Why our future must be 'nature positive'

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Robin Pomeroy, host, Radio Davos: Welcome to Radio Davos. This week we are talking about climate and nature and I'm joined by a co-host, Akanksha Khatri. Akanksha, what do you do at the World Economic Forum?

Akanksha Khatri, Head of Strategy and Impact, Centre for Nature and Climate, World Economic Forum: I head climate and nature strategy.

Robin Pomeroy: We're talking about climate, we're particularly talking about nature with our special guest, Marco Lambertini. Marco, what do you do?

Marco Lambertini, Convener of the Nature Positive Initiative: I am the Convener of the Nature Positive Initiative, the new global goal for nature.

Robin Pomeroy: It's written in this book which Marco co-wrote with lots of other experts on becoming nature-positive. That's what we are going to talk about. Let's get into it.

Robin Pomeroy: Marco, what is nature positive?

Marco Lambertini: Robin, maybe I should say what it is not. And nature positive is not a slogan. It's not a buzzword. It's not a catchphrase. Nature positive is both an ambition and a measurable goal that leads us to a future with more nature, not less.

So it's about reversing what we've been doing til now, in particular in the last couple of hundred years, where we've been developing as civilization at the expenses of nature.

And year after year after the year, the world has less and less nature.

Today we know that can't go on forever because our development, our own economy, our wellbeing, our health, has been based on productive, healthy natural systems. We depend on nature much more than nature depends on us. And so nature positive is this goal of reversing the trend of destroying nature, thinking that we can continue to develop forever without nature, because nature is the foundation of our development.

Robin Pomeroy: We've always talked about nature conservation, something you've been involved with for your entire life, your whole career. How is this different from that? What are you trying to achieve by launching this notion of nature positive?

Marco Lambertini: Nature conservation is a dimension of nature positive. It is one of the tools to reach the nature positive goal, to halt and to reverse the biodiversity crisis, the biodiversity loss.

But conserving the nature that is left on the planet is a fundamental must. Restoring what we can, what we lost and degraded, is the second dimension.

But nature positive embraces two other key dimensions that go beyond conservation and restoration, which is the transition of our economy, and frankly, also the cultural transition of our society towards looking at nature as a fundamental asset for our own existence and well-being.

And in this sense, those transitions are the nature positive transition that we need to see happen as soon as possible, but not only because they are delivered in the nature positive goal, but because they are actually the best insurance policy for our own economy and resilience.

And so that's what Nature Positive is, about conservation, about restoration of nature, but it is about transitioning the key economic sectors that today are nature negative and could become, can become, must become Nature Positive.

Robin Pomeroy: And you've written this book, Becoming Nature Positive.

Marco Lambertini: Well, a lot of people wrote the book together with me, yes.

Robin Pomeroy: So a collaborative effort, and you actually define, tell us where this definition comes from.

Nature positive is a recently agreed upon global goal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 on a 2020 baseline and achieve full recovery by 2050. Just tell us briefly who agreed that, when, what is that?

Marco Lambertini: Yes, so first of all, this is exactly the definition. As I said, there is the ambition, the vision of nature positive, and that actually is the goal, is the definition of the goal what you just mentioned. Because unless you define something that can be measured, you will not track progress towards achieving it.

But the story about nature positive actually, it is quite moving that we're talking about this here in WEF in Geneva, because it started with WEF. And Akanksha was part of the journey from the very beginning with the WEF team, the nature action agenda.

In 2019 we start talking about biodiversity not any longer just as an ethical and moral duty, which personally I feel very strongly about, but also as a material issue for society and for the economy.

And what's best, the best host for that conversation than WEF, the tent pole of the economy of the world. The tent pole of capitalism of the world, that today is the major force for a natural negative outcome.

And at that time, we started a conversation. And I still remember, for the first time, nature ended up into the Global Risks Report, biodiversity. Unbelievable. And because until now, it was just considered something, as I said, more of a moral obligation rather than actually a preoccupation, a risk.

And then I still remember on the central stage David Attenborough, Al Gore, myself, launching Our Planet, with scenes from in a different part of the world and hard-nosed executives that are it is a stereotype of the audience of that sobbing, sobbing, silence and sobbing. It was so moving to see actually how nature suddenly entered the discourse of economic sustainability, economic resilience and development.

Robin Pomeroy: That's the key to this book and to this discussion, is everyone loves nature. No one's setting out to destroy, to bulldoze the forest. People are bulldozing the forest, but they're not doing it because they hate forests. They're doing it for economic reasons.

And what you're doing here, the various, the dozens and dozens of people writing in this book, Akanksha's work at the Forum, is how can we stop that?

The incentive shouldn't be to destroy nature. No one wants to do that. Akanksha, can you tell us something about what is the message to partners of the World Economic Forum, to companies? People have often understood net zero on climate change, and this is a point that's made in the book. Nature and biodiversity has often been kind of the poor step-brother to climate change where we have a goal of 2050 for net zero. It's been agreed in a global treaty. Now there have been global treaties about biodiversity as well.

Marco Lambertini: And the goal has been agreed there, too. And that's why now Nature Positive and carbon neural are the two goals that drive sustainability.

Robin Pomeroy: So Akanksha, what is the approach of the World Economic Forum of companies when it comes to nature positive?

Akanksha Khatri: Thank you. And al so, I think I definitely want to applaud Marco's leadership right from that get-go of figuring out that, look, if we have to conserve nature, if you have to restore nature, we need to also start managing nature sustainably.

And economic actors, businesses actually have a huge role to play. They can no longer simply say, oh, this is a public goods challenge, and therefore the public sector needs to address this. But fundamentally try to understand how nature and biodiversity connects with their supply chains, with their operations, and how they actually get products and services to the consumers.

So the World Economic Forum is taking that same ambitious goal that Marco talked about, which is combining the net zero ambition with the nature positive ambition and absolutely not forgetting the ambition of an equitable society.

So looking at all three of them, trickling it down to what does it mean to the macroeconomic argument. Which is what we made collectively through the New Nature Economy reports, but more recently trickling it down to what does it mean for industry sectoral pathways. So if I am in the mining sector, if I'm in the forestry sector, or if I am in a pharmaceutical sector, all of us actually have a role to play to contribute to the global goal, but we'll be doing it differently.

So your reality in a pharmaceutical company will be very different from a forestry company, but we each have actually a role to play over there.

So the Forum is quite actively advancing the economic argument, but also bringing along the partners that we have from the business side into the industrial sectoral pathways.

Marco Lambertini: And if I may add one thing, the motivation for doing that is no longer because it's the right thing to do only, but because of the dependency of our economy, of all this sector, on stable, a stable, productive natural world, whether it is climate, or whether it's ocean ecosystem, or forest.

And by the way, it's all connected, right? So the whole desert system depends on each other, and we depend on them as well.

This transition I was talking before, yes, is about transition in practices, transition in financing, but it's also just a transition in our mind. We've got to stop taking nature for granted.

This is what I think the whole problem is about. We've been living in nature dominant, rich, productive, stable for more than 10,000 years now, since the last glaciation. We're taking nature for granted. Nature is there, no problem. You know, you take, take, and nature will be there. No, nature will not be there, and we're beginning to see signs of destabilization, climate in particular, but ecosystems as well.

Robin Pomeroy: Let's talk about the psychology then because you actually say it's an essential part, I'll quote from the book, "The ultimate way to transition to a nature positive future resides primarily in our mind."

But what does that mean? Because like I say, everyone loves trees, no one likes a beach strewn with plastic. We want nature. Everyone loves it. That's already, the psychology's right. What needs to change in our psychology to think, okay, well, I love it. What can I do to stop destroying it? Because again, individually, it's like climate change. Not that much I can do, is there? It's a bigger issue than that.

Marco Lambertini: So first of all, I mean, this is a very, you should have three podcasts about this topic. But it's fascinating, and I think, thank you for asking the question, Robin, because I think it's really fundamental. This is a fundamental problem.

And it is about our perceived, fictional, separation from nature.

You're right, poll after poll, in every region of the world, if you ask people, Do you like nature? The answer is yes, we love nature. Do you think nature is important? Yes, 99%, everywhere, from the US to India, Brazil, et cetera. Yet. we keep destroying nature.

And it's not like it's destroyed by someone else, some obscure force out there. It's us, consumers. We have a direct responsibility in what's happening to nature and the world. Even if you don't do it directly, indirectly, by proxy, we are destroying nature every day in our lives.

So why we are not changing behaviours? Why? Because we are still taking nature for granted. We don't see the consequences of all the nature for ourselves.

The psychological dimension here, and there is actually a psychologist, a Norwegian psychologist, talking about four or five fundamental blockages to our transition to a nature positive. We particularly focus on climate change, but I have adapted those to nature.

One is distance. Far away, I don't see it. The Amazon. What do I have to do with it.

Second is this issue of I don't feel the consequence. So climate is different, because on climate you are beginning to feel the consequences directly. Nature is much more subtle, much more diffuse, much more far away, and distant from our own problem. And we don't see the consequences.

And then there is the other psychological dimension, like. Oh my God, it's too big of a problem. Either I deny it, as a refuge, as a solution, so I just brush under the carpet a problem, or I get so depressed and cynical that I can't do anything about it anyway. And so that's it.

So there is a mix of psychological reactions. But everything starts from the fact that we don't fully appreciate our dependence on nature and the risks and the threats that nature's loss is posing to us.

And by the way, the other thing, of course, and Akanksha can speak more to this, is nature today, living nature today, is invisible economically. It's completely invisible. A living tree acquires an economic value after it's cut down, sold as timber, or used in construction or whatever, not while it's alive and producing oxygen, regulating water, climate, and all the rest. A fish is acquired an economic value when it's killed and served on a plate, not while is maintaining the ecosystem of the ocean.

Nature economically valued zero. And this is a complicated conversation, right? Because... Putting a price on nature, you know, who are we to put a price on nature is complicated. But right now, there is a price on nature. Zero. And that price makes nature, gives nature not a chance to compete with development. Because if you have to choose economically between cutting a forest and planting a soybean field, which one generates economy? The soybean field, not the forest.

Akanksha Khatri: And maybe if I just build on that and some of the work that we also do at the World Economic Forum, nature, as Marco said, is so far away that the relationship then as nature is a holiday destination, which means I think about it once a year. That conversation shifts if we start talking about living nature in cities.

So some of work that the Forum has been doing on nature positive cities is actually trying to make that link with what trees and healthy ecosystems mean for me, right outside my door.

And a second one, which is a really growing agenda, is how climate, nature, and health speak to each other. Be it for your physical health, just to be able to breathe cleaner air, but also for your mental health. And we saw that so much during COVID and lockdown, the ability to be to walk out the door and actually access nature, access parks, access green spaces, was a huge driver of people's mental health and feeling like, okay, I can live in this space.

So I think shifting that behavioural side and the mental side is quite critical.

But today, if it just looks like I pick up my food from the supermarket where they're never realizing where did that food actually come from and what were the negative externalities for growing that food. Of course you can't blame an individual because then the only decision-making you're making is on the basis of price, not on the basis of externalities. So I think we also have to look at it from a systems change point of view.

Marco Lambertini: No, absolutely. But you know, look, we need nature, right? Everybody likes it. Look, we bring nature in our flats, in our offices. But that's not enough. We satisfy ourselves with the plant in our garden or in our flat. That's not enough. Nature needs to be strong and productive outside in the natural spaces or else we are paying the price.

Robin Pomeroy: We as consumers, assuming everyone agrees with that, and I have no doubt that they do, we as consumers would like to think we're doing as little damage or we're contributing positively to nature by the things we buy, whatever. We don't as individuals really have much chance of changing that. What the book and what this whole initiative does address is nudging business and regulators and governments - but I'm very interested in the business aspect here because those are the organizations mining, fishing, on our behalf. So how do you nudge them to that? And it's a complex issue.

And I never thought I'd come across an issue any more complex than climate change, where how do you tax, again, it's an externality that's not part of the cost. I'm just dumping carbon dioxide or whatever greenhouse gas into the air. I'm not going to pay for that. And policymakers have spent decades trying to work out, how do pay for it? How much should you pay for that? And that's starting in some jurisdictions actually happening.

But some of the interesting parts of the book is how do you cost nature? You've already mentioned it. Because a ton of carbon dioxide is an actual thing. What is a measure of nature? I mean, how do we measure nature?

Marco Lambertini: Also, the nature of course is, first of all, let's look at the climate change dimension. The climate community decided to measure climate change in a simple way, super simple way. Temperature, the below 2 degrees target of Paris is the global goal for climate, below 2 degrees. And then they focus on the main driver of climate change, emissions, and they agreed on how to measure that, CO2 equivalent tonnes. So they quickly reached an agreement on how to set the bar and say, this is the goal, below two degrees, and this is how we're going to get there, by reducing emissions, net zero emissions, by 2050.

We are doing the same for nature now. The difference with nature is that nature is not, the equivalence dimension is different. So emissions in the atmosphere, they all mix up. It's in one atmosphere. Nature is local. The forest in Switzerland is different from the forest in Botswana or in Brazil or in Russia. And they can't be considered the same type of forest.

So measurements need to be slightly different.

But you know, Robin, I think we are making perfect the enemy of the good here on nature. And we are too bogged down into hyper-technical discussions, they've been going on for many, many years, actually much before climate, on biodiversity, and making biodiversity feel like so complicated - it is not.

We have convened a process of agreeing and boiling down nature metrics to a point which are not perfect, they're not covering everything, they're covering the main dimensions of nature. And if we address those dimensions, the nature-positive outcome, halt and reverse biodiversity loss, will actually be delivered.

The first is ecosystem extent, the extent of natural habitats, which we should stop cutting and destroying habitats, whether it is a forest or wetlands or marine habitats.

The second is the condition of this habitat. So measure the condition. Is the forest degraded or is it in a natural, healthy state?

And then it's about landscapes. So plenty of, half of the planet today is an anthropogenic landscape. It's a landscape modified by people, agriculture for example. How do we maintain this landscape with enough nature in it that supports actually agriculture, whether it is trees, whether it is flowers, whether they attract pollinators, whether it's rivers, streams and ponds that maintain the water reservoir or the landscape. These are land species, of course, the extinction species.

So four key measures for nature. Extent, condition, the landscape when you talk about human-made environments, and then extinction risks.

It's a bit more complicated than the climate, but it's not impossible. And actually with the remote sensing, with geospatial data today, plenty of this information available. So we can measure a nature positive outcome using few clear metrics that give a sense of whether nature is in recovery or not and drive corporate action, corporate targets, corporate reporting, legislation, policy, and ultimately consumer and voters' behaviour.

Robin Pomeroy: So from that, you can imagine we're going to protect this area, conservation measures, which as you say have been around for a long time. We need more of those, better ones, but also crucially, and this is what would be very different, would be getting companies to account for their impact on nature.

Marco Lambertini: And to adopt practices that are nature-positive.

Nature-positives are net positive. You talk about net zero in emissions, because of course, you can't abolish emissions, cancel emissions altogether, but you can compensate. Same for nature.

There will continue to be some impacts on nature. There's no doubt. And actually, it's ethically unacceptable to think that developing countries cannot open up some forests to produce food for themselves. I mean, this will be, or roads. So some impacts of nature will continue to happen. The question is how you minimize those impacts and how you compensate those impacts by achieving a final result of more nature.

If you build the road in the middle of the forest, you'll have to cut some of the forests, but you can invest in the conservation of the forest around the road, improve its condition, potentially, and have a net positive outcome, have a better forest at the end of the project.

It's possible. It needs to be done in the right way, high integrity, clear measurements, but it's possible and actually is necessary.

Akanksha Khatri: And I think when the climate protocols and even the net zero commitments came about, we were asking the same questions. And I thing it's important to not pitch climate change and biodiversity or climate change and nature as two different issues. Because fundamentally, the planet, the ecosystem are providing multiple of these services.

One of them happens to be carbon sequestration. So I could also flip it in the way, oh, the first use case that we had was net zero and climate. Let's bring the same lessons, let's bring the same playbook into nature and biodiversity.

So it was extremely difficult for a corporate headquarter sitting in Europe for a multinational company to be able to figure out where all the emissions are across the globe. And we need to say the same thing on the nature positive piece as well.

I think the point that you were mentioning is how do fundamentally companies jump towards measuring their impacts, dependencies, and then determine their priority actions.

So one of the pieces of work I think, Marco, you're also doing is, along with the Task Force for Nature-related Financial Disclosures, because that's a language that often business audiences understand really well, because they are used to reporting and they are used to compliance-driven actions. So what are some of the trends that you are seeing or ambition being set by companies over there?

Marco Lambertini: That's an interesting question, because of course we are living in a time where there is a bit of a resurgence of the old narrative, protecting nature is against developments, it's a lost opportunity, it is a cost, instead of the narrative that has been emerging over the last few decades that clearly shows that investing in nature is an investment in the resilience of the economy, is an improvement in the profitability of business. Not only about reputation, which was very strong in the last few decades, it's actually now material. It's about the cost of climate change, the cost of the collapse of pollinators, and the lack of access to water for industry, manufacturing, agriculture, and so on.

So this is a really interesting time of almost a paradox. Where on one hand, the evidence of the cost of climate and nature loss to the economy has never been greater, clearer. But there is this narrative which is now, this is the last couple of years, honestly, is emerging, coming back again, it's, oh, but you see all these green targets are actually cost, and they don't actually benefit.

My reading is that this is a narrative that has come back in a desperate attempt to stop the transition and this is driven by vested interests in the business as usual economy.

But I have to say many, many businesses, many businesses are leaders and very active in the World Economic Forum as well, are actually fully understanding that there is no way back from a sustainability agenda. There it's no way back.

Robin Pomeroy: Is this movement already underway? We know it is kind of at the treaty level, Biodiversity Treaty, the definition has been made. Is it underway kind of on the ground? Are companies, particularly, already starting on this journey? It's laid out in this book that they need to assess their impact on nature, commit to improving it. Transform their operations. Disclose, report, they're used to doing that, they're also doing it on climate emissions. So there's kind of a pathway, as complex or as easy as that might be. Is it happening yet?

Marco Lambertini: So it is definitely happening in the energy sector, as you know, because investment in renewable energy is now double the one in fossil fuel annually. There is no way back there for sure. The question is how fast we can progress, rather than step back a little bit.

But on nature it is less strong than that. And this is where, actually, if you think about it, the role of policy and regulation played on climate, particularly 20 years ago, 10, 20 years ago, a very strong role with incentives for renewable energy, feed-in tariffs, even in Europe, vis-a-vis imports of technology from other countries, something that looks like a completely different world from today, where there is much more protectionism and barriers.

But I think it's beginning to happen in nature as well, particularly in the agricultural sector. Agriculture is right now battered by environmental risks and issues. Droughts, climate, of course, induced, polinators crash. So there is definitely a trajectory emerging.

But it's not fast enough. And that's the problem. The problem that we are facing today, which I think is a unique problem in the history of our species, not even ours, is that we're reaching a point which we never reached before. Science is telling us that there are tipping points in the natural system, the natural system that we take for granted, like we see every morning the sun rise and the sun set in the afternoon, we take it for granted the same way the fact that there will be oxygen, there will clean water, there will pollinators that do the job for us. Science is telling us that those things that we have seen and taken for granted could actually not be there.

That's the science of tipping point. And this is not green alarmism in your apocalypse. This is science telling us there is a limit to what we can inflict upon nature. And the price we will pay is huge. I think people are beginning to get it.

Akanksha Khatri: I think maybe just building on, and particularly your question of is it happening on the ground and which industries? So food and agriculture, definitely one. Energy, the other one. If you just look at mining as the other example, which is reliance significantly, I would also add the insurance industry over there, insurance and banking.

And one strong example that we are seeing, particularly even in Europe but everywhere in the world, is how extreme weather events, urban heat island effects. It's the hottest summer that we've ever seen, which means that people's health are getting affected. You no longer can actually insure many parts of the world, as we have seen, because of wildfires. So there is no choice but the insurance and banking industry to actually look at that risk, but interestingly enough, start also investing in nature-based solutions to mitigate that risk.

So the point I really liked what Marco was saying is we were entering into that nature conversation only by looking at the risk. But now we have to pivot because the same risks that we are getting from nature cannot be solved with what they call grey solutions or man-made solutions. They can only be solved if you look at more nature-based solutions.

Robin Pomeroy: What kind of, what do you mean by nature-based solutions?

Akanksha Khatri: I think one concrete example, like what we are starting to see in Geneva, the city that we are sitting in today, is to combat urban heat island effect, which we are seeing because of excessively long summers, is look at installing more green roofs, which is green roofs on buildings, but also green roofs on actually just bus stops, starting to see that can we actually plant more native species in the cities so people are able just go under this place to look at more things.

Other thing is about flooding. We've seen such incredible cases in the US. And one could argue that many of those destructions could have been lessened or avoided if we were actually investing into mangroves, better trees, nature-based solutions for flood protection.

So these are extremely concrete examples that just because we wanted to build certain infrastructure or highways, we have cut down mangroves. We have cut down native species. And we need to now pivot back. If we have to solve for extreme weather events.

Even in the Global Risk Report of the World Economic Forum, that's one top risk for businesses that all of them are thinking about. It's going to disrupt their supply chains, their operations, the concern of stranded assets as well.

Marco Lambertini: Yeah, I think, I mean, try to think of nature as a major, not simply something that is out there to be used and will always be there because you want, but looking at nature as it's a true ally, a true enabler of the well-being that we, many of us, not all the stimuli of inequality, but many of enjoy, and by the way, everybody needs, wherever you live in the world.

Nature is the foundation of our existence. But nature today is already providing so much that we just don't account for. And what Akanksha mentioned, half of the emissions, CO2 emissions that we emit, are neutralized by nature today?

If we lose the ability of nature to buffer all these impacts that we are having, we will be already in an almost unlivable planet. Unbelievable, right? It feels like a science fiction movie, but actually, it's the reality. And that's the problem. We need to appreciate the reality of nature contribution to our lives every day. And to keep that in the future, we need to change and embrace a nature positive trajectory.

Robin Pomeroy: I think the problem here is though, it's the problem of the commons, the tragedy of the commons. It's someone else's problem, I can still go and extract whatever I want or dump whatever pollutants I want into the environment, it's someone else's problem. If I decide because of a moral imperative to do the right thing to not extract in a destructive way or to recompense for that extraction, to not dump my pollution wherever I want to do it, that's a cost to me. A financial cost and everyone else gets the benefit.

Is there a way that you can see of incentivising in a financial way? Capitalism works on greed and fear at the end of the day. If you can make a profit out of it, which is why, to everyone's surprise, renewable energies are doing so well, one of the reasons, there's policy and there's mindsets, but the fact is people can make lot of money out of it. Is their a way in this positive initiative that, right, this is really the profitable route for you.

Marco Lambertini: Well, first of all, the profitable route is because you're going to reduce the cost that you're really beginning to see. The profit and loss kind of balance at the end of the day. Try to address the cost dimension because those are skyrocketing today and so that's the threat and the cost and the risk element.

I hate to talk about risk because to be honest these are not risks anymore, these are actually already translating into costs. The risk is that the costs will continue to grow. But the costs are already there.

And then, of course, there is the opportunity dimension, because, you know, imagine the subsidies given to the mechanized industrial agriculture of today being directed towards an agriculture which is nature positive, which helps nature come back into the farmland, that is restoring the soil, is reducing the amount of chemicals that we use, reducing the amounts of emission that it produces. I mean, who would not want an agriculture like that?

You know, we are poisoning ourselves with food that is full of stuff, chemicals, we don't even know what effect it has on us. And at the same time we are destroying the nature that could provide much healthier production of food.

Akanksha Khatri: The World Economic Forum here in Geneva, we were hosting a lunch with our Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders and the most newly launched Alliance of CEOs for Nature. And Jesper Brodin from IKEA said something very simple, but something that stayed with me is the two biggest challenges for our generation are how do we adapt to climate change and how do we adapt to AI.

And both of them are a risk issue, but both of them are incredible opportunities for future businesses.

And it's the same thing that applies to nature as well. You could look at it as a risk, but you could also look at is as an opportunity. And I agree with Marco, it's a similar way, the way you would invest in AI, first and foremost, is cost saving. That's why you invest in nature-based solution. It's the cheapest option often times if you have to mitigate so many of the risks.

But pivot that and start looking at opportunities like bioeconomy. We at the Forum also have a Bioeconomic Initiative, which is looking at nature, not just from the point of view of the services, but also the intelligence that it provides. Most of the pharmaceutical companies, the drug discoveries, something like quinine, I mean, coming from India, I had to take quinine to combat malaria, comes from nature and the forest. COVID, look at. You just could not do any vaccine or drug discovery if you were not building it from the forest and nature and different species.

So I think it's more about just the argument that one makes. And I agree with you. Sometimes with the global public, it's always like, is it the tragedy of the commons? But we often talk about maybe it's the tragedy the horizons. I think we've reached that point that almost all businesses, consumers, citizens recognize this is a problem, whether I'll tackle it in the next two years, or whether I'll tackle it the next 10 years. But frankly, there is no time.

Marco Lambertini: I think it's still about really stopping to take nature for granted and think that the loss of the Amazon is not something to be sad about, something to be concerned about for the repercussions that it has on us.

You may feel distant, spatially, intellectually and everything, actually it's not. We are all part of the same planet, and now we become such a powerful species that we can actually affect the planet.

You know, my grandmother was saying, oh Marco, you can change everything in life except two things, death and the climate, and the weather. Well, actually my grandmother was wrong, unfortunately, because we are changing the weather, so this is the thing that we need to change, we need change in our mind.

First, nature is essential. Second, nature everywhere is connected to me, is producing something useful to me. Selfish gene, right? The third is we can actually destroy this place.

Robin Pomeroy: I'm coming back to a question earlier, talking about costing, putting a cost on nature and a cost of the destruction of nature. With climate change, with greenhouse gases, it's still fairly theoretical but there's there is a cost, a price to be paid for emitting that. Do you envisage a time potentially, maybe it's not a global thing, maybe It's a local thing, as you say, nature is local, when there will be a price, literally a financial price to pay for cutting down that forest or whatever nature of degradation is going on.

Marco Lambertini: I think it's about the price, but it is about the fact that that forest will be considered so valuable that there will be no price to cut it down.

Robin Pomeroy: As you said, it's valuable when it's cut down in our crazy current system. How do you make it such that...

Marco Lambertini: It's about management, right, it's about planning, so there will be forests that will continue to be cut down because we need timber for a lot of the things that we do and we live with. But you can organize production of timber in a way that does not impact the natural forest that is left in that landscape and that continues to produce so many services to the local communities, the local economy and the global stability of the planet.

So it's a question of privatizing what you need to leave alone, what you can exploit sustainably, and what you have to regenerate to improve the conditions of your landscape.

At the end of the day, yes, nature is a global system, but it manifests itself locally. And the local planning, the local management of natural resources, that is influenced, of course, by national regulation and by supply chains coming from across the world, coming from large corporations, users, and consumers, that is where, actually, the nature positive outcome needs to happen, at the local, jurisdictional landscape, seascape level.

Akanksha Khatri: I mean it's a good question that you're asking that at what stage the world will start putting a price on nature in the way that it is putting on carbon. Another way to look at it and there are lots of people who are also co-authors on this book are working on, how do you start putting nature as an asset on your balance sheet. So yes cost is one way that we account but we also do have balance sheets for companies and countries, and can nature actually show up over there?

Some of the work that I think many of us are doing, including at the Forum, is of looking at natural capital. There is the concept of gross domestic product, GDP, that almost all of us get behind, but it was also a concept, right, that humans created. Some people are also looking at gross ecosystem product. So if for a country today you are only valuing the products and services, and that gets manifested into the GDP, to Marco's point, if you were not valuing the cut trees, but valuing the standing trees, it will actually show up in your gross ecosystem product. Because that is where the natural capital stock of your country went up. And today, it's only the produced capital or a financial capital stock which is going up.

I think a couple of years ago, there was also Professor Partha Dasgupta, who wrote the economics of biodiversity review. And he's talking about natural capital, financial capital and human capital, and produced capital. So much of our economic system today focuses on human, financial, and produced capital. I think with the Nature Positive Initiative, it's about asking to also start looking at natural capital. And those concepts kind of go hand in hand.

Marco Lambertini: By the way, in the book there is this graph that shows that on human capital, on technology, on financial capital, all the curves of the last 70 years have gone like this, like this. Then aside, we put the natural capital curve that is going like this. So that's the obvious development paradox of today, where we are destroying the foundation of all the progress, human, social and financial, that we made.

Robin Pomeroy: The fundamental dilemma there, though, is I have a tree. If I cut it down, I can turn it into a table, which I can use, or I can sell it. Or I can leave the tree in my garden. It's beautiful. It's helping all of those natural systems that we're talking about. If I cut it down and make money, I can make a living from it.

Akanksha Khatri: What if you could make a living through the market by not cutting it down?

Marco Lambertini: Or by cutting down trees in a sustainable way where the forest can regenerate and not cutting it in a way that destroys the forest.

I mean that's the thing. It's about practices. There are so many ways to mine destroying the landscape or to mine for minerals respecting the landscape. Of course you dig a hole anyway, but the hole is one dimension of the impact. The landscape is much bigger and you can actually dig a whole because you have to. There's no other option, perhaps, for now. I never know who comes up next, but you know, and you can invest in the regeneration of the landscape around. And in the end, that's why the net positive biodiversity outcome, the nature positive. At the end the outcome in that landscape is more nature, not less. Yes, you have a hole, but there is more in nature in the landscape, not less.

Robin Pomeroy: There are still people who say climate change is a hoax, it's a global conspiracy, global governance, conspiracy theories, particularly the rise of social media, they're out there, they're kind of stronger than ever. You're going to get the same thing about nature positive that you had about climate change. How do you counter that narrative of oh, you're stopping me living the life the I want to live my life because there's a conspiracy and you're trying to keep me down in my place.

Marco Lambertini: Yeah, I think in the case of nature, more than a conspiracy, it's about vested interests are pushing back against the transition, against change.

And you know, look, change is something that comes with uncertainties to everyone. Transitions are always a little bit tricky, and if you fuel the sense of lack of confidence in the future that the transition offers you, why would you want to embrace the transition? It is much easier to stay where you are, better the devil you know.

I think this is what's happening now. What's happening now, as we've seen on climate, fossil fuel versus renewable energy 20 years ago, it's happening in nature on the key sectors that really have to transition, the food system, agriculture, fishing, forestry, that today are completely nature negative. And there is a pushback, pushback to change, against change.

I don't think this will survive much longer. Simply because if you think particularly about agriculture, agriculture is the sector that is most exposed to climate change and biodiversity loss impacts. Agriculture is today affected so much already, and we are not even at the start of the biodiversity collapse that we will be seeing in the next few decades.

So. I think, at the end of the day, vested interests want to stay where we are because they invested so much, they're making so much money today, change is not particularly appealing for them. But it won't last because the cost will surpass the advantage of business as usual and begin to impact the present and push for change.

I think, Robin, change is inevitable. Science is very clear. The trajectory on climate and nature and biodiversity. We can't continue like this. We cannot continue like this. Either we embrace change and drive it, or change will be inflicted upon us by nature itself. And that won't be pretty.

And why do we need to do that? Why do we to be, you know, supporting a system which has done a lot for us. Let's be clear, because in all the curves that were going up, the technology, human development, GDP, this has been fantastic. I mean, I lived all that, 70 years of great growth and great acceleration. I've seen living conditions improving in many, many regions of the world. By average, actually, almost everywhere in the world, inequitably, but almost everywhere. At the beginning of the 20th century, the average life expectancy was below 50 years old. Today it's almost 80.

75% of people at the time were in extreme poverty, now it's 10%.

So there is no doubt that the nature negative economy until now has produced huge benefits, huge improvements. We need to recognize that because that's where the problem is. The problem is we need to now renounce to that model that has produced so much to us, and it's difficult to accept. But we need understand that the model has its time.

Now we need embrace a new model, a new future, a direction that will deliver new benefits and development. Continue on this trajectory of growth and for a more equitable world as well.

That's really, we're in the middle of the transition and that's what gives me hope, honestly, in all this depressing news about, because the health of the planet continues to go down the tube. There's no doubt about that. The health indicators are all negative.

But what gives hope, really, and excitement, we are at the fork of our civilization, the most important choice, what in the book I call the great choice. Either we stick to business as usual and hope for the best, but we know it won't be that good, actually, at all. Or we take the reins of the transition, we take the pen of writing the next chapter of our development history, and build a better future, a nature-positive future, because there is no other way to build a people-posive future without a nature-positive one.

Akanksha Khatri: Marco, you also in your career have been tremendously successful in mobilizing movements and to the point I think Robin was saying is there is a sense of hopelessness but there is also a sense a denial because perhaps as a movement we haven't done enough to take people along. Do you feel there are lessons in here and things that we should be doing differently? So even we don't have this thing of, do I believe in climate change or do I believe it? Why is this even a belief and ideological issue? How do we make it more of a science-driven, economic-backed, lifestyle-choice decision?

Marco Lambertini: You are absolutely right, and I think on reflection, I mean, this is a delicate question because my peers may disagree, but my own reflection on my own mistakes, my own failures in the conservation and environmental movement has been two things. One is not making nature really relevant, materially relevant to us, concretely and personally relevant to us. Rather than just morally relevant.

I feel so strongly about my moral duty to respect nature. I mean, look, I don't, you know, I'm careful when I put my feet not to stamp on an ant, literally. I mean I feel terrible. So I am maybe extreme in that, but we pushed all the time, you now, the poor panda, the poor elephant. And of course, it's true, the whale. But we haven't, we didn't really elaborate enough on the narrative of nature is essential to us.

At the end of the day, you know, Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene is what drives everybody's you know when you interview for a job or when you decide where to live or when, a selfish gene pushes you a lot in terms of doing what you like to do, what you to, when you get out of it. So the selfish gene is the powerful force that we need to convince that nature is in our interest.

And then on top of that, of course, there is the altruistic dimension, which is super important too, which I guess most of us feel, about the need to respect nature because nature has an intrinsic value. We share the planet with nature. We are nature and all the rest.

But I think that's where we made a mistake, too much. On the emotional side, thinking that we conquer people's hearts and not enough in highlighting the fact that nature is fundamental for us, for our children's future. That's the narrative that is emerging today, and for business. And that's why it was so important to have WEF on the nature action, the nature positive agenda, from the beginning, because it's not just about doing nice things, it's about actually securing the future, for everybody.

Robin Pomeroy: Harnessing the power of the selfish gene. And I guess people do good things, there's even a selfish motivation behind it very often.

Akanksha Khatri: Survival.

Marco Lambertini: We are talking about a species of 400,000 years old, of which the last 0.1% has been in a modern type of construct like this, separate from nature, until just yesterday we were in the middle of the forest, right?

So we've been forged by that experience until now, and nature has been dominant, has been, you know, difficult. Because I go in nature a lot, I watch wildlife a lot. Living in nature is bloody tough, that's why from a forest we move to a cave, from a cave to a hut, from a hut to a building, from the building to a city, because it's much better. Let's face it, you know, I love to be in the hut, by the way, but you know.

No, no, but we need to acknowledge that this trajectory has not happened by accident or by evil design. It's been driven by the same wish. To improve your livelihoods, your well-being, and to give your children a chance. This is it. Nature needs to get into that narrative. Nature is the tool for a better future for us and our children.

Akanksha Khatri: There's also a very interesting critique on that selfish gene, because it doesn't recognize that actually human evolution and well-being has been defined also by our interdependency. Humans actually have this unique ability to collaborate across different boundaries and build systems that are so complex, but also ones that rely on each other.

So, to your point is, instead of just not thinking of nature as separate from us, but integrating it into our very fabric and remembering that interconnection, will perhaps change the way and overpower that selfish gene conversation and remember the interdependence.

Robin Pomeroy: Maybe can I just ask you, to wrap up, what should we be looking out for next? What are the next things? I know there's a climate COP in Brazil, which is going to be a nature COP. It's in the Amazon forest. Is that a milestone? Is there work that the Forum is doing? Is there a work you're doing, Marco? What are things that you're looking out for in the next six months, two years?

Marco Lambertini: It's integrate the agendas, really integrate the agendas, and connect, make the connections between nature, climate, health, economy, development, equity, rights, because it's all connected.

But nature, if I may say so, is the foundation for everything else. If we lose nature, if nature begins to stop providing all that has been providing till now, all the rest is blah, blah, blah. Nature is the bedrock of everything else. And so connecting nature to all this conversation from climate development, UNGA, and all the rest, peace, all this is connected. And nature is absolutely the foundation for all this amazingly important global societal agenda.

Robin Pomeroy: So you'll be looking to see...

Marco Lambertini: A piece of nature in each of these conversations, and a connection to nature in each of these conversations, and I'm sure in COP30 it will be very strong.

Robin Pomeroy: Akanksha, are there things you're working on?

Akanksha Khatri: But I actually fully agree with Marco. I think this integrated agenda is one that I'm most looking forward to.

The planet does not differentiate between this is carbon sequestration, this is water cleansing and this is something else and therefore what I am personally looking forward to is to see exactly what Marco said, nature and natural capital infrastructure as the bedrock of all the work that we do, infusing it into the different industry, economic agenda that we at the World Economic Forum are leading. And making it much more accessible for businesses to learn about the Nature Positive agenda, but then hopefully also act on the Nature Positive agenda. So I'm looking forward to more collaboration.

Robin Pomeroy: Integration then of that, we'll see. I think we will be seeing that. People listening to this, watching this, look out for hearing more about the nature positive agenda.

I'd just like to thank Akanksha Khatri, my colleague at the World Economic Forum, for being my co-host on this episode. I'd like to thank Marco Lambertini, his book, although as he says, it's got dozens of other authors, is called Becoming Nature Positive. Thanks very much for joining us on Radio Davos.

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