“The value of nature is fundamental,” said Emmanuel Faber, inaugural chair of the International Sustainability Standards Board, before a roomful of bankers and business executives in Montréal last December. "Without nature, there’s no life. It’s as simple as that. Forget finance. Forget funds. Forget returns to shareholders. Forget everything."

Faber, a B Team leader and former CEO of Danone, carried this message to Montréal for the fifteenth meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, also known as CBD COP15. Ratified by 196 countries — excluding, most notably, the United States — the Convention on Biological Diversity is the international convening and legal instrument for the conservation of nature and biodiversity. Every two years, thousands of delegates meet to assess progress, affirm priorities and strengthen commitments among nations. Many others, including activists, civil society leaders and business representatives, attend to raise awareness and shape outcomes.

One in eight species of plants and animals is under threat of extinction, driven by conversion of natural habitats into land for agriculture and other industrial uses. About 90% of marine fish stocks are fully exploited, overexploited or depleted. Only 36% of tropical rainforests, the planet’s oldest living ecosystems, remain intact. Since the 1950s, half of the world’s coral reefs (the “rainforests of the sea”) have disappeared. Nearly every human on Earth is exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution, and more than 3.6 billion people struggle with water scarcity at least one month each year.

Biodiversity — “the very stuff of life,” biologist E.O. Wilson famously explained — is collapsing, faster than ever before. And we know why: changes in land and sea use, exploitation of natural resources, climate change, pollution and invasive species.

These five drivers of biodiversity loss share a common catalyst: human and industrial activity to support high-consumption lifestyles in developed countries and fast-rising consumption in developing nations.

The natural ecosystems that elicit our wonder and sustain our lives are in danger. And we are the ones responsible.

“If we keep abusing nature, it will collapse, taking us with it,” implores Christiana Figueres, B Team leader and architect of the historic Paris Climate Agreement.

CBD COP15 convened in Montréal with a galvanizing mission to halt and reverse nature loss by the end of this decade. Two weeks of tense international negotiations ensued, with real risk emerging that disagreements among delegates would preclude passage of a meaningful agreement.

Shared urgency and responsibility ultimately prevailed. In the early hours of December 19, the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted an ambitious plan called the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

Widely viewed as a “Paris Agreement for nature,” the GBF is historic because it creates a framework for how countries, industry and communities can collaborate to save nature. It complements and supports other international efforts, like the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals.

A wide-ranging and ambitious agreement, the GBF seeks to:

• Maintain and restore ecosystem integrity;

• Meet human needs through the sustainable use of biodiversity;

• Fairly and equitably share the benefits of natural resources like plant-derived medicines, including digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources;

• Protect indigenous peoples’ rights; and

• Secure the necessary means of implementation, including finance and capacity building.

The GBF’s most celebrated target, known as “30x30,” calls for the conservation of 30% of the Earth’s land and sea areas by 2030. A second “30×30” goal made it into the GBF, with developed countries agreeing to mobilize $30 billion per year by 2030 for “the least developed countries and small island developing States, as well as countries with economies in transition.”

A deeper dive into GBF targets and CBD COP15 achievements can be found here.

Similar to the Paris Agreement, the GBF’s goals and targets are not legally binding. “Countries have agreed to turn promises into action through a plan to report on, review and voluntarily ‘ratchet up’ their ambitions for tackling biodiversity loss,” reported Carbon Brief in its summary of CBD COP15 outcomes.

By 2050, world leaders could close a $4.1 trillion finance gap and prevent the breakdown of natural ecosystem “services” like food production and clean water by investing just 0.1% of global GDP annually in restorative agriculture, reforestation, pollution mitigation and other strategies. This seems a small price to pay, given the stakes.

“Determined action at the national level” is essential, assessed Fridtjof Nansen Institute, a Norway-based independent research foundation. “This will require unprecedented political will, with commitment not only by national ministries of the environment but by all parts of governments and economic sectors.”

The clock is ticking. Biodiversity loss is “already costing the global economy 10% of its output each year,” says Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme.

Why should business lead on behalf of nature?

Because business relies on nature at every stage of the value chain. More than half of global GDP is dependent on biodiversity and its services.

Business for Nature’s Business Guide to CBD COP15 regards GBF adoption as a historic turning point and opportunity for private sector leaders. The global goal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 “represents a paradigm shift in how stakeholders assess the sufficiency of corporate action on nature. Comprehensive action today means embedding nature into business practices, driving change across value chains and using a company’s influence to help raise policy and standards."

Put another way: Failure to transform the global economy’s unsustainable approach toward nature will be bad for business in the long term. If we exhaust our planet’s natural resources, we’ll be left with nothing.

So how can business lead on nature beyond public displays of support for ambitious national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs)?

Large companies and financial institutions do not currently account for nature-related risks as holistically as they do climate risk, but a roadmap for business action on biodiversity is becoming increasingly clear:

• Lead by example, committing to set science-based targets for nature (SBTN) and use robust standards to monitor, assess and disclose biodiversity impacts;

• Determine the extent to which your company benefits from environmentally harmful subsidies;

• Model and promote multi-stakeholder and intergenerational leadership through the adoption of governance mechanisms that involve indigenous peoples and communities, workers and youth in planning and decision-making processes;

• Leverage your influence to promote the protection of nature as vital to long-term business performance; and

• Advocate for the end of anti-nature lobbying, including with and among peers in trade and industry associations.

If the value of nature is fundamental, shouldn’t we update our understanding of the nature of value as biodiversity declines worldwide?

“The value created by your company,” continued Emmanuel Faber, in that roomful of business and finance executives in Montréal last December, “is inextricably linked to the natural resources on which it depends. Inextricably linked. This is the nature of value.”