A new report from the EU Business and Biodiversity Platform explores in the built environment sector.

The built environment contributes to biodiversity loss, particularly through changes in land use, disturbance of water cycle, unsustainable sourcing of a wide array of building materials, pollution, and contributions to climate change. Recognizing these impacts, leading companies and financiers have begun incorporating nature-positive principles into their operations, business models, and corporate engagement strategies. Yet, many obstacles and challenges linked to technology, governance, financing, and policy issues remain for these to fulfil their potential and contribute to the nature-positive goal at scale. Solving these key challenges requires collective action involving business, finance and policy.

This report is the result of the European Business and Biodiversity (EU B&B) Platform’s engagement with representatives from the built environment, investors and policy makers to help identify transformative actions that can be taken at different levels to progress towards nature-positive models. It highlights current drivers of change (technological, financial, political, etc.) to facilitate nature-positive business trajectories looking, in particular, at the role of finance and policy as enablers of change, and identifies next steps to scale up action.

Download the report here.