Nature-positive

Nature-positive is a concept and goal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030, and to achieve full nature recovery by 2050. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the aim is to achieve this through "measurable gains in the health, abundance, diversity, and resilience of species, ecosystems, and natural processes." Progress towards this goal is generally measured from a biodiversity baseline of 2020 levels. The nature-positive goal aligns with the 2030 mission and 2050 vision of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). However, the GBF does not explicitly mention nature positive. The goal is designed to integrate with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement's climate goals. It is distinct from other policy approaches stopping biodiversity loss, such as "no net loss" or "net positive impact". Governments have committed to the nature positive goal, including the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan. Over 90 world leaders have signed the Leaders' Pledge for Nature, which calls for a nature-positive future by 2030. A commitment to nature positive was also signed by the members of the G7 at the 47th summit in 2021 and a G7 Alliance on Nature Positive Economies has since been launched.

Definition

Nature positive was defined by the Nature Positive Initiative as a global societal goal to "halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 on a 2020 baseline, and achieve full recovery by 2050." This means that progress towards stopping the loss of nature would be measured relative to levels of biodiversity in 2020. Similarly, in a 2021 paper, Locke et al. defined nature positive as "halting and reversing nature loss by 2030, measured from a baseline of 2020." This definition uses the IPBES definition of nature, referring to "the natural world, with an emphasis on its living components", according to the IPBES definition. A broad range of definitions have been used by institutions and governments since the term was introduced. This led to criticism of nature positive as vague and open to variable interpretation. Concerns have also been raised over the vulnerability of nature positive to greenwashing, the "net" approach to biodiversity, and over the "financialization of nature".

Distinction from existing policy approaches

Nature positive differs from previous biodiversity strategies, including "no net loss" (NNL) policy and "net positive impact (NPI)" approaches. No net loss refers to biodiversity policy that aims to neutralise the loss of biodiversity, relative to an appropriately determined reference scenario. Net positive impact refers to a goal for project outcomes, where the project's impact on biodiversity is outweighed by actions to reduce, rehabilitate, and offset these impacts. NNL and NPI differ because NNL focuses on preventing losses, while NPI focuses on aiming for a net gain in biodiversity. Metrics are required to quantify these losses and gains. NNL and NPI generally focus on applying the mitigation hierarchy, a tool commonly used in environmental impact assessment to manage risk to biodiversity that uses a hierarchy of steps (avoidance, minimisation, rehabilitation, restoration, and offsetting), to the direct impacts of an organisation. However, direct impacts are only a small fraction of the biodiversity impacts of an organisation. The scope of nature positive extends beyond direct impacts, to the whole value chain of a company (all activities needed to deliver goods or services to customers) of a company and to sector-wide for transformative improvements in sustainability practices. Frameworks for nature positive that extend beyond the classical mitigation hierarchy have been proposed, such as the Mitigation and Conservation Hierarchy and the SBTN's AR3T framework. Nature positive also emphasises review and transformation to align all the decisions within a business with the goal of achieving nature positive. This involves embedding nature in decision-making, governance, strategy, and management of risks – a process described as mainstreaming. Mainstreaming distinguishes nature positive from NNL and NPI approaches, where biodiversity considerations are generally dealt with by ecological managers at project sites. In addition to mainstreaming, nature positive aims to integrate natural and social issues, rather than addressing these issues separately. It also aims to scale against global or regional societal goals to achieve absolute gains for biodiversity, instead of relative gains. By contrast, the ambition of NNL and NPI has historically been at the project level, comparing to a baseline of declining baseline and not to overall targets. Overall, nature positive, NNL, and NPI policies differ through their scope, mainstreaming (embedding biodiversity considerations across a business or organisation), integration, and ambition.

Background

Nature is essential for economic and societal function. However, biodiversity loss is occurring rapidly on a global scale – since 1970, wildlife populations declined by 69%, on average, between 1970 and 2018 according to the Living Planet Index. Biodiversity loss and its potential effects on ecosystem functioning, ecosystem services, the global economy, and wider society have gained increasing attention. This has led to international environmental agreements (such as the Aichi Biodiversity Targets), national plans (such as National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans), corporate commitments, and local action. However, these have largely failed to fulfil their targets - for example, only 6 of 67 sub-targets of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets were achieved by its target year, 2020. By 2020, proponents of nature positive argued that there was no concise headline goal to address biodiversity loss – while the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development proposes equitable human development, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change puts forward a carbon-neutral goal of net zero emissions for 2050, and the Paris Climate Change Agreement aims to limit global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, there was no equivalent for biodiversity loss. Nature positive was therefore proposed as a "global goal for nature" to integrate with climate and development goals and direct future global agreements to an "Equitable, Nature-Positive, Carbon Neutral world."

Support for the term and concept

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