Sustainable Views: Why businesses need to catch up on nature action

Welcome to the Sustainable Views podcast, where we cover all things related to sustainability. My name is Philippa Nuttall, editor of Sustainable Views, and I'm your host for today. In this edition of the Sustainable Views podcast, we're going to be talking about nature and why businesses need to catch up on nature and start enacting plans like they have around climate change. With us today we have Andrew Steer, President and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund, and Roberto Marquez, former CEO of the cosmetics company Natura and current board member of Cisco Corporation, Alcoa, and the We Mean Business Coalition. So welcome both, great that you're here with us today. So today's discussion about nature is very timely. We're coming to the end of New York Climate Week. Ahead of us we have COP16, the biodiversity COP in Colombia, And then obviously we have COP29, the climate COP in Azerbaijan. So Andrew, I wanted to come to you first. I mean, I think today most or many companies have some sort of climate plan in place, they're working to reduce emissions. But around nature, there seems to be less action at the moment. And I wonder if you could sort of walk us through that a little bit and explain why that is, if it's just that it's an issue that has come to businesses later than climate, or are there more complications around this that makes it more difficult for for corporations to engage with, with action on nature?

Good. Well, thanks, Philippa. It's great to be here. Thanks to the Financial Times, the We Mean Business coalition. I think this podcast series is really fascinating, and we're really, really grateful for it. You're absolutely right. Most companies have climate commitments, and big ones are all measuring their emissions and the nature side of things has not caught up. The good news is it is catching up. I mean, it's absolutely fascinating looking at, for example, the upcoming biodiversity convention meeting in Cali that will probably be livelier and more engaged than the climate COP, which is coming up in Baku, Azerbaijan. And something's happened actually over the last 2 or 3 or 5 years where suddenly the nature side of the agenda is starting to become exciting. And there's several reasons for that. I mean, it's leading companies, leading companies are finding this exciting and necessary. But of course, there's another reason why it's been slower, which is it's the unit of account. So we know how to measure a ton of carbon or even the equivalence in methane, but actually it's harder to measure units of biodiversity. Now it is possible, much easier to measure units of water, units of land and so on. But there are more of them. It's a little more complicated. And quite frankly, we don't have the standards yet. And so we're on a pretty interesting accelerated intellectual journey here as well. And the stakes are high.

Great. Thank you, Andrew. And Roberto, if I could pose the same question to you and you could explain a little bit more what you're seeing inside the companies that you work with.

So again, I also want to just echo and thank you. Thank you, Financial Times, for doing those Podcast. Great to be with Andrew and the great work that Bezos Foundation has been doing in this particular topic. I would say and agree with Andrew that I think nature-based solutions and the importance of preservation and restoration is not just preservation at this point. I think it's more eminent, the focus on restoring nature that's being decimated in many, in many different ways. That we understand how actually carbon emission and nature are so intertwined. Right. And the importance of seeing more holistic that one actually cannot exist without the other. And for that, it's just important for the people that are listening to understand why nature is important into this equation of reducing emission and moving from fossil fuel to clean energy and how we can really think about CO2 emissions and reducing. You know, nature captures over 25% of the emissions in the world. So it is actually the storage of a lot of the CO2 emissions. Without nature, the temperature of the world would be much higher than what it is right now. And to get to Paris Agreement without nature is just mission impossible. It is just not even a possibility. So those two things are extremely connected. Now, the other thing that I— we discuss a lot is on one hand, and Andrew is right, the science, the measure of CO2 emissions, the how to really, you know, track those things actually advance. But from a general public, nature is easy to understand. Because you can count trees, you can see forest. You know, gas emission is much more abstract for the majority of people. So when you talk to people about the importance of preserving forest and you see pictures, what's happening in the Amazonia, for example, it is so compelling to people to take actions. So I think there is something about really better connecting nature-based solutions and the importance of forest restoring and preservation with this whole journey of how we move from fossil fuel to clean solutions, how we reduce the CO2 emissions, the importance of actually capturing the CO2 emissions through nature and the visualization of those things, I think can be really powerful.

Thank you, Roberto. That was a good, powerful start there. And Andrew, I wanted to come to you based on what Roberto has just said. I mean, as we've just said, there's the biodiversity COP coming up, there's the climate COP. Businesses have climate commitments. Sometimes nature-based solutions are in there, sometimes they're not. The same with the nationally determined contributions that countries must submit under the Paris Agreement to set out their climate commitments. Do you think it's time to merge these sort of two issues more? I don't know whether, you know, we'd have a biodiversity and climate COP, but at least to make it clearer in the heads of policymakers, business, and potentially the general public that these two issues are intertwined?

Yes, I do think that whilst we've made a lot of progress, for example, way back in Glasgow, 3 years ago, COP26, it was really sort of put on the agenda for the first time. You know, and as Roberto says, we now know that even if we eliminated fossil fuels totally, in the short term, we would still blow right through 1.5 degrees if we didn't do nature for all the reasons that Roberto was saying. So I think the answer is yes, whether or not we should merge the COPs. And what we definitely need to do is reform the COPs. So the climate COP should stop having negotiations on small details. It should become an implementation COP. There are commitments out there and the Climate COP needs to hold us all accountable, which is not doing adequately yet. So we do need to reform the COPs, no question about that. And of course, under the Climate COP, every 5 years, one needs to raise the level of ambition, which is a very legitimate role, obviously, of the UNFCCC to supervise that. But then we really need to do a stocktake that is serious and hold each other accountable. Now, the Biodiversity Convention's a little bit further behind on that, although, as you know, 2 years ago at the so-called Kunming-Montreal, the framework was set, which is a very ambitious and very exciting agenda. So as we go to Cali now for COP16 under the Biodiversity Convention, again, we need to sort of shift much more to a mindset of, okay, how are we going to implement it? How are we going to hold each other accountable, so to speak. Whether we should merge the two, I don't know. It's a pretty complicated legal structure. I'm old enough to have been at the original Rio Earth Summit, believe it or not. Of course, I was a young boy at the time. But back then, watching these heads of state come up and sign the biodiversity convention, and remember the climate convention is the framework convention for a complicated legal issues. And there was a real sense of sort of moral purpose back then. And in the early days after Rio, the COPs on biodiversity and the entire biodiversity agenda was actually a bigger agenda than climate because climate didn't seem quite as urgent then, whilst biodiversity was very exciting. And you had all kinds of pharmaceutical companies doing deals with Costa Rica and bioprospecting and so on. We then lost our way. And we sort of for really for the next, I don't know, 20 years, biodiversity somehow sort of declined and little by little, climate rose, and we now need to get back in a sensible equilibrium and demonstrate that as you and Roberto were saying, these are absolutely integrated issues.

Yeah, exactly. And Roberto, from what Andrew has said, we sort of lost our way a bit, we started out with biodiversity, went to climate, you know, biodiversity is moving up the agenda again. From a business point of view, I mean, what are you seeing? Are you seeing leadership within business around this issue? And what does business leadership look like in terms of biodiversity or nature action?

I agree with Andrew. I think it's catching up. I would like to see more nature integrated. And we always talk about, you know, We Mean Business, you know, the four things, you know, setting clear ambition, action, advocacy, and accountability. And would like to see more companies thinking about nature-based solutions as some offsets. You know, when they create their plans of, you know, cutting emissions from fossil fuel to clean solutions, either by science-based targets or, you know, we see companies doing that. What companies need to now better connect the dots is for the emissions that they cannot cut, Nature-based solutions are a great way to somehow offset some of those, but included that in your ambition, in your plans, you know, and, and either by buying high-quality credits, uh, and how to deploy those, and then really, you know, what are the actions that come, uh, across the value chains, you know, making sure you're working with your, you know, suppliers, how to make sure that all of those suppliers at some, some form or shape will connect to nature, you know. So how we really understand what they are doing, how they are doing those things, increasing the advocacy, you know, the private sector has a lot of weight in policymakers, right? So companies cannot hide themselves anymore, right? They can't just, well, let me do my thing and I don't worry about what's happening in terms of the government and policymakers. I believe those days are over, right? Companies need to take their responsibility also. You know, I always like to say that companies have the license to operate in society and not the other way around. And by having the license, they need to take their responsibility, right? And policymakers And public sectors, in some extent, some of them are more bullish than others, but all companies and private sector need to play a role to put pressure, right, in those subsidies, in how to move some of the money from, you know, subsidy of fossil fuel to nature-based solution. And companies need also to embrace that advocacy. And the final point is accountability. Make sure that companies are measuring and holding people accountable for delivering against those goals, right? So, uh, and Natura, uh, Natura, which I had the privilege to be part for, for, for a couple years, you know, part of the compensation of the top management is connected to climate, to delivering. It's not just financial metrics, right? So accountability is also very important into that equation, right? So I urge companies to really embrace the notion of setting ambitions, action plan, advocacy, and then really accountability.

Yeah. And I think what you said about businesses standing out and speaking out is something that I'm hearing increasingly. There's been various conferences in Brussels this week and That's something that constantly people have said to companies, you need to stand up and shout at policymakers if you want them to act and change as you're suggesting. Andrew, Roberto's just mentioned offsets, nature-based solutions, and then the idea that companies may be doing things but not shouting about them. And we've got this debate at the moment around greenwashing, greenhushing, what companies are actually doing, shouldn't be doing or should be doing. You know, how can companies in the current environment, which is quite difficult as well for even the companies that are perhaps moving in the right direction because they're very much under the spotlight and pulled out very quickly if things don't go quite as expected, you know, how should companies sort of position themselves on nature-based solutions and really showcase what they're doing as being something which is positive and not? Is it a case of having very clear guidelines? Is it a case of of reporting? How do companies manage this process?

Well, look, some companies are showing great leadership, others are showing none. So it's really important that as we talk about Nature Rising that we not make the mistake of saying, you know, job done. It's nowhere near done. We're losing the battle, just to be crystal clear. You know, shocking facts if you think about it. One species, humans, have doubled in population since 1970. If you take the total population of all other vertebrates in the wild, their total population has fallen by 65%. You know, one species, all the other species decline. That's just one indicator of many that show how far we're losing the battle, that the forests are still being lost and so on. Those companies that are leading should be proud of what they're doing. And they should disclose and they should urge their governments to do much, much more in terms of creating the appropriate regulatory environment. Why? Because other companies are actually not paying attention and maybe sometimes even gaining competitive advantage. So it is in the interest of the leading companies to actually have governments come in. We've had a fascinating situation over the last 15 years If you think about how do we measure carbon, how do we measure biodiversity, how do we measure water, those are all issues that NGOs have done. So for example, 15 years ago, World Resources Institute, together with WBCSD, said, hey, let's create a standard for how you measure greenhouse gases. That's the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. And then another NGO, CDP, said, wouldn't it be great if you could actually report totally, you know, self-appointed reporting? Then another group of NGOs said, what about setting standards? And that was the Science Based Targets Initiative for NGOs and We Mean Business Coalition. And then another group said, how about setting rules for carbon markets? So they set up something called the ICBCM on the supply side, the VCMI on the demand side. Absolutely fascinating. That this is all coming from the voluntary sector. And it's actually been a pretty good partnership between NGOs and the private sector. And the question is, isn't it now time that some adults came into the room? And I don't mean that the others are not adults, but governments have a role to play in ensuring, just as they do on financial disclosure. And these disclosures are just as important. And so So it's what we're going to see, I think, in the next 5 years is a sort of some extent sort of handing of the baton over to really, really professionalizing the entire sort of regulatory reporting, standard setting and accountability system. NGOs will still play an incredibly important role and they need to keep working as effectively as they do with the leading private sector.

I think that's really interesting what you've just said, Andrew, and if I can just delve into that a little bit more, especially in terms of the regulation that's needed perhaps to get companies to disclose around nature. I mean, a couple of weeks ago in the EU, we had the competitiveness report by Mario Draghi, which suggested that sustainability frameworks were a regulatory burden, with a sort of suggestion that some of them should be rolled back. In the US, we've seen a big pushback as well against, you know, having disclosure regulation, you know, the SEC, what they were trying to do is stuck at the moment. So do you genuinely see within the next 5 years that this can change and we can have more professionalized rules in terms of disclosure?

Yeah, well, I certainly hope so. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think government is the solution for all of this. I just think that, you know, different players have different comparative advantages, and we should give thanks to the NGOs for the role they are playing and they'll continue to play. But yes, I do think we will reach a stage, hopefully soon, whereas, as Roberto was saying, I mean, those points he was making, those need to become required. I mean, the vast majority of commitments that the private sector is making are voluntary. I mean, it's stunning. I mean, take SBTI, 7,000 companies, almost the vast majority of those are not being told to set them by their governments. They're setting them on a voluntary basis. So too, most of the companies, the tens of thousands that sign up to CDP, they're not being instructed to. Look at We Mean Business Coalition, which obviously Roberto is sort of centrally involved in. Same thing there. It's a voluntary set. Now, you did raise the issue of offsets and carbon markets. We're currently in a rather fruitless discussion going on. We have a school of thought that is sort of ideologically opposed to markets. And they've got a lot of evidence to support their views because there's been a lot of abuse of carbon markets. There's been a lot of greenwashing. Where they are fundamentally wrong is that because there's been some abuse, therefore we should give up on the idea.

No.

I mean, it took, you know, my wife is Belgian, she comes from Bruges. If you go to Bruges, you will see the first stock exchange in the world that was opened in the 13th century. It took us 700 years to get from that to a stock exchange playing an efficient role. We don't have 700 years, but we are making huge progress in actually having the capacity to say, this is a high-integrity supply, this is a high-integrity demand. And so unfortunately, we've got this very fruitless discussion going on where ideologues who are anti-market are on the rooftops saying it's terrible, and companies and even the moderate NGOs are not standing up and saying, you guys, actually, if we want to close coal plants in Indonesia, which they're willing to do, we actually need to allow the good companies, the good companies to offset a small portion of their Scope 3 emissions. And we're not having that productive discussion.

I do want to just add on Andrew's side because I could not agree more, uh, what he said. And listen, at We Mean Business, we are also trying to make this point. It's almost like, listen, we know it's going to take time, right? And, and I think Andrew positioned the way I like to say NGOs started, then you get the pub— the private sector really embracing, and now it's time for the public sector and government to really get into that. So it is a journey, right? And in terms of disclosure and in terms of methodologies and in terms of how we are reporting things, you know, credit market, we got to understand and, and that we needed to be pragmatic, right? And we need to walk before we run, right? So we needed to understand that even companies at this point, and if the government start making moves, is not going to be perfect from day one, right? It took centuries, you know, years for the whole economic system to find a way to monitor, to disclose in a way that everybody agrees with some of the standards. Again, we don't have that much of time, unfortunately, but we needed to understand for companies to start feeling they're making progress, some of the offsets will be important, right? Because otherwise it creates such an impossible battle. That then they just say, well, I cannot do it, right? I just can't, right? I don't have the technology. It's costing too much. So people need to understand that there is a little bit of balance here. Companies need to be profitable. This is not a philanthropy initiative. Companies need to think about sustainable development, a, you know, a nature-based solution as a way to drive innovation, as a way to actually win in what they are doing. But in order to do that, it needs to be cost efficient. They need to be able to sell that to their shareholders that what they're doing is right and it's going to be able to drive innovative solutions and still be able to be profitable. So there is a pragmatism that needs to start playing a bigger role in some of those discussions. And I just hope that all stakeholders, and that has to be a collective conversation, it's not just one aspect of the business or shareholder or the government or the NGOs. It has to be a collective conversation about how we advance this agenda of disclosure, of standards, right? But in a way that brings pragmatism on the table, in a way that, yes, we are not trying to, to play a game here, but you are trying to make sure that it's possible to advance some of those things. And that, in my opinion, is what's still missing a bit.

And Roberto, I mean, as Andrew was saying, that a lot of the commitments, or most of the commitments that companies are putting in place at the moment around nature are voluntary. And you've just mentioned various reasons why companies, you know, do this, because there are advantages, they can be seen as frontrunners, most innovative companies. Perhaps you could explain a bit more what, why companies are putting in place these standards if they don't have to do so. I mean, presumably they don't see it as a, as a brake on their profitability, they see that there's an advantage to doing this?

Well, for a couple of reasons. One, and I'm going to use the example of Natura, right? Natura has been doing this since they were founded by the three founders of Natura 55 years ago. But it's the notion that if you work with the communities, nature— and Natura has manufacturing, R&D, working with the communities in the Amazonia. The biodiversity, the richness actually produce competitive advantage products that actually can produce better moisturization, right? And by creating those claims, you are attracting customers and consumers that want to buy more nature-based products that deliver actually better products than some of the competition. So it's a win-win-win. It's a win for the communities in the Amazonia that get involved and they're part of the solution. They get some of the profit coming from selling the product. It's a win for the company that is creating a competitive advantage in the market. It's a win for the customers that are buying a better product and they want products that are more natural, right? So there is a push coming from a demand coming from the market. So it's not just, again, it's not philanthropic things. It's about creating competitive advantage. It's about meeting customer demand. Uh, then the generation that is coming, they are thinking about companies that want to work, that has clarity about how they are positioning themselves in those topics that we're talking about, and they're choosing products that actually deliver against those things. So it is about thinking also just from a market perspective how we're going to continue to be relevant in the future. Right, in the present and in the future. So if you put all those things together, it's no surprise that the private sector is actually moving faster than the public sector. But those things now need to come to a better, I would say, combination of things because the public sector has a very important role to play as well to facilitate that.

And do you think that— I mean, what you've said makes total sense for companies like Natura, which is essentially a nature-based company to a certain degree. Does what you've said also work for companies like mining companies or chemical companies, which may not be sort of as nature-based? Is there still a reputational advantage there?

Yes. And why? Because of Scope 3. They are supplying— like aluminum goes to cars, right? So if the cars that are selling to the customers, the customers are also looking for electrical vehicles, or companies that are more sustainable, you know, the scope 3 of those car manufacturers is coming from companies that are producing metals, right? So everything is interconnected, which is the beauty of thinking about from an SBTI perspective scope 1, 2, and 3. And that's why even though I'm also in favor to make sure that we can work scope 3 in some offsets, but we cannot never forget the importance of Scope 3 into that equation.

This is an extremely important point. Scope 3 is the secret weapon of solving problems. Just as on the energy side, lots of countries and regions are at the moment wanting high tech to move in and set up their server centers and create their own little mini Silicon Valleys. And then companies come in and say, hey, the only condition, the only way we would do this is if you will provide us with green electrons. I mean, so if you give us simply brown electrons, we're out of here. So too, it's a brilliant example in terms of the metals and minerals. I mean, conditions required increasingly on the nature side, we will need, they will say, we will need you to behave better because your bad behavior will fit into our scope 3 sort of thing. So it's complicated, but it's very, very important. And it's something that most people don't realize is that this is why, you know, we say we have a few leading companies, maybe 20% of companies now really get this. And you say, well, 20% is not enough because what about the other 80%? But the other 80% will be in someone's supply chain. So you can sort of push it back and it's some pretty exciting things going on.

Yeah, I like Andrew, what you said, the scope 3 being the secret weapon because it is. So let's just use again the example of Natura, again, to your point, being really into nature-based solutions. And, but interesting enough, of the all emissions, over 80% of the emissions are on scope 3. And Scope 3 then was mapped, and the key issues on Scope 3 was packaging, raw material, transport, and printed material. So when you have that, then you create your action plan. And the action plan, interesting enough, is more with your suppliers than actually what you're producing and selling. So the importance of really understanding this ecosystem, right? So how things are interconnected. And then creating a clear plan, understand your baseline. It creates then opportunity to work with the suppliers and try to come with innovative solutions, things that potentially can add value and create competitive advantage. But the importance of Scope 3 is extremely relevant here in this conversation.

It might be worth— someone was saying yesterday in New York at Climate Week that actually the vast majority of of businesses in the world think that Scope 3 is a form of mouthwash. And it might be worth clarifying what Scope 1, 2, and 3 are. Scope 1, just in case anyone listening isn't aware, Scope 1 is the emissions from your own factories and so on. Scope 2 is the electricity and the energy you use. Where does that come from? Scope 3 is your entire upstream and downstream supply chain. And so as Roberto was saying, that accounts for about 80% of the total emissions of the company.

Thanks for that clarification. That's super useful. I'd like to move now to the question of financing, because obviously this is at the heart of everything. And Andrew, both in terms of how do we finance solutions for nature or help companies transition to ways of working which are less damaging to nature, and then on the other side of the equation, there's a big call. I mean, the We Mean Business coalition is leading the call to phase out fossil fuels. But there's obviously massive amounts of money still going into fossil fuels and practices which are not very friendly towards nature. So how do we, how do we change this system?

Well, I mean, first, it is disgraceful. We've known for, you know, 30 years that subsidizing fossil fuels is happening. We know that in cash terms, it's about a trillion dollars. IMF tells us that actually if you take all of the factors into account, it's like $7 trillion a year. It's plenty money there to solve the problem and nowhere near enough is being done about it. And we should be leading private sector citizens, NGOs should be demanding their governments get serious about this through the G20 and through their own parliaments and so on. So that is a no-brainer and it's not happening for all kinds of reasons that we understand because the fossil fuel business are much better, much better at making their case than the environmental group. What we need to do is be more creative at bringing different pools together. You know, I have the privilege of leading the Bezos Earth Fund. It's a $10 billion grant fund this decade. And each, we like to say, each dollar that we provide as a grant needs to do two things. It needs to do what it says in the particular project, but then it needs to leverage real momentum and create real movements. And we need to see much more creative environments between philanthropy, government funding, private funding. And there's a journey here. We're making progress, but we could see a lot more. Encouragingly, 2 years ago at the biodiversity framework that was agreed in Montreal under the biodiversity convention, they said, look, governments need to provide $20 billion a year. That will be discussed in Cali next month, but it's not adding up yet, quite frankly. We just need to sort of think through all of the different elements, including, for example, carbon credits and biodiversity credits as those start emerging too.

Thanks, Andrew. And Roberto, how do you see the financing question from businesses? I mean, in the US, we've obviously got the Inflation Reduction Act, which is working on climate, but also a certain amount of money is going towards towards nature-based solutions. Conferences I've been at in Brussels this week, there's been very clear that there needs to be more public funding to help government, to help companies then, or help private investment come in and change the way of doing business. What do you see from the businesses you're working with in terms of changing their practices and switching towards financing cleaner and more nature-based solutions rather than the bad stuff?

Yeah, listen, to Andrew's point, I mean, we can get our arms around with when we think about this environmentally harmful subsidies in the trillions, right? Every year over, you know, 3, almost 3 trillion. And it's growing. That's the other thing. It's actually not being reduced. Listen, we understand and we mean business. We talk about a fair and just transition. From fossil fuel to clean, right? It's not going to happen overnight, but it's got to be like a roadmap. Uh, and, and we understand also some of the bottlenecks right now. We understand that the challenge with electricity, the electrification of the world, is facing a, a pressure, right? Uh, electricity right now is, is, is all-time high, right? You see huge demand actually moving to electrical solutions as a way to reduce fossil fuel. But you also have a huge demand, for example, data centers, AI, that are pushing a lot of demand for electricity. So we needed to also bring some pragmatism, understanding, you know, how to address some of those bottlenecks, right? So we can move to clean solutions overnight because at the end of the day, there is cost, price involved for companies to operate. And companies are struggling with that. I can tell you that a lot of companies are struggling to, okay, if we go too fast into some of those breakthrough technologies, et cetera, customers are unwilling to pay premiums or even if they are on the value chain as a supplier for companies to buy, You know, so there is a need to create like a blueprint, like a roadmap in how we're going to really address that collectively. Again, it has— it cannot be just one, you know, aspect or one entity with a say. What is clearly is that there is a lot of money right now put into, you know, subsidies for environmental harmful products. How we transition that, how we accelerate and scale up some of the solutions that are more clean solutions that allow companies then to put more investment and achieve what they need to achieve in addressing some of the bottlenecks, and electricity right now is one of them. That should be the core of the conversation. And I just hope that, you know, the COPs, the biodiversity forums, that they understand that, that the transition is important, but this word transition is key, right? But we gotta have a plan. We can't just, you know, accept over $3 billion, trillion dollars being spent in subsidies of harmful environmental things and be okay with that.

Yeah, indeed. And Andrew, Roberto says we need a transition, which is clearly— we're talking about our transition. Nobody's talking about switching things off overnight. But at the same time, under the 1.5 scenarios, I think emissions are supposed to be reduced by 45% by 2030. We're still increasing emissions. So this roadmap has to come about fairly quickly. Do you see in the upcoming COPs that there's any chance— you've talked about, you know, there should be implementation COPs— is there any chance of some kind of roadmap in this sense coming out? Or do we almost already have that, for example, with the International Energy Agency's 1.5 roadmap? Is that something that we can use to sort of do what Roberto has just suggested?

Well, look, we're nowhere near ambitious enough. As you know, in the next 6 months, all the countries in the world are supposed to come up with their new NDCs, those are their plans. And as Roberto says, we need those plans just as the private sector needs to have a path to net zero and nature positive, so too governments need to have a path. And the paths at the moment are better than they were before Paris, but they're not as good as they need to be. And it's important to remember that before Paris, we were heading towards a world that was going to approach 4 degrees Celsius. We're now heading towards a world that's sort of 2.5 degrees Celsius. 2.5 degrees Celsius would be a disaster, but it's certainly a lot better than what we had before Paris. So in other words, we've got to embrace two truths that seem inconsistent. Truth number one is we are failing badly. We are about to go off a cliff. It is very, very serious, and there are negative tipping points that could make things much, much worse. So we need to embrace that honestly, how urgent it is. The same time we're seeing progress, which is unbelievable. I mean, whether it's in the cost of technologies, whether it's in certain policies in certain countries, whether it's in leadership from the private sector, we're seeing some things that we never would have dreamt of. We're seeing exponential change. We're seeing positive tipping points. And we need to embrace both of those so that we have hope, but with a sort of realism. And what we mustn't do is sort of take the average, which is, well, I don't know, you know, because if you don't think you've got hope, you won't get out of bed in the morning. If you think you've got a chance of getting into the Olympic team, you'll be in the gym at 5 o'clock in the morning. If you're like me and you know you'll never get in the Olympic team, you stay in bed. And that's exactly what we have to avoid right now. And there are some, just coming back for a minute to the point about public funding for nature. There's some good news as well. One is that actually it's bipartisan. In this country, in the United States, Republicans are just as interested in nature as Democrats are. And around the world, it is one of the few things that actually we can agree on. So in the United States at the moment, there's legislation that's being considered to set up, for example, an International Conservation Foundation, which is remarkable and good, totally bipartisan, sponsored by the Republicans and the Democrats. Another piece of good news is that, and it's something that Roberto is making the point on, is that we are increasingly seeing the nature agenda as pro-poor. And therefore you can take the resources that you have for economic development, which are not enough, but say a country like the United Kingdom, half a percent of GDP, that's quite a lot of money. And if you listen to the new foreign secretary's speech last week, in Kew Gardens, which is terrific. He said, look, we are going to take nature and climate seriously, and that is not inconsistent with our development goals. On the contrary, if we do it right, we can double and triple dip. So take the issue that Roberto mentioned earlier about it's not just conservation of nature, it's restoration of nature. Think about all those molecules up there in the atmosphere, bring them down to earth, you know, through the magic of photosynthesis where they become trees and bushes and crops and soils. You actually bring life and vitality. You can double the income of poor farmers in Africa. You can create more resilience, more water, a capacity to store in the soil, stronger soils, and so on. That actually is an incredibly pro-poor, pro-resilient investment. But by the way, it also helps solve your climate change problem. It also can help biodiversity. So there's actually quite an important sort of coming together. It's not just nature and climate coming together, It's nature, climate, and the future of people around the world having, you know, having good livelihoods moving forward.

That is a very— if I may, Andrew, you touch on a point that I think is also extremely relevant when we think about nature and restoration preservation, which is really most of the critical forests are in the emerging markets. So by doing that, you actually get two benefits, right? You have the climate benefits, but you have the inclusion, you have the sustainable development of communities that their livelihoods are being impacted by that. And so by doing this, you end up also creating a solution also that is a better, more inclusive and just for a lot of those communities and societies that depend on nature for their livelihoods. And the point that is also when we talk about an all-stakeholder approach to drive those solutions, very important to bring those communities to the dialogue, to the table, to the, to the conversation, the indigenous communities, the people that are being impacted, that depend, you know, and I've seen COPs starting to bring, you know, that portion which is so relevant. You know, we get those are the people, again, the companies have the license to operate in, in, in their communities, in, in, in their livelihoods, how we bring them as part of the solution, because they know, they understand. So it's very important to be more inclusive in also how we reach out to them, how we bring them as part of the conversation, as part of the solution.

And on that note, Roberto, how can companies— I mean, you mentioned in terms of COPs bringing indigenous people or local communities, how can businesses also work better with local communities or indigenous groups to ensure that they're part of nature-based solutions and they don't feel that they're having sort of things imposed upon them? I mean, do you have any good examples you can share from the companies you've worked with?

So Natura has been working with over 40 communities in the Amazon, over 50 bioingredients, and, and they wouldn't be able to get those bioingredients, understanding, you know, the seeds of the trees and what the properties without the local communities. So, the importance of companies to have a presence, to reach out, but thinking about the communities as a way to also bring, you know, the knowledge, the understanding, and then share some of that with Natura does. We share almost like royalties, if you think about it, to the communities in terms of the products that, you know, we're developing. That's also a win-win. Right, for the communities and for the company. So making sure that, you know, companies are reaching out and working with the local communities, with the indigenous populations when they are, to really foster innovation, because that's what, again, it's all about, is to foster innovation and better solutions. So it is possible. And but it is critical to make sure that they're also considered as part of the solution and not just actors.

Yeah, that is so, that's so right. Um, we discovered, for example, that, um, that carbon credits in, uh, in the Amazon were totally bypassing the, the people that actually were protecting the forest, the indigenous people. The people making the money were local governments and the developers. And so one of the things that the Bezos Earth Fund is doing is financing some serious sort of legal assistance to make sure there is an equal place at the table. And so too, if you want to protect the forest, you have to give alternative livelihoods. And so the so-called bioeconomy, we're heavily engaged in that as well in order to sort of help help think about a better alternative future.

So I think we're going to have to call it a close soon, but before we close, both of you have mentioned the role of policymakers and that there seems to be a void around this, that, you know, businesses are doing some, some businesses are good, some are not doing anything, but to really get the ball rolling here and to get companies to do more around nature, there needs to be more engagement from policymakers. So Andrew, what, you know, if you could magically perhaps not make it to the Olympics, but, you know, force policymakers to do something in the coming months, especially with COP16 and COP29 on the horizon? What would you really want to see to get the ball moving on nature and especially to encourage and force almost businesses to do more? What do policymakers need to do?

Well, one, they need to— we need a narrative that is inspiring. An important point in almost everything we're talking about is there are no silver bullets. No one agent, whether government, private sector, NGO, media, whatever, can solve it. You actually need them all. And it's when you understand that, you can actually realize how exciting this adventure is. Take, say, deforestation in Southeast Asia. What causes it? Palm oil, basically. Now, in the old days, I used to actually run World Bank programs in Southeast Asia. What we would do is we'd go to the government and say to the government, hey, you really need to address all this palm oil, which is losing your 'Can you not regulate it better?' That was good, but that will never solve the problem. It's only when the private sector players who sit in Singapore and buy on the stock exchange, buy on the spot market or the forward market for palm oil, they know what's happening. There are 1,000 palm oil mills in Southeast Asia. We need to know which of those 1,000. A major company came to us and said, 'Look, of the 1,000, can you tell us the 200 of the worst and we'll stop buying?' We now have satellite technology, which the Base or South Fund is very proud to be financing. We can see virtually every tree that falls. We now know we can map those 1,000 and we can put probabilistic estimates as to exactly, you know, which are honorable, which are dishonorable. That won't do it in and of itself. You've got to have the smallholder people engaged. That's a different issue. Then you need the entire supply chain. So Walmart, if it's selling You know, half of every, half of all the products on the supermarket, um, have palm oil in it. Well, wouldn't it be great if you started thinking about labeling? There's a role for government there. And it's only when you start thinking about, my goodness me, this is a jigsaw puzzle that is, that is thrilling. I mean, who doesn't want to be part of, of putting the pieces together? And each player needs to have its role, and governments at each step along the way have legitimate roles. Private sector at the end of the day will be the ones that actually are making the decisions to buy or not to buy, sell or not to sell, and citizens need to also be made aware of the fact that they are part of either the problem or the solution.

Thank you. And Roberto, the same to you in terms of, you know, what do policy— what do you see that is a need for policymakers to do in the coming months?

Leadership. It is about one, as Andrew said, the notion that not one entity or single person or single entity will be able to come with a solution. So have the humility to reach out. And that's hard, right? It's hard when governments and people that are elected have the humility to reach out and ask for help and try to bring, you know, NGOs, companies that are doing well, listening what needs to happen. And the power of the collective to come with the solutions. I think Andrew, you know, shared a beautiful example in Southeast Asia in terms of how they come, you know, with some of those solutions. That, in my opinion, is really what this is all about because we already have— the good news is most of the technologies exist. Most of the tracking and how we are measuring things exist. Right, is available. How we now start moving money and funds, which is what we are talking about, the importance of the public sector, either with the high-quality, you know, carbon credits, or how we start moving money and prioritizing, you know, nature restoration, etc. Like Amazonia, we know that there's a lot of the, the deforestation right now is illegal deforestation. How we increase the monitoring of those biomas, etc. So, but it comes down to me to willingness, leadership, humility to understand that this is gonna take, you know, a village. And it's important for people to come together to dialogue, to make sure that forums like the COPs, etc., serves a purpose. And then really coming to action, creating a clear roadmap. And we talk about action, advocacy, and accountability. Accountability, right, is very important because you can't just say things and then whatever happens happens, right? People need to be held accountable. And that's what the disclosure is important. That's why the public, the general public and the civil society need to make sure that they're holding people accountable. The companies that they're buying products from, their politicians they are voting to, that's what it's all about. So it's not an easy answer to your question. But if I were to say one word, I would say leadership.

Great. Thank you very much to both of you. And thank you for being so honest in the terms of the sense that there aren't silver bullets. And I like your idea of the power of the collective. I think that's a very strong way of seeing the issue. And so I'd like to thank both of you for talking with me today. And I look forward to see how the issues that you've pulled out will be taken forward at COP16, hopefully, and beyond. Thank you to our listeners. That was the Sustainable Views podcast brought to you today in conjunction with the progressive business coalition We Mean Business. If you want to listen to more Sustainable Views podcasts, read our news and views, or check out our policy tracker, please go to sustainableviews.com.