What the IUCN's World Conservation Congress says about business and nature positive

The concept of ‘nature positive’ is now firmly on the agenda of businesses represented at the IUCN’s World Conversation Congress (WCC) 2025 – as private sector organisations begin to put nature positive theory into practice, there is a clear need for a greater willingness to share experiences, acknowledge challenges, and forge partnerships. 

The Biodiversity Consultancy team was on the ground at the Congress, which took place in Abu Dhabi, from 9-15 October.  Held every four years, the WCC brings together thousands of delegates from government, civil society, Indigenous Peoples, business, and academia.  

While it sets policy for the world’s largest environmental network, it also provides a forum for public discussion of conservation and sustainability issues – making it an important venue to help us understand emerging topics, methodologies, and technologies in the biodiversity space, and to present opportunities to build new partnerships and share lessons learned.  

Business embraces nature positive 

Since the last WCC in 2021, the concept of nature positive has become broadly accepted within the business community – at least as represented in Abu Dhabi. The Nature Positive Initiative defines the term as “halting and reversing biodiversity loss, through measurable gains in the health, abundance, diversity, and resilience of species, ecosystems and processes”.  It is in alignment with the goals and targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 2022 Global Biodiversity Framework. 

Four years ago, the focus was on concepts of ‘net positive’ or ‘no net loss’ concepts – where losses in biodiversity could be traded for gains elsewhere. This year, there has been a real shift to broaden the concept to include positive actions across value chains and landscapes, and lift the ambition from a focus on impact mitigation to also aim for ecological recovery. The debate has also moved on to more practical questions, such as how to measure and implement nature positivity, and what tools are needed.  

A need for partnership  

Here, the availability of data is a continuing challenge for companies seeking to address their impacts and dependencies on nature. This can be particularly onerous for those seeking to address nature at the landscape and value chain level – which, for many companies, is the most Impactful scale.  

For example, understanding how infrastructure projects can contribute to landscape-level outcomes requires a clear process to demonstrate how they will achieve measurable positive outcomes within the landscape as well as how positive outcomes will be allocated within the actors. This requires considerable data and analytical resources. A lot of companies are beginning these processes, but setting and achieving meaningful targets will involve engaging and partnering with other stakeholders – whether local NGOs and governments or, indeed, peers and competitors.  

Working with partners does add complexity and makes these processes more transparent – which can raise the risk of negative publicity or accusations of greenwashing. But is essential to unlock efficiencies and deliver lasting outcomes. Expertise can help ensure these partnerships are well managed and focused on rigorous underlying science. 

Acknowledging shared challenges  

Across the WCC, companies were excited to share the progress that they are making and the innovative approaches and methodologies that they are exploring. But with innovation comes risk – and failures, setbacks, and unanticipated obstacles come with the territory.  

Companies are often – understandably – reluctant to share those setbacks in public. But doing so can be enormously valuable by driving collective  progress. There is an opportunity to build a stronger culture around sharing lessons learned on the journey towards nature positivity.  

Claims and attribution  

Another set of questions surrounds claims and attribution. Businesses at the WCC reported a lack of clarity in what information and metrics they would need to disclose to be able to credibly support a claim that they are meaningfully contributing to the nature positive goal.  

For example, is it sufficient to undertake an action, and demonstrate that the action has taken place, or does the company need to present evidence of the intended outcome? There are understandable concerns about ensuring that any claims made are credible, but these need to be balanced against pragmatism in terms of data collection.  

Moving beyond the easy wins  

Some of these concerns are contributing to a certain caution in how even leading firms are approaching pilot investments in nature positivity. Take the marine environment: there is some excellent work underway by offshore wind developers and others in investments that deliver net positive biodiversity outcomes. However, they are clustering around perhaps half a dozen types of intervention – such as seagrass or oyster bed restoration.   

At a certain point, the benefit provided by the next project becomes marginal – certainly in terms of lessons learned. Instead, companies should be looking to push the envelope and take advantage of the current voluntary context as an opportunity to try out more innovative interventions.   

An engaged private sector  

Overall, however, the WCC demonstrated genuine engagement from the private sector in addressing the crisis in nature, and a willingness to play its part, both to reduce the risks that companies face and to seize related opportunities. It provided valuable insights into the progress we are making towards a nature positive global economy, and into the barriers to progress that still exist.  

Aonghais Cook, Senior Principal Consultant — Renewables, Adeline Serckx, Strategic Director — Nature Services, Laura Sonter, Technical Director — Science and Policy, attended the WCC. They would be delighted to discuss with our clients any of the issues raised above. Please contact the team here.    

Category: Insight