JBIB Challenge 2020

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In order to engage with biodiversity and to contribute significantly to achieving the three objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity, we thought that companies need to mainstream biodiversity in business, and not just adopt this as an additional practice.

Therefore, in May 2010 we prepared the following 12-item checklist for each company to use as a common guideline and agenda to fulfill. Since then, JBIB had been conducting annual surveys of the progress made by the companies in each of the items to spur efforts for even higher levels of achievement by 2020.

Challenges:

Comprehension

1.

Identify our business dependence on, and benefits from, biodiversity, and share them throughout the company.

2.

Identify our business impacts on biodiversity and share them throughout the company.

Management

3.

Establish company policy and objectives both long and medium-term for biodiversity conservation and take action to conserve biodiversity accordingly.

4.

Establish a responsible procurement policy to conserve biodiversity and purchase materials and goods accordingly.

5.

Promote awareness and education for both management and staff about biodiversity.

6.

Collaborate with external agencies such as NGOs and research institutions that work for biodiversity conservation and support their activities.

7.

Disclose to and share with the public, company initiatives on biodiversity conservation.

Implementation

8.

Avoid development and use of land with high conservation value.

9.

Understand the environmental surroundings of our operational sites and manage them properly, taking into account the conservation of the local species, habitats and ecosystems.

10.

Carry out business with consideration of impacts on biodiversity throughout the life cycles of our products and services.

11.

Continue efforts to reduce to zero the impacts of our business activities on biodiversity.

12.

Understand that local cultures, lives and economies are supported by local biodiversity, make sustainable use of biological resources (including genetic resources), and share such benefits in a fair and equitable manner.

Results:

JBIB members engaged in biodiversity and mainstreamed it in business by 2020.

In April 2020, the target year for the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, we implemented the eleventh and final survey on progress. The results showed that the individual efforts of the member companies had risen to a very high level by the time of the survey.

Over 90 percent of the member companies responded “Yes” to 7 of the 12 items on the checklist (of which one item received a 100 percent response), indicating that they had accomplished those tasks. This was over 80 percent for 11 items.

The one item that did not reach 80 percent is concerned with how biological resources are used; this result could have come from the fact that the content did not directly apply to some companies due to their line of business. Nevertheless, member companies replying “Yes” to this item rose to 76.9 percent.

In addition, there were five items where the percentage of member companies responding “Yes” rose over 30 percentage points over the 10-year period. Of particular note here is the increase in the four items of “Establish company policy and objectives both long and medium- term for biodiversity conservation”; “Establish a responsible procurement policy to conserve biodiversity and purchase materials and goods accordingly”; “Avoid development and use of land with high conservation value”; and “Make sustainable use of biological resources (including genetic resources), and share such benefits in a fair and equitable manner”. It can be said that biodiversity has indeed become mainstreamed in business.

There was also a 25.6 percentage point increase in “Continue efforts to reduce to zero the impacts of our business activities on biodiversity.”

These results show that JBIB’s activities to raise awareness and provide support, and the efforts taken by each of the member companies have led to engagement in biodiversity becoming a solid part of daily business for the JBIB member companies. Accordingly, we believe that JBIB Challenge 2020 has been achieved.