on at least one ecosystem service.

Given this interdependency, businesses are obliged to address the drivers of biodiversity loss. Corporate biodiversity disclosures are one potential solution. The idea being that, by making a transparent declaration of its dependency and impact on nature, a business could shift its operations away from activities that harm biodiversity.

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