The Importance of Biodiversity to Business

Biodiversity—all of life and its interdependencies across the natural world at the ecosystem, species, and genetic levels—is being destroyed at an alarming rate. This has major implications for business: studies indicate 55% of the world’s GDP—58 trillion dollars—is moderately or highly dependent on nature. In this course, learn how business can and should be contributing to the conservation and responsible use of biodiversity and nature. Instructor and sustainability strategies expert David Bennell explains the economic value of biodiversity, the primary pressures driving biodiversity loss including impacts of business activities on biodiversity, the major financial risk for businesses due to the decline of ecosystems, and the opportunities available to companies to mitigate that risk, help restore biodiversity, and become a more nature positive business.

Learning objectives
Explain the three levels of biodiversity: species diversity, genetic diversity, and ecosystem diversity.
List the five pressures that are primarily responsible for driving biodiversity loss.
Explain four industry value chains that have major impacts on biodiversity
Explain the significant opportunities of being a nature-positive company.