On 15 July 2026, Biodiversity + Business Live brought together more than 100 representatives from business, government and civil society at the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh. The event was co-hosted by JNCC, the UK Business and Biodiversity Forum (UKBBF) and NatureScot.
The morning programme focused on three of the UKBBF’s seven Working Dialogues, each established in response to the IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment published in February 2026. Breakout groups were asked to address three questions:
- what are the priority actions needed to deliver practical outcomes;
- what are the main barriers and enablers to implementation;
- what should be the key message from each Dialogue to COP17
Summary of outcomes
Working Dialogue 1: Nature at the Board
Led by Justine Saunders, Scanis Consulting
The group reached strong consensus on a central principle: biodiversity can no longer be treated as an isolated green compliance issue. The room called for boards to adopt a single, combined risk narrative that interlinks climate, nature, artificial intelligence and emerging technologies over a three-to-five year horizon. The framing must shift from obligation to opportunity, presenting nature as a driver of competitive advantage, short-term profitability and future-proofing against shifting customer demand.
A recurring theme was integration over innovation. Boards will engage faster if biodiversity is embedded in systems they already use and trust, such as UN Sustainable Development Goal reporting and carbon frameworks, rather than presented as an entirely new area requiring new infrastructure. The group also argued strongly for getting directors physically out of the boardroom and into nature, to experience the impact of ecosystems firsthand rather than relying on slide decks and reports.
Priority actions
The group identified clear benchmarking as the most immediate priority: helping companies answer the question of where they are on the pathway and how they compare against their peers. Without this, boards lack the competitive context needed to drive action.
The group also called for nature to be framed positively at board level, not solely as a risk to be managed but as an opportunity to attract investment, strengthen resilience and build brand value. The idea of an “empty seat for nature at the board” was raised as one possible mechanism, though the group recognised that what works will vary from company to company.
Translating global strategies and targets into local action was identified as essential: think global, act local, and then scale contributions back up to a credible global commitment. Each business is different, with different languages, priorities, maturity and capacity to respond to different challenges, and the approach to board engagement must reflect that diversity. Both vertical action (within functions) and horizontal action (across functions) are required within each organisation.
Barriers and enablers
The main barrier identified was the persistent treatment of biodiversity as separate from core business strategy. Where nature is seen as a compliance or CSR matter, it remains marginal to board decision-making. The enabling factors include demonstrating commercial value, providing peer benchmarking, and integrating nature into existing governance and reporting structures rather than creating parallel processes.
Key message to COP17
- Communication at board level must translate into material action.
- Nature is not solely a negative risk issue for boards; it is a strategic opportunity.
- Businesses need clear benchmarks, peer comparison and practical guidance to move from awareness to delivery, and the approach must be tailored to the maturity, language and priorities of each organisation.
Working Dialogue 4: Enabling Environment for Businesses Post-2030
Led by Laura Homfray, Arup
The group was firm that the post-2030 framing, whilst useful for long-term planning, must not delay immediate action. There is a significant lack of biodiversity literacy across businesses of all sizes: large corporates may be making incremental site-level changes without understanding the broader picture, whilst SMEs are often time-poor and resource-poor. The group argued that government policy is the primary mechanism through which business behaviour is shaped. Businesses are, in effect, coded by the regulatory environment they operate in, and if the code does not require action on nature, most will not act.
The discussion drew a sharp distinction between enthusiastic individual champions for nature within businesses, who often struggle to be heard, and the structural incentives that actually drive corporate behaviour. Policy, regulation, standards and market signals are what change the “code” of a business, not appeals to goodwill.
Priority actions
Four priority areas emerged from the discussion. First, addressing harmful subsidies and increasing positive incentives, with a clear view on what to keep, what to grow and what to remove. The group noted that reform, not simply removal, is the objective, and that decisions should be made with the people most affected rather than imposed from above.
Second, specific collective action, particularly on transboundary regulation across supply chains. No single organisation can deliver outcomes alone, and biodiversity loss in landscapes, particularly in food and agriculture, requires collective action at multiple scales.
Third, encouraging long-term economic thinking. The UK has never had an economic strategy that extends beyond annual budgets, and the Treasury needs to engage with environmental evidence. The group called for a shift away from GDP as the sole measure of success towards broader wellbeing indicators.
Fourth, changing how businesses are coded through standards, rules and regulations that align corporate behaviour with the IPBES findings. The group noted the Rights of Nature Bill currently before Parliament as potentially significant. Regulation and policy that actively helps businesses take action, rather than simply penalising non-compliance, was seen as the most effective enabler.
Barriers and enablers
Key barriers included:
- the short-term nature of government policy, where a single change of personnel can wipe out decades of progress;
- lobbying and vested interests that resist reform;
- the challenge of managing a just transition, particularly in sectors such as farming;
- the conflict of interest inherent in businesses operating across multiple countries with varying regulatory environments;
- the inability to measure biodiversity in a comparable way (unlike carbon, there is no single metric);
- and the significant lack of understanding in business about what practical action is required.
Enablers included:
- incentivisation through reform rather than punitive measures;
- defining clearly what constitutes a harmful versus a beneficial subsidy;
- public-private mechanisms to increase finance and technical capacity for sustainable supply chains;
- an independent watchdog body;
- greater collaboration between businesses and transboundary frameworks such as the Convention on Migratory Species;
- and a UK economic strategy that looks beyond annual budgets.
Key message to COP17
- Government policy is how business behaviour is shaped. Without clear, long-term regulatory signals, consistent positive incentives and the removal of harmful subsidies, most businesses will not move at the pace or scale required.
- The enabling environment must be redesigned to make nature-positive business viable, competitive and the default, not the exception.
Working Dialogue 6: Nature Across the Supply Chain
Led by David Keddie, WSP
The group confronted the scale and complexity of addressing nature across modern supply chains. A fundamental challenge is that the problem is vast and needs narrowing to deliver tangible outputs. Supply chains are often deeply opaque: companies frequently do not know who their tier-two and tier-three suppliers are, let alone what their nature impacts might be. The group identified a significant language barrier between ecologists and business professionals, where even basic terms such as traceability and provenance mean different things in different contexts, and between supply chain and value chain as used by different audiences.
The discussion noted that sectors closest to nature, such as forestry, agriculture and food, are best placed to understand the issues and lead the way. International business leaders with direct experience of supply chain management in these sectors understand both the importance of nature and the practical reality that nature-positive supply chains produce better yields and more resilient outcomes. The lessons from those sectors can then be applied more broadly.
Priority actions
The group identified several practical priorities. Standardised biodiversity questions for suppliers, building on what already exists for carbon, would provide an immediate and scalable mechanism. BSI certification was seen as a potentially valuable route to creating consistency across industries, with sufficient flexibility to accommodate different sectors.
The call was for normalisation of language and data rather than rigid standardisation, giving businesses a suite of options they can apply to their circumstances. Case studies demonstrating the business benefits of tracing supply chains, including improved resilience, reduced risk and commercial advantage, were identified as essential for securing buy-in. The group also called for better government cross-working between enterprise agencies and nature agencies, and for education and engagement programmes tailored to different business sizes and levels of maturity.
Ownership of risk through supply chains was discussed, with the group drawing a parallel to health and safety in supply chains: could a similar mechanism be created for securing materials and managing nature-related risks, for instance around substances such as PFAS or red-list materials?
Barriers and enablers
Barriers included:
- the sheer number of competing frameworks, with not all companies aligning with TNFD;
- weak government support and regulation, which makes action feel optional;
- the lack of publicly available nature data, particularly consolidated and interpreted data;
- the absence of nature targets comparable to climate targets;
- the difficulty of engaging companies with supply chains they do not fully understand;
- the risk of greenwashing at the wrong level of the supply chain;
- and the tension between competitive pressures and the need for pre-competitive collaboration.
Enablers included:
- strong government policy to facilitate action;
- clear leadership within businesses;
- the identification of drivers and incentives;
- establishing value beyond purely financial metrics;
- cross-pollination of ideas through events such as this one;
- peer-to-peer knowledge programmes, particularly for farmers and SME suppliers;
- and collective action across whole catchments or landscapes, which spreads accountability and costs and prevents the free-rider problem.
Key message to COP17
- Supply chain action on nature cannot be delivered by any one organisation acting alone. It requires collaboration, even between competitors, and it ultimately needs to become mandatory.
- Businesses need a regulatory roadmap so they can see what is coming and plan accordingly, rather than waiting for each new requirement to land.
- Better support from government, including positive reinforcement and positive examples, is essential.
- As things become more mandatory, there should be a move towards standardisation, but businesses need clarity now on what will be required and when.
Cross-cutting themes
Several threads emerged consistently across all three Working Dialogues.
Collaboration
Every group concluded that no single organisation, sector or country can address these challenges alone. The transboundary dimension, across borders, sectors and scales, was identified as currently the weakest link. Whether at board level, across supply chains or in the regulatory environment, collective action is the prerequisite for progress.
Future-proofing
Every group framed nature not as a cost or a constraint but as central to long-term business resilience. The boards group spoke of competitive advantage; the supply chain group spoke of resilience and risk; the enabling environment group spoke of the need for economic strategy that looks beyond annual budgets. The direction of travel is consistent: businesses that act now will be better positioned for what comes next.
The gap between ambition and implementation
There is no shortage of frameworks, targets and good intentions. What is missing is the practical infrastructure to turn them into action: shared language across ecology and business; consistent data and metrics; clear benchmarks for peer comparison; and a regulatory environment that rewards leadership rather than penalising early movers. Closing that gap is the shared priority across all three Dialogues.
The need for cross-boundary and transboundary engagement
Across devolved nations, across public and private sectors, and across international supply chains. The current fragmentation of effort was seen as a significant brake on progress.
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