Biodiversity loss is one of the great global challenges of our time. If we are ever to address and ultimately reverse biodiversity loss, we must face the difficult truth that amongst its most substantial drivers are consumption and trade. As such, to arrest declines in biodiversity, we may all have to change the way we live and do business.

The idea of ‘Nature Positive’ builds on decades of scientific work and hard-fought environmental policy gains, and suggests that we can: (a) quantify the direct and indirect impacts of organisations on biodiversity; (b) substantially reduce those impacts; and, (c) reverse them, to the extent that we begin to see global biodiversity recovery. It is a great narrative – but is it fundamentally a fiction, or do the facts suggest it might actually be possible? In this talk, I will explore this question empirically, from the perspective of working right on the boundary between academia and industry.

The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery is interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners.  The views, opinions and positions expressed within this lecture are those of the author alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, or its researchers.