Networking for biodiversity conservation: How can biodiversity conservation be implemented?

Since March, corsus has been a member of Biodiversity in Good Company, the network for companies to exchange ideas, strengthen expertise and know-how, network and, above all, discuss how biodiversity protection and the promotion of biodiversity can be implemented in practice. The 16th, 17th and 18th of June were therefore dedicated to these activities. On 16 June, the VKU Forum in Berlin hosted the capital city impulse “Economy and nature. The Coalition of the Future”, which was jointly organised by the DBU and Biodiversity in Good Company. On 17 June, the major ‘Unternehmen Biologische Vielfalt – UBi’ annual conference took place at the Allianz Forum at the Brandenburg Gate. This was followed the next day by the expert meeting of Biodiversity in Good Company members.

Those present at the three events agreed that the dramatic loss of biodiversity must be halted immediately. The sixth mass extinction in the history of the earth must be stopped. Because ‘gone is gone’, as one company representative put it. The focus of the events was therefore primarily on ‘How?’ What measures need to be taken to stop the loss of biodiversity? What can we learn from each other? Where do we need to improve? How can we ensure that the need to protect biodiversity becomes more central to the awareness and actions of politicians, companies and society?

Even though around 300 participants attended the conference, many companies, politicians and citizens still do not realise that around half of all economic output is dependent on biodiversity. The fact that the economic benefit of biodiversity is at least twice as high as the global gross domestic product at 170 to 190 trillion US dollars annually is also largely unknown, as is the fact that biodiversity loss will cost the global economy 2.7 trillion US dollars annually by 2030.