Motion 134

Global analyses reveal the extensive impact on nature from corporate activities that cause the 5 major drivers of biodiversity loss – land and sea use change, climate change, over-exploitation, pollution, and invasive species. Leclere et al.’s analysis of bending the curve of biodiversity loss points to the need to address both place-based conservation and the transformation of market mechanism that lead to the loss of nature.

Across IUCN Membership many institutions work on corporate sustainability and engage companies in dozens of projects, contracts, and initiatives and facilitate corporate sustainability work in support of the Global Biodiversity Framework. The IUCN Red List provides the global standard for biodiversity data and its data and derivative works are intended to support better decision making.

IUCN’s commercial use policy (mirrored by WDPA and WDKBA) is currently based on bilateral agreements between companies and these organizations for use of IUCN Knowledge Products. However, a significant amount of corporate sustainability work within the Union relies on place-based, sector-wide, and global initiatives, tools, and frameworks that are not company specific.

Access and use of Red List data in corporate sustainability work can be inefficient, especially in the case of complex value chains, and IUCN Members have incurred either large transaction costs or an abandonment of these data as a resource due to cost and contracting complexity with the IUCN Secretariat and IUCN Red List derivative product providers. To date, proposed solutions do not solve the systemic challenges.

Currently, bespoke bilateral agreements are in place with a number of IUCN Members. A Union-wide solution would reduce organizational transaction costs and provide clarity for IUCN Membership on the use of these data to transform the drivers of biodiversity loss that stem from actions in the private sector. To accomplish this the Motion asks for a necessary breakdown of costs for development and upkeep of these data, which would be provided as in-kind support from interested IUCN Members and the IUCN Secretariat. The Motion also asks for a solicitation process which will be led by a taskforce of organizations providing this in-kind support to work with the IUCN Secretariat to investigate potential functional solutions.

Though Members have engaged the Secretariat in bilateral conversations around these challenges, there is a need for a more coordinated process to identify a long-term solution. An IUCN Motion is the only way to enable IUCN Members to support a formal assessment process, which would provide greater capacity for collaborative strategic investigation, targeted analysis, transparency to help IUCN evaluate potential future scenarios. This Motion would ensure there is a plan in place for such an assessment with the required accountability mechanisms to engage the full IUCN Membership as partners in exploring a range of workable solutions to this problem.