Blog,
By GBI Legal and Climate Advisor Catie Shavin
The intersections between human rights and environmental risks are being discussed more widely than ever before – with a clear trajectory of change in legal and policy developments, reporting standards, benchmarking initiatives and stakeholder expectations.
The connections between biodiversity and human rights have also come more sharply into focus due to increasing regulation, coupled with stakeholder, investor and media pressure.
It’s an area where stronger and more widespread business practice is currently lacking. Greater efforts to identify, understand, and address the human rights impacts of business involvement in biodiversity loss – as well as action to conserve biodiversity and restore nature – are needed if we are to achieve a nature-positive future, address the climate crisis and do so through just transitions that leave no one behind.
The results of the 2023 Nature Benchmark indicate that the overwhelming majority of companies do not yet understand how they affect and rely on nature. The World Benchmarking Alliance has observed that this finding has serious implications for both people and our planet.
This blog and GBI’s new high-level briefing seek to contribute a clearer understanding of the potential human rights impacts of companies on biodiversity loss, and support companies to navigate both the biodiversity and climate crises in a rights-respecting way.
What do companies need to know about biodiversity and human rights?
Biodiversity is vital for all life on the planet and loss of biodiversity presents inherent human rights risks. However, action to address biodiversity loss and restore nature can lead to adverse human rights impacts.
Companies can potentially cause, contribute to or be directly linked to human rights impacts through their involvement in both biodiversity loss and action to address it.
For example:
- A company can adversely impact the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment through contributions to biodiversity loss that occur in connection with natural resource extraction or agricultural practices.
- A company may adversely impact land rights through action to address biodiversity loss, such as bio-offsetting, reforestation, nature conservation and restoration initiatives, or efforts to reduce plastics pollution.
- Workers’ and communities’ livelihoods and standard of living may be adversely impacted if a company makes major changes to its business to conserve biodiversity - for example by shifting the geography of its agricultural supply chains, exiting markets or engaging in eco-conversion.
These risks may be present in the value chain of companies operating in virtually any industry or sector – well beyond those that may be front of mind, such as food and beverage, mining, logging and packaging.
Importantly, companies should be aware that the rights of Indigenous Peoples and of other traditional or local communities may be disproportionately affected by both biodiversity loss and action to conserve biodiversity and restore nature. Indigenous Peoples comprise less than five percent of the world’s population, yet have protected 80% of Earth’s global biodiversity. Their critical roles and leadership in addressing the biodiversity crisis are increasingly recognised in legal and policy developments.
Businesses from a wide range of sectors may therefore find themselves working with Indigenous Peoples on action to address the biodiversity crisis – and should ensure that they approach such partnerships and interactions in a rights-respecting way.
What action should companies take to address biodiversity-related human rights risks?
Many of the actions needed to address these risks should already be intuitive to practitioners as part of their company’s human rights due diligence processes:
- Ensure relevant policy commitments, human rights and environmental due diligence processes and grievance mechanisms are fit for purpose to address biodiversity-related human rights impacts, and that these are informed by meaningful engagement with stakeholders.
- Consider what additional steps may be needed to embed a rights-respecting response to the biodiversity crisis within your organisation – including to ensure coherence and coordination through governance frameworks, internal communications channels, capability-building initiatives.
- Importantly, companies that have not previously built know-how and experience respecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples and of other traditional and local communities should consider whether this may now be needed.
- Biodiversity-related human rights risks sit squarely within the corporate responsibility to respect human rights – what’s expected isn’t ‘new’ but may constitute a blind spot for many companies.
That said, the magnitude of the biodiversity crisis and the action that will be needed to address biodiversity loss and build a nature-positive future is likely to require tectonic transformations in how our societies, economies and institutions operate.
Some scientists believe that the sixth mass extinction has begun, and a recent assessment of planetary boundaries found that all four biological boundaries were at or close to the highest risk level. One estimate suggests that 75% of the world’s food is sourced from just 12 crops and five animal species. Further, the UN has described biodiversity as our strongest natural defence against climate change, and nature-based solutions will likely form a (significant) component of efforts to limit global warming.
Addressing human rights risks should not deter businesses from addressing their impacts on biodiversity loss. Rather, companies should use human rights due diligence to help guide their actions in preventing, mitigating, and addressing any identified human rights risks associated with biodiversity loss and their actions to prevent it.
The sheer magnitude of the transformations required to respond effectively to both the climate and biodiversity crises – and the urgency with which we need to act – will complicate efforts to understand and address the human rights risks presented, while also presenting opportunities to strengthen realisation of human rights.