Organiser: Aarhus University/INBO
The value of natural resources, ecosystem services and biodiversity for our planetary and human health is not recognised by mainstream economic drivers, resulting in unsustainable exploitation of nature, loss of biodiversity, climate change, and the pollution of land, air and water. We need transformative change at the systems level, enabling viable pathways towards a ‘Nature Positive Economy’.
This session will engage participants in dynamic discussion around the key priorities in operationalising a Nature Positive Economy, building on key works like “IUCN’s Nature positive for business”. Which descriptive, analytical and normative aspects are essential? How can we ensure civic engagement and private sector buy-in to such a concept, embracing different worldviews, knowledge systems, and broad plural values associated with nature ‘positiveness’? What is needed to achieve systems change to achieve a nature positive economy next to bottom-up civic and private initiatives for nature positive businesses? The session will further deliberate and concretise pathways towards fostering next generation leadership, covering intergenerational justice aspects. Finally, new initiatives are required to make use of innovative tools and openings presently on the rise through fintech and AI, for an effective mobilisation of the financial and regulatory system to secure investments in nature restoration and conservation needed to achieve a nature positive world.
This session is proposed by the EU funded project ‘GoNaturePositive!’, which aims to accelerate awareness and transformative action towards a nature positive economy among policymakers, investors, businesses and wider society. The proposed session will be part of a wider stakeholder engagement process geared towards operationalising the concept of a nature positive economy. Stakeholder engagement started in March 2024 with a large multi-sector stakeholder consultation in Dublin. Further stakeholder engagement sessions are taking place at COP16 and COP29.
Format of session:
Small interactive roundtables will engage participants in structured discussions around a number of key guiding questions facilitated by expert moderators. Rapporteurs/graphic artists will capture feedback dynamically to be shared with all participants at the end of the session. As a priority target audience of GoNaturePositive! a particular focus will be placed on inclusion of civil society and youth representatives in roundtable discussions. The output of the session will be a call for accelerated action towards a nature-positive economy. Outputs will be disseminated widely via social media channels of GoNaturePositive!