Biodiversity loss and climate change are among the most pressing challenges
of our times, and are strongly interconnected. Not only will climate change
directly affect biodiversity but mitigation and adaptation measures taken by
society could also have significant effects, both positive and negative, on
biodiversity.

Conservation strategies will need to be adapted to cope with a changing
climate; there is a need to explore how this should be done, and share
experiences of putting adaptation principles into practice. There is also
growing awareness that addressing biodiversity loss and climate change in an
integrated manner can have a range of multiple benefits for society, including
synergies with sustainable development goals. However, considerable
uncertainties remain surrounding the two-way interactions of biodiversity and
climate change and good practice examples of ecosystem-based approaches
to mitigation and adaptation are still rare.

Against this background, the conference sets out to meet a growing demand
for sharing knowledge and experiences in the field of biodiversity and climate
change in Europe. Taking a transdisciplinary perspective, the aim of the
conference is to bring scientists, conservation practitioners and policymakers
together in order to improve both the integration of research outputs into
practical conservation projects, and the identification of further research
needs.

Ecological balance is one of the three pillars of sustainable development and without it, business and society cannot function. All companies both impact and depend on ecosystems and the services they provide (e.g. freshwater, fiber, food, flood control, water purification, waste treatment).

Companies need to understand these impacts and dependencies and their associated values. The WBCSD’s Guide to Corporate Ecosystem Valuation (CEV) is the first of its kind, catering directly for the needs of business. It was developed through a process of close collaboration with businesses themselves – fourteen WBCSD members road tested the Guide*, working with four partners: International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), World Resources Institute (WRI), ERM and PwC.

Companies must anticipate that ecosystem valuation will be more consistently incorporated into public policies, regulations, and political decisions. Ecosystem values will be increasingly considered by the finance sector and business-to-business customers as they assess the biodiversity and ecosystem-related risks and opportunities of investments and supply chains.

During the event, participants will hear about:

• How companies can use CEV to make better-informed business decisions,
• Real company experiences using the Guide to explicitly value both ecosystem degradation and the benefits provided by ecosystem services,
• Why the Guide can be described as a framework to “operationalize” The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB).

See: www.wbcsd.org/web/cev.htm for more information.

There is growing recognition amongst companies of the need to better understand and integrate the management of environmental risks and opportunities into all aspects of business operations. It is also clear that humanity’s impacts on and dependency of biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES) represent risks and opportunities for financial institutions (FIs) and their clients. Increasingly, members of the finance community are also responding to this increased recognition for natural capital, and the pressing need to understand systemic risk in a far more holistic way. Does the financial sector sufficiently understand, and therefore value and price the risks and opportunities related to BES? Such matters are increasingly pertinent for all FIs, and particularly those active in the primary economy and in resource intensive sectors. Now is the time to accelerate both the general recognition of and collective action for the integration of BES as a reputational, regulatory and potentially even systemic risk to economic and financial sustainability.
 
An important objective of this workshop is to discuss how to advance the understanding and integration of biodiversity and ecosystem service (BES) criteria and risk management, lending and investment products. To that extent we would like to hear from all participants what the best strategy is to go forward. In line with this, we will be highlighting the Biodiversity Principles that are being developed under the guidance of the VfU, as well as a UNEP FI Natural Capital Statement for Finance Institutions. This Statement is a crucial process to building momentum around biodiversity conservation, which commenced during the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity, with inception workshops in London, at the CBD COP 10 in Nagoya Japan, and in Hong Kong with Credit Suisse. En route to the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 2012, the financial sector has a unique chance to demonstrate that it takes the loss of natural capital seriously and is taking action. We’d like to hear from participants in Munich how to make that happen.
 
 
Ivo Mulder                                                                                 Irina Detlefsen                                                     Eva Kammerer-Kirch
Programme Officer                                                       Corporate Sustainability                       Coordinator
UNEP Finance Initiative                                       HypoVereinsbank                                             VfU
 
                       
 
Please confirm your attendance by contacting Margot Hill ([email protected])
 

The confirmed speakers are:

Becca Madsen, Ecosystem Marketplace;
Frank Vorhies, Earthmind;
Ricardo Bayon, EKO Asset Management Partners;
Mike Van Patten, Mission Markets.

What:
An online webinar featuring an overview of biodiversity markets, followed by an expert panel on biodiversity markets, and a Q+A session.

Why Attend:
At the 10th Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP10) held in Nagoya, Japan last November, 193 governments promised to halve biodiversity loss by 2020. The IUCN estimates that $300 billion per year needs to be flowing to conservation by 2020 to meet this goal, but only around $37 billion is being delivered—mostly from governments and multilateral organizations whose coffers are entering crisis mode now. Alternative sources of financing are needed, and Ecosystem Marketplace hopes that SpeciesBanking.com will showcase examples of policies and programs that drive private investments in biodiversity restoration and preservation. Please join us to learn about the current state of biodiversity markets and what to expect in this realm going forward.

Webcast Details:
Friday, 1 April, 10 AM EDT (2 PM GMT). Webinar is capped to 500 participants. RSVP here.

Contact Info:
If you have any questions regarding this event, please contact Daniel Kandy at [email protected]

Thank you to our host Mission Markets!

For some time, biodiversity has been talked about as the next big sustainability issue. Dubbed the “new carbon”, and given it’s own international year of recognition by the UN in 2010 (now extended to a decade), its clear that this is one challenge that’s here to stay.

So if this is the case, how should business set out to address its impact on biodiversity? The TEEB report (The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity) says that the first step for business is to identify impacts and dependencies and then to begin to measure and report impacts, dependencies and responses. However, each of these steps presents it’s own significant challenges, meaning that knowing where to start can be extremely difficult.

To try to address some of the questions around how corporate sustainability professionals should approach biodiversity as a key business issue, we’re running an online Q&A discussion with a panel of experts.

The discussion will take place on Thursday 3rd March from 12 until 3pm and will cover areas such as:

• Is it possible (and useful) for a business to measure its biodiversity footprint?
• Should we even be talking about biodiversity as a distinct business issue (or should it in fact be something that is integrated into sustainability thinking across an organisation’s operations)?
• How can cross-sector collaboration help in addressing the biodiversity challenge?
• What does corporate best practice in terms of biodiversity look like at the moment? Who is leading and how can other organisations learn from them?
• How can investment in biodiversity and ecosystem services be encouraged?
• How can risk due to biodiversity loss be quantified and communicated?

You can either post your questions now or join us next week to follow the whole discussion. The Q&A will take place in the comments section on this page. If you can’t join us on Thursday, sign up to receive our newsletter and we’ll send you a link to a summary of the Q&A.

Tuesday 25 January, 10.00am – 12.00pm
Jubilee Room, just off the North West Corner of Westminster Hall.

Environmental legislation protects endangered species and habitats, but does not protect the low-priority biodiversity that supports the functioning and processes of ecosystems. Low priority biodiversity is being depleted rapidly as a result of human development activities, including agriculture, forestry, transport, industry, and housing development. Conceptually similar to carbon credit schemes, biodiversity offsets are market-based conservation strategies that place economic value on low-priority habitats by measuring human impacts on nature as credits and debits.

The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology invites you to a seminar to discuss biodiversity offsetting and the potential benefits and risks of market-based conservation strategies within a UK context with representatives of key groups involved. This event is intended to give UK Parliamentarians and their staff the opportunity to discuss this developing policy area.

Programme
Chair: Angela C. Smith MP, Chair of the Conservation and Wildlife, All-Party Parliamentary Group
Speakers: Claire Lewis, Biodiversity Offsetting Team, DEFRA
Dr Jo Treweek, Partner, Treweek Environmental Consultants
Professor David Hill, The Environment Bank Ltd.
Michael Oxford, Project Officer, Association of Local Government Ecologists

To attend please email: [email protected] or telephone: 020 7219 8377

The first NCER, held in Orlando, FL (2004) with over 900 restoration practitioners participating, lead to successful conferences in Kansas City, MO (2007) and Los Angeles, CA (2009). NCER brings together nearly 1,000 scientists, engineers, policy makers, planners, and partners from across the country actively involved in ecosystem restoration.

Initiated by the University of Florida, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, NCER typically entails five days of presentations in six program tracks, multiple workshops, poster sessions, field trips and coffee-house discussions dedicated to both small and large scale ecosystem restoration programs including but not limited to the Missouri and Mississippi River Basins, the Louisiana Coastal Area, Columbia River, the Everglades, the San Francisco Bay/Delta, the Chesapeake Bay, Great Lakes and Puget Sound, just to name a few.

The following topics will be considered in this two-day conference.
• Corporate governance, corporate social performance and corporate social responsibility
• Sustainability reporting, CSR reporting, environmental & social reporting
• Environmental innovations, environmental management system, environmental accounting
• Life cycle assessment, cradle to grave, cradle to cradle
• Green businesses & entrepreneurship, bottom of the pyramid
• Environmental sustainability country practices
• Materials renewal & recycling, design for recycling and disassembly
• Environmental product design & process improvements
• Social and economic impact of climate change / social bottom-line
• Corporate financial performance
The conference proceedings may be published in a special issue of the RCAPS Journal. Outstanding paper
presentations may be considered for submission to the Asia PacificWorld: The Journal of the
International Association for Asia Pacific Studies (IAAPS).

Abstracts of not more than 500 words must be sent to [email protected] on or
before October 30, 2010. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by November 15, 2010. Full papers
must be submitted on or before December 30, 2010, the registration deadline.

The conference fee includes lunch for the two days, socials dinner for January 29, 2011, and conference
kit. All authors joining the conference are required to register. On-line registration is now available on
this link:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/embeddedform?formkey=dGp1bXloWEFQQjI0SG9SQ29tNmtvZkE6MQ.

Registration fees for the full amount plus bank remittance and service charges must be transferred to:
Account name “APUGSM”, account no. 5 1 3 9 1 9 0 (Swift code: O I T A J P J T 0 7 7)
Oita Bank, Taiyo No Ie Branch (大分銀行太陽の家支店)
Address: 1393 Uchikamado, Beppu-City, Oita – ken, JAPAN
Telephone: +81 977-67-0800
Zip Code: 874-0011

Japan immigration requires visa for certain nationalities. The conference committee shall send invitation
letters to the participants. However, participants should secure a visa on their own. Please check the
immigration requirements from the Japanese embassy in your country before registering for this
conference.

Conference Chairs:
Kenji Yokoyama, Dean
Graduate School of Management
Robert C. Salazar, Professor
Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies
Michael Angelo A. Cortez, Asst. Professor
Graduate School of Management
+81 977 78 1111
+81 977 78 1232
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University
www.apu.ac.jp
1-1 Jumonjibaru,
Beppu City
Oita Prefecture 874-8577
JAPAN