The Secretary of State for the Environment has held a dialogue with the companies that are part of the IEEB, to which he has transferred the importance of committing to economic development that integrates the conservation of biodiversity

The Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, today participated in the annual meeting of the Spanish Business and Biodiversity Initiative (IEEB), a platform for dialogue and collaboration with the private sector coordinated by the Biodiversity Foundation, and which this year promotes greater involvement and participation of companies in international commitments on biodiversity. promoting economic development that integrates the conservation of biodiversity. 

The IEEB seeks to respond to Spain’s commitments acquired by the signing of the Convention on Biological Diversity of the United Nations, at a time when a new global framework for biodiversity conservation is being defined, which will be approved at the Conference of the Parties to Biodiversity (COP15) to be held next December in Montreal. and whose objective is to adopt a new global biodiversity agenda (post-2020 framework) and the new objectives to protect it. This framework will define objectives, goals, and policy orientations for our global society for the next three decades.

Hugo Morán has given the example of the IEEB as a fundamental tool that advances in the promotion of collaboration between the public and private sectors in the field of biodiversity conservation and promotion of the participation of the private sector in the definition of the new global biodiversity framework. Morán insisted on the “importance of providing rationality to the commitments of companies to act in the face of biodiversity loss, so that society also perceives the seriousness of the problem”.

During the meeting, in which 22 companies and three of the strategic partners that are part of this platform participated (Spanish Green Growth Group, Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations and Forética), a renewed IEEB was presented, whose objective is to turn it into a forum for cooperation, a generator of information and knowledge, to provide greater ambition to the initiative. and thus respond with technical rigour to international commitments, new legislation and business demands, and favouring greater leadership among the Spanish business sector to advance in the conservation of biodiversity and natural capital.

MEASURABLE COMMITMENTS

The new structure of the IEEB involves the reformulation of the Biodiversity Pact, which establishes measurable commitments for each company, and consists of various principles for companies to incorporate biodiversity and natural capital into their purpose and mission, commitment, governance, management, culture, awareness and alliances. Within the IEEB there will be two types of companies: those that sign the Pact and those that do not, but are interested in being part of the platform to acquire knowledge and advance in their commitment to biodiversity.

Within the companies that join the Pact there will be two levels: companies that want to start managing biodiversity and that establish an action plan to analyse their dependencies and impacts and a more advanced level, in which those companies that, knowing their impacts and dependencies, want to establish a roadmap of long-term commitments to preserve biodiversity and natural capital.

In this new structure of the IEEB, the Community of Practice has also been created, whose objective is to serve as a reference framework in which small, medium and large companies can share experiences, projects and positive practices, thus developing specialized knowledge in the field of biodiversity. This community is expected to contribute to advancing the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity, as well as international and national biodiversity conservation plans and strategies by developing tools and encouraging the active participation of its members.

Likewise, the Community of Practice must aspire to become a reference forum that facilitates the development of agreements in the field of biodiversity and the publication of pioneering and motivating case studies. All this will be achieved through the programming of different activities, such as workshops, seminars or working groups, among others, to which all companies interested in participating will have access.