For too long businesses have treated the environmental impacts of what they do as a side effect. Instead they should be putting the environment at the centre of their thinking and planning, according to Dr Stephanie Wray of RSK Nature Repair, part of the RSK Group environmental consultancy.
Businesses that that will do well in future are not those that try hardest to dominate natural systems but those that learn to work in partnership with them, recognising that nature is not something outside normal life but the framework within which everything must operate, she told the Worshipful Company of Water Conservators’ Election Court lunch on 16 April.
“Nature is complex, adaptive, and sometimes unpredictable — and like it or not, we are operating inside that complexity, not outside it.”
Most of the “environmental” impacts of business don’t stay environmental, she warned, but become operational. They develop from questions around land use or emissions or resource extraction into supply disruption when resources are over-extracted, or into new regulations, higher insurance premiums or reputational risk.
“Nature may have been slow to hire a bookkeeper but she’s developing a habit of turning what we thought were ‘externalities’ into invoices.”
Some of the most effective “infrastructure” we have is natural, and systems like wetlands that reduce flood risk, healthy soils, coastal ecosystems and urban green spaces don’t just reduce harm but actively create value, though the economic work they do is often underestimated.
It is no longer enough to manage the environmental side effects of business, because those side effects are becoming central. “Flood risk is not a footnote. Water scarcity and wildfire season is not a regional issue. Supply chain disruption is not an outlier event anymore.”
Businesses must learn to design operations that work with natural systems rather than against them, she said, and she offered five recommendations for how to do this.
Firstly, treat natural systems as core infrastructure, not just the environmental context in which a business operates. Secondly, move beyond compliance with environmental regulations to forward-looking design. Thirdly, invest in nature-positive solutions at scale, and not just in pilots. Fourthly, bring financial and environmental planning closer together. And fifthly, collaborate across organisations and whole production systems.
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