International Day for Biological Diversity is celebrated every year on 22 May to raise awareness about the value of biodiversity. This year's theme, "Our Solutions are in Nature", highlights that biodiversity is the key to unlock a more sustainable future. Considering this theme, the session on 'Working in Harmony with Nature' was organised to showcase different measures taken by IBBI business members to adopt nature-based solutions and their future action areas to work in harmony with nature.

Speakers

• Guest of Honour: Mr. Sujit Bajpayee, Joint Secretary, MoEFCC
• Opening Remarks: Mr. Kavinder Singh, IBBI Chair and MD & CEO, Mahindra Holidays and Resorts India Ltd
• Panellists
  • Mr. Srinivasa C. K., Manager, Corporate Sustainability & Environment, Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt. Ltd.
  • Mr. Pankaj Satija, Chief Regulatory Officer, Tata Steel Ltd.
  • Ms. Tara Mathew, Global Head, Sustainable Value Chain, Jayanti Group
• Vote of Thanks: Ms. Seema Arora, Deputy Director General, CII

Number of Participants: 55 members, including businesses, NGOs and Academia.

Key Take Aways

1. Learning form the COVID-19 situation, it’s time for businesses, government and other stakeholders to collaborate and work jointly to build back better. The path towards recovery should be in a responsible manner, incorporating aspects of livelihood, indigenous communities, self-regulatory regime and developing natural spaces like biodiversity parks/gardens.
2. Over the past six years, since the establishment of IBBI, 38 businesses have committed for conservation and sustainable management of biodiversity. Approximately 4.5% of India’s GDP in 2019, comes from these businesses including all major sectors and SMEs.
3. Biodiversity and nature are the key stakeholders of businesses and therefore, should be considered as a critical part of business decision-making.
4. Businesses have grown aware of the inter-linkages between business & nature and have be adopting long term targets for addressing the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss.
5. Businesses are committing to considering the integration of Nature-based Solutions over engineering solutions and are open to new businesses opportunities.
6. About 40% of IBBI business members have a dedicated biodiversity policy and the rest have integrated biodiversity into their Environment Management Systems

“Biodiversity should not be seen as an adjunct to businesses. It should rather be integrated in every core business philosophy. Nature is our biggest stakeholder and we should focus on its sustainable management, also understanding its importance to our business and healthy living.”

-Mr Kavinder Singh, IBBI Chair & MD & CEO, Mahindra Holidays & Resorts

“Indigenous people have rich heritage and traditions of preserving biodiversity. With a wider engagement with indigenous people, industry can contribute better for achieving National Biodiversity Targets.”

-Mr Pankaj Satija, Chief Regulatory Officer, Tata Steel Ltd

“Over the years, we have developed an ecozone in collaboration with the forest department and local community by planting native species on our own premises, which has enhanced the local biodiversity. We look forward to developing a long-term plan for identifying keystone species and monitor for maintaining the species diversity & healthy ecosystem on our site.

-Mr. Srinivasa C. K., Manager, Corporate Sustainability & Environment, Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt. Ltd.

“We have lot of programmes where we directly work with farmers and it is important for us to produce food safe crops as one of our main goals of sustainability and biodiversity implementation across supply chain. We are
helping farmers of Western Ghats, a biodiversity hotspot to address the issues of wild-life conflict and exist in harmony with nature”.

-Ms. Tara Mathew, Global Head, Sustainable Value Chain, Jayanti Group