Levelling the Field
It might seem surprising that many companies ask for stricter regulations, especially around CO₂ emissions. How does that make sense? Tighter rules often require sizable investments, affecting the bottom line in the short term. But businesses are also run by people — people with families, with kids, with concerns about the future. Many companies genuinely want to improve but face tough competition. If others keep using cheaper fuels, harmful materials, and underpaid labor, being a good business could easily become being an out of business.
That’s where rules and regulations come in — to make sure everyone plays in the same league. But more than that, smart regulation unlocks innovation. It pushes evolution, the lifeblood of business. That’s good news for everyone.
Becoming biodiversity-friendly will require a major transition in many sectors. But it’s a shift we need to make if we value the gift of life. This is so basic it shouldn’t even need saying. If you sail the oceans in a boat, you care about it being functional. If you live on a planet, you need to care for it too. Pretty obvious.
Still, none of this is possible unless we work together. To level the playing field, we need to make sure that nature — its value and its benefits — is built into all rules, policies, and business plans. This means to gradually adjust activities, investments, and budgets so that we protect nature and make sure it can keep supporting us. This is especially important for industries with substantial environmental impacts, like construction, agriculture, and energy.
In all this, governments has a huge role to play which has gotten increasingly hard as politicians increasingly turn to populism. Governments main role is to safeguard the long-term freedom and prosperity of the citizens. To fulfill that promise, they have to pass rules that will safeguard our future and that of our children.
In all this, governments have a huge role to play — a role that has become increasingly difficult as more politicians turn to populism. Still, the core responsibility of government remains: to safeguard the long-term freedom and prosperity of its citizens. To fulfill that promise, governments must look further ahead and pass rules that protect our future — and that of our children.
Integrate Biodiversity in all Decision-Making
Ensure the full integration of biodiversity and its multiple values into policies, regulations, planning and development processes, poverty eradication strategies, strategic environmental assessments, environmental impact assessments and, as appropriate, national accounting, within and across all levels of government and across all sectors, in particular those with significant impacts on biodiversity, progressively aligning all relevant public and private activities, and fiscal and financial flows with the goals and targets of this framework.