New Publication: An introduction to key ecological concepts, financial opportunities, and risks underpinning aspirations for nature positive

As it becomes increasingly urgent to tackle declining global biodiversity, the concept of ‘nature positive’ is emerging as a resonant guiding principle. But this apparently simple idea – that we should reverse biodiversity loss and move towards the recovery and regeneration of ecosystems – is much more complex than it first appears.

Translating this broad global aspiration into meaningful local actions presents a significant challenge, including how to operationalise the concept’s meaning for a wide range of organisations across multiple sectors. There is also concern among ecologists and conservation organisations that there is high potential for greenwashing (which occurs when “an organisation overrepresents the extent to which their practices are environmentally friendly, sustainable or ethical” (ASIC 2021)).

A new CSIRO-led paper, recently published in BioScience, provides an important overview of key ecological concepts, financial instruments and risks relevant to nature positive. The report authors hope this piece of work will serve as a foundation for a shared understanding and enable greater transdisciplinary communication and collaboration.

“Nature positive has really taken off and is generating a lot of interest and controversy,” says Dr Sarah Luxton, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with CSIRO’s Valuing Sustainability Future Science Platform and one of the report’s authors. “The importance of biodiversity is being recognised by the private sector and other members of the non-scientific community in a way that has never happened before, which is really exciting”

“As scientists, that means we are grappling with how to communicate about biodiversity to the private sector. How do we translate our language and our data into a format that can be used by the non-scientific community while still keeping the accuracy, reliability, precision and meaningfulness of that information? We’re very aware of the risk of oversimplification.”

Key ecological concepts

The first section of the paper introduces some of the key ecological concepts underpinning the nature positive definition, and does so in a way that is accessible even to those who are unfamiliar with or new to ecology.

While recent discourse has seen nature positive adopted as a catch-all term for any activities that are ‘positive’ for nature, the original definition was designed to operate at the global scale. The purpose of this was to raise the profile of the global biodiversity crisis in the same way that net zero has become the rallying call for climate action, and to form a third pillar alongside international human equity and climate goals.

“There is the potential for the meaning of nature positive to become compromised as it starts to be used in different contexts,” says Dr Luxton.

“We felt it was important to ground the meaning of the key terms from the nature positive definition in the scientific literature, to connect the aspiration with existing and emerging academic research. Even though some of the terms are not perfectly developed, and can be somewhat contested within the ecological research community, it is important to restate explicitly that nature positive refers to increasing the health, abundance, diversity and resilience of species, their populations and their habitat in ecosystems.”

Framing nature positive around these agreed terms – health, abundance, diversity and resilience – that have ecological meaning, and around which it is possible to build scientifically robust measures and indicators, is one way of lessening the risk that proposed nature positive goals may fail to achieve tangible outcomes.

Financial instruments with potential for nature positive

The second section of the paper explores a range of financial instruments that could contribute towards achieving the aims of nature positive – including incentives that reward biodiversity conservation, and penalties that appropriately account for the costs of biodiversity loss.

Seven broad categories of nature-based financial instruments are described, with examples of each provided. They include:

• Regulatory and fiscal policy pricing instruments e.g. taxes or subsidies
• Voluntary pricing instruments e.g. green certification
• Environmental credit/permit markets
• Voluntary monetary transfers e.g. philanthropic donations
• Green finance: equity investment
• Green finance: loans
• Green finance: bonds

According to Dr Luxton, the research into financial instruments, which was led by her co-author and CSIRO colleague Dr Greg Smith, does not argue for the adoption of one particular instrument over another but instead provides an overview of the options.

“It’s really an entry point for what’s available in this space,” she says.

The number of financial instruments is growing rapidly, and many are considered attractive for sourcing additional funding from the private sector. However, it is important to note that they are meant to complement, not replace, other important aspects of biodiversity protection and restoration, such as existing regulation, programs, and strategies.

“Ecologists know that momentum is growing for nature markets,” continues Dr Luxton. “But they may not have considered their role in financing nature restoration and repair. An overview like this could allow those conversations to start taking place.”  

Risks to nature positive aspirations

The final section of the paper outlines key risks that are relevant to the aims of nature positive.

The researchers have included eight key risks, which are grouped under three broad categories – environmental-related risks; risks linked to the financing and design of markets; and social, institutional and business-related risks – but they also note that many of these are interconnected and can only be addressed through effective transdisciplinary coordination.

“One of the big headline risks is greenwashing,” says Dr Luxton. “That people will claim they are doing things that are nature positive, but aren’t actually consistent with the meaning and intent of the definition. From a science perspective, one of our biggest challenges is developing measurement tools for organisations that engender trust and provide transparency.”

“Another big risk is to biodiversity itself. This could be through a number of means, including when this aspirational global term is picked up and used to promote ill-defined approaches to biodiversity conservation and restoration, distracting from and displacing stronger forms of regulatory action.”

These complexities and connections make it very clear that for nature positive to succeed, a highly co-ordinated approach across financial, ecological, social and regulatory sectors will be required.

“That’s what we all kept at the forefront of our thinking as we wrote this paper,” concludes Dr Luxton. “We knew that we needed an accessible introduction to some of the key issues, so that when you have an ecologist, an economist, a banker, a lawyer, an insurer, a regulator and a range of other interested stakeholders sitting around a table, here’s a primer that everyone can read. Once everyone has developed that shared understanding, the conversation about achieving nature positive goals can start in earnest.”

Author: Ruth Dawkins