Nature risk rising

Early in 2020 prior to Davos, the World Economic Forum (WEF) published the first in a series on the New Nature Economy (NNE). As part of the Nature Action Agenda.

That’s a lot of acronyms already

Reports like this move between being strategically important to being just empty words.

As a citizen of this earth, I have a view on how they can improve the series.

Not so new thinking

The purpose of the series in their words is to make the case for why the nature crisis is crucial to business and the economy. To identify a set of priority socioeconomic systems for transformation. And scope the market and investment opportunities for nature-based solutions to environmental challenges [p.3]. And overall to provide “new thinking on business’s impact and dependency on nature” [p.24]

The first report is entitled Nature Risk Rising: Why the Crisis Engulfing Nature Matters for Business and the Economy. It discusses the nature emergency and the risks of nature loss to businesses. How to manage these risks. And how to take action.

My heart sank in reading the report. For the damage and planetary emergency, we have created. But also because of the report itself. Narrow in perspective and overtly humanistic, it does not feel like it has been created through effective stakeholder dialogue. There is little new thinking at this stage.

In my view, this is not just another complex matter to analyse and provide recommendations on.  It needs to come from a more evolved place.

All dependent on nature

It got my back up in the foreword. Where incredulously Dominic Waughray (WEF) and Celine Herweijer (PwC) come to the conclusion that,

“every industry sector has some degree of direct and indirect dependency on nature”. [p.7]

What?!

We are ALL DEPENDENT ON NATURE!

What is the thing that you are breathing, that keeps you alive in this very moment? What do you think you are standing on? What is the source of all what you drink, eat, use? Have you not heard of the 4 elements? Have you not noticed?

Yes, I get the point the report is trying to make. Some industries may feel more directly dependent. The orange that I pick from my tree is definitely closer to its raw form than the computer that I am typing this on. It is a spectrum from raw to processed. But it is all about dependency.

The contributors “analysed the nature dependency of 163 sectors and their supply chains across a range of ecosystem services” [p.25]. They created classifications including ‘percentage of direct and supply chain GVA with high, medium and low nature dependency, by industry’, and ‘distribution of nature dependency classification by region’ [p.4/15]. To create such classifications seems meaningless. It is an over engineered approach to look like you have done some clever thinking and analysis. But in reality it adds little value.

Map not territory

As often is the case, the value of a report like this is the conversation it stimulates. I guess they don’t profess to hold the truth. Certainly the concept, ‘the map is not the territory’, comes to mind in reading it.

The world has changed since this report has been written. Presenting the Global Risks Perception Survey,  infectious diseases were identified as a lower likelihood than failure in urban planning [p.10]. But on the ground right now, we are in the grip of a pandemic with countries in lockdown.

To be fair there are a few lines about infectious diseases. The risk that “the degradation and loss of natural systems can affect health outcomes. For example, the onset of infectious diseases has been connected to ecosystem disturbance such as the strong links between deforestation and outbreaks of animal-transmitted diseases like Ebola and the Zika virus”.[p.17]

Stakeholder diversity and inclusion

It is apparent that all the authors and contributors (from PwC and WEF) have a depth and breadth of expertise and experience. However, a look at the contributor list does not seem representative of many diverse views. Maybe those different perspectives were sought. But they are not reflected in the approach and findings. The report therefore fails in its own aspiration “to uphold the principles of stakeholder capitalism” [p.24].

Simply, the essence of thinking is simplistic and humanistic. It echoes a view that nature is there to serve humans. That it is a resource for our use.

We are nature which includes the systems and institutions we create. And there is a wider natural world which has an intrinsic value beyond what it ‘serves’. If we continue the predominant view that nature exists for us humans, that we are the measure of all things, we will continue to make decisions and behave accordingly. And thereby limit a sustainable co-existence. We must take a wider systemic view. Beyond anthropocentrism. As the nature based cultures and eco-philosophers have encouraged all along.

Wake Up Call

And the authors do their best to give us a wakeup call. Its target audience likes figures, and so there is an emphasis on a calculation. “That $44 trillion of economic value generation – more than half of the world’s total GDP – is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services and is therefore exposed to nature loss.” [p.8]

They further try to provide some tangibility.  A ‘fit-for-purpose nature-based risk management approach’. Which includes Governance ideas such as “educate key governance functions on interplay between nature and broader ESG risks” [p.23] The continued lack of attention to the mindsets and behaviours of leadership, and dominant culture of organisations, in these types of reports, is a huge missing link. This weakness continues on the WEF website statement. Where it states, “businesses can be part of the global movement to protect and restore nature”. Business must!. To use a Chinese proverb that a previous boss liked to use, ‘a fish rots at the head’.  I highly recommend, that the authors give more attention to the leadership and cultural change required.

Next Steps

I appreciate the statement and sentiment, “this century requires a reset of the relationship between humans and nature – in doing so, innovations of the 21st century need to responsibly deliver for both people and the planet’ [p.12]

And I don’t know what the next two reports will bring. But I hope they will give attention to the transformation in consciousness required.

I certainly encourage WEF and PwC before publishing anymore reports to pause. And explore and embody ecological worldviews to gain fresh perspectives on nature, sustainability, leadership and collaboration.

This may involve literally posing questions in the report. Opening things up instead of closing things down. Rather than wanting to analyse and package it nicely as if we know what we are talking about.

Hopefully it will include bringing in diverse voices. It may be about bringing in outsiders to challenge group think. Or may involve each contributor, to reconnect with their own nature, in nature.

Humans over the years, have set out on a vision quest in milestone moments of their lives. To go out and be with nature, seek a vision, and return back to offer the gifts to the community.

Maybe the authors will want to do that before the next report. If not on lockdown.