Perhaps the well-known maxim in retail that the customer is, without question, always right, and if not a god, certainly a king or a queen, isn't always true. But when it comes to nature, business should listen to the customer: a key finding in a new global report from The Economist Intelligence Unit, commissioned by WWF, shows a staggering 71% rise in online searches for sustainable goods globally over the past five years.

The critical role of nature in supporting our health, enterprise and prosperity should not be in doubt. One estimate puts its value to the global economy at $44 trillion – more than half of global GDP. Yet until very recently, business decision-making has ignored this most precious asset. It is a strange state of affairs then that shareholder activists are still allowed to prevail, fiddling while Rome burns. This seems especially egregious in the case of the French food group Danone, where activist investors seeking to prioritize shareholder returns have succeeded in ousting chairman and CEO Emmanuel Faber, an advocate for the environment and sustainability.

Delfin Ganapin, WWF Governance Practice Leader, and Lin Li, WWF Global Policy and Advocacy Director, argue that securing the rights and recognising the roles and contributions of Indigenous Peoples and local communities are critical in creating a just, green, resilient future. Around the world, Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) have lived sustainably for generations in their ‘territories of life’. Today, their lands are found in 75% of the world’s ecoregions, account for at least 24% of the total carbon stored in the world’s tropical forests, and include about 40% of all lands listed by national governments as managed for conservation. Safeguarding these lands will help tackle nature loss.

In his recent Review on the Economics of Biodiversity, commissioned by the UK Treasury to inform the international response to nature loss, Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta reminds us of a simple truth: we are part of nature, and embedded within it, not separate from it. Our economies, livelihoods and well-being all depend on this most precious asset. And yet our failure to recognise this relationship is costing us dearly and putting our future at risk.

Nature is in freefall - because of the way we live. Knowingly or blindly, we too often treat natural resources as inexhaustible and expendable, while in reality, natural systems cannot replace resources as fast as we consume them. Deforestation, habitat destruction, and land conversion for agriculture, driven by the choices we make about how to use natural resources, have led to an average decline in global wildlife populations of 68% since 1970. The consequences for humanity may be fatal. Nature loss accelerates climate breakdown and increases the risk of emerging infectious diseases such as COVID-19. For our own survival, we must all change our behaviour in ways that help protect and restore nature and a living planet.

In advance of the Finance in Common Summit, Margaret Kuhlow argues that we need Public Development Banks to invest in a job-rich recovery that rebuilds for economic, environmental, and social resilience.

The global pandemic has created profound desire for change. A recent 28-country poll found that 86% of people want to see a fairer, more sustainable world after COVID-19. And new consumer research suggests that given the right incentives and guidance, many are also willing to make healthy, more sustainable lifestyles choices. This is an opportunity for business, especially for those companies able to offer easy, affordable solutions, and help us make better, healthier choices. With some parts o

Where the Atlantic and Sahara embrace, and mighty ocean and boundless desert fuse, a vast coastal wetland stretches the length of the Mauritanian coast, its seemingly infinite sandbanks, islands, mudflats, lagoons and seagrass beds a place of contrast and diversity. Together, they form the magnificent Banc d’Arguin.

Today, leading businesses such as Carrefour, H&M, JD.com, Natura, and Walmart have called on governments around the world to protect and restore nature, recognizing it as the foundation of our health and prosperity. And in an open letter the Business for Nature coalition, representing nearly 50 influential business and civil society organisations, is urging others to join them in leading the call for a ‘nature positive’ future.

Legend has it that high in the heart of the Balkans, two shepherds fell asleep by a remote mountain spring. And by accident, they let its waters flow on to the plain below, creating two huge, sparkling blue lakes, Mikri and Megali Prespa. Perched high above sea level, straddling Albania, Greece, and the Republic of North Macedonia, the Prespa lakes are amongst the oldest and largest in Europe, first formed more than two million years ago.

Last week saw some important moves by international financial institutions to respond to the Covid-19 crisis. At their Spring Meetings, the World Bank and IMF rightly focused on ensuring the global financial system has sufficient liquidity and getting emergency health support and relief as quickly as possible to the countries who need it most, and the G20 agreed a debt moratorium for low income countries. These are surely welcome first steps in the poorest parts of the world. What next?

Legend has it that five hundred years ago, Doña Ana, wife of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, fled the Andalusian court and took refuge in a magical pine forest on the Atlantic coast at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River south of Seville. || An oasis that has given us so much, Doñana’s bounty is neither limitless, nor beyond failure. A bellwether of our relationship with nature, the choices we make today will determine its future and the fate of the natural world upon which we all depend.

Devastating forest fires like those in Australia, the Amazon, Indonesia and Congo move in and out of the headlines – but they keep burning, affecting people, economies and nature, driven by and worsening the climate crisis. How we feed, fuel and finance ourselves is pushing nature to the brink. We’re using resources faster than natural systems can replenish them, and the natural capital that sustains our enterprise and prosperity is in severe decline, posing an existential threat.

Recently, there have been some promising moves by business on climate change and nature loss. The new Davos Manifesto calls for a better kind of capitalism which engages all stakeholders in ‘shared and sustained value creation’. And just last week, BlackRock struck a decidedly stronger tone on climate change. These are welcome commitments but must lead to action – especially given world leaders discussing climate change in Madrid last month accomplished almost nothing, with big emitters blocking efforts to reduce emissions and doing a grave injustice to the two billion people most vulnerable to climate breakdown. While the catastrophic fires in Australia continue to burn, such political inaction is looking increasingly reckless as investors scrutinize climate risks and voters turn their backs on fossil-fuel friendly politicians.

On its 50th anniversary, the World Economic Forum has launched a new Davos Manifesto and its founder and executive chairman, Klaus Schwab, makes the case for a better kind of capitalism that engages all stakeholders in “shared and sustained value creation.” This is a welcome development, but we should treat it with some caution. As Paul Polman, chair of the Saïd Business School, recently asked, “even though we know how to solve poverty and climate change, do we care enough to do so?”

Off the Atlantic coast of West Africa lies a lone, small, densely forested island with a tiny lighthouse. Otherwise untouched, it also boasts another more impressive beacon — a magical golden beach. Here, every year, between July and October, driven by instinct, thousands of green sea turtles from all over West Africa return to the very place they were born.

When as a young man in 1948, my father, Luc Hoffmann, came down from the Swiss mountains, settled in the marshes of the Camargue and bought the Tour du Valat estate, imagining a centre dedicated to studying wetlands, he understood two things – the scale of the threat facing the Camargue from drainage and development, and that saving it meant not just protecting wildlife but also demonstrating nature’s benefit to people. Although the environmental threats we face today are infinitely more complex and global in scale, these two insights – seemingly so obvious now but novel at the time – have only become more salient and more pressing as time has passed.

From five or ten years out, making sustainability commitments for the end of a decade is a seductive proposition for governments and sectors of all varieties. This is certainly true in the maritime world. Yet on the threshold of the new decade, it’s clear we’re on a collision course with reality. As 2019 closes, we’re fast approaching key deadlines for ocean governance and conservation, and the general consensus is that we’re going to miss the majority of the targets we’ve set.

In Southern France, where the Rhône meets the Mediterranean Sea, there’s a magical place where water and land embrace, where countless ponds, islets, marshes, reeds and streams fuse and stretch toward an infinite horizon, and blend with the sky. The Provençal people call it the place with no borders — ‘n’a cap marca’. Welcome to the Camargue — a waterland without parallel. Not just a kingdom of birds but a source of blessing and bounty for people as much as wildlife.