 Good afternoon. Good morning, everybody in our audience. I'm Catherine Weller from CISL, Centre for Business Transformation, and it's my pleasure to introduce today's topic, which is nature-based solutions, although we'll mostly be using the abbreviation MBS. Now, this topic is very topical. In Glasgow at COP26, there was a lot of focus on how we can't win the fight against climate change without investing in nature. And we also repeatedly heard an emphasis on how climate, people and nature are intricately connected. And this is very true in relation to MBS. Now, what are they? Just a reminder, they are actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems that address societal challenges and simultaneously provide human wellbeing and biodiversity benefits. And we'll go on to talk shortly about some examples of these projects. Today, with my three panellists, we're going to explore how companies might face into the challenges of pursuing such projects in their value chain. And by that, I mean not simply buying carbon credits from MBS projects. No, today we're talking about implementing MBS in companies spheres of influence, perhaps as part of their efforts to reduce their scope three emissions. And specifically, we're interested in how a company gets internal approval to engage with and spend money on an MBS project. In other words, what it takes for a company to get MBS ready. We are very grateful at CISL for the funding from the We Mean Business Coalition that has enabled our Get MBS Ready project. And just to give you all a heads up that the output with the findings from this project will be available in March. So watch out for that. But I want to kick off the discussion today by welcoming our panellists. Adrian Great. After a long career at Mars, including in their global sustainability team, and more recently as the director of the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative platform, Adrian can talk to how conversations happen inside big companies. He is now generously giving the benefit of all his experience to CISL and others as an advisor. And Nadine McCormick, currently manager of the Nature Action Project at WBCSD. She is supporting companies on their journey to become nature positive. Nadine has more than 15 years experience of working with companies to put nature at the heart of their decision making, particularly when it comes to incorporating natural capital thinking. And Tom Divney. Tom has been highly involved in CISL's project on what it means for companies to get MBS ready. And he has over 30 years experience of hands on work with small businesses, with large transnational companies and with international agencies in Latin America and other developing countries. Welcome to you all. Obviously, we'll be keeping a close eye on questions and comments that our live audience put in the chat on go to webinar or LinkedIn live. So a message to you all. Please do submit any questions and we will try and get through them all by the end of this session. So let's kick off and first a provocation. Is it right to say that it can be in businesses interest to pursue MBS projects? Perhaps our panellists could give our listeners some examples of where a business has gone ahead with MBS. Nadine, would you like to start? Sure, I'll kick us off. And I just want to say hi to the folks on LinkedIn. So everyone's different parts of the world here. Hi from halfway between Geneva and Lausanne in Switzerland. So yeah, nature based solutions. We've heard a lot recently in terms of the climate debate. Is it in business interest to pursue nature based solutions? Well, such as business interest, it's society's interest, right? And so it's more than just climate mitigation that nature based solutions help provide benefits. And I think as businesses more and more appreciate their dependencies on nature, their ecosystem goods and services that nature provides, then they start realizing the benefits. So to give you a good example, like depending on wherever you are in the world, whether it's coral reefs or sand dunes or mangroves or salt marshes, they all act to absorb the energy of waves, which help protect built environment and other infrastructure from erosion and storm surges. And so the importance and therefore the value of these ecosystems when they're functioning well is increasingly being recognized by insurance companies as well as local authorities, tourism companies, etc. So yes, it's right. It's in business interest, but other stakeholders who are in those landscapes. Yeah, that'll do for now. Thanks Nadine. Tom, do you have any good examples of where it's in the business's interest? Yeah, greetings from Costa Rica where there are more dogs than people. I think right now, if you can hear any in the background, I'm sorry about that. I think it's not only sustainability teams, but also from an operational or engineering side, their companies are very much interested. I'm thinking of an example of say a water utility company or a bottling plant or a company that works heavily dependent on water. Integrated catchment watershed management projects are super interesting because it allows, permits a number of benefits such as increasing replenishment of the aquifer, flood control, even reducing nutrient loads for those companies that need to treat water before it's returned to the environment. So I think there are a number of great practical examples out there of how NBS can help companies. And Adrienne, what about you? Yeah, I'm better than that Reverend O'Reilly. I'm just a side London in the UK, so hi everyone. I think I would echo the points we made, but I think also if you look within an organisation, particularly ones which have an agricultural foundational basis, I think the procurement teams play an incredibly strong role, that they naturally understand the focus they're looking for with product quality and reliability and security of supply and cost, obviously. But they're more and more recognising that NBS options are there to help deliver the challenges they're facing, the priorities they're trying to address within their supply chain, and a part of the commitments that business is already making with global basis. And there are, there are good examples out there. I guess many businesses haven't maybe called them NBS in the past, but they're already doing this on a daily basis across a supply chain. It's always a bit mean to pick specific examples because there's so many other good ones out there, but one I'm really impressed with is Kellogg's have made a fantastic position in support of holistic integrated pest management. That is working closely with their supply chain to roll that out and has made some big commitments in that space, and that's them as an industry leader driving that focus. But there's also, farmers themselves are taking action directly and changing how they farm. WFO have a great piece of work about the climb makers, and that's work on the ground addressing carbon challenges, but they're driving that. And also there's a good piece of work from in the US on carbon cowboys, and they're really changing the way they graze their cattle in a much more carbon positive way. And those then can be then absorbed and integrated into the total carbon footprint of the suppliers. So the customers who take those those products back in. So it is there, it's happening, I think has been referenced at a landscape level on a broad industry level basis, but also it's happening directly in people's supply chains already today. That's interesting, so we've named checked a few examples, but Adrienne would you say that MBS are routinely considered as solutions to problems that businesses are facing? Routinely, that's a broad question. I guess the reality is more and more so yes, but generally no. I think it's people are looking for efficient solutions to drive change and to achieve the target as quickly as they can to make progress as quick as they can. And a lot of the validation of the potential solutions with an MBS basis are still being validated, but it is that validation that's underway. I think we've crossed the threshold of understanding it's necessary. We understand this as a holistic need within our own business and with our in our own sectors and we're trying to find great solutions that deliver a much more holistic outcome. So is it routinely there? Probably not, probably because of the scale of efficiency other solutions that have been developed for a very long time are by definition often seen as cheaper when you actually understand the total cost of ownership. These are more seen as real positive solutions that can be directly applied. It's definitely growing. It's growing. Would you agree, Tom? I, in part, yes, I think it's not, I agree with Adrian and it's not quite mainstream yet. I think what happens and what we've seen in the CISL research, we mean business research, that many companies are still getting delayed by the decision making process. They're still using traditional and business criteria framework to evaluate these projects to decide if they're going to be using them. But the problem is they don't quite fit that and as Adrian mentioned there are still a lot of unknowns about results delivering and I think it means expanding a time frame changing mindset and recognizing that in the long term businesses have to be partners as part of the combat climate change impacts. I think that's very important. You talked about mindset there and one thing I thought we could touch on is the scrutiny that MBS have been under particularly at COP26 although I guess that was a bit more related to links to carbon markets and offset credits. But Nadine, do you think that all that buzz has impacted on companies' perception of MBS? I think it really depends where particular companies are on their journey on sustainability more broadly. So definitely for some companies who are newer to the journey it was a bit of a wake-up call but they realized that their approach on climate mitigation was potentially at the expense of nature and so the example that's always given is like a company that's just going to plant a giant plantation of trees, no consideration of the species, the local communities around, etc. So this is giving bad press but what it's done is to help companies that say newer kind of understand oh right I hadn't realized that there were links between nature and climate and so now we're all talking about two sides of the same coin. I think there's a massive learning journey last year. I think the scrutiny as well for companies are a bit more advanced in this space as well who were perhaps just looking beyond their own value chain through market mechanisms. There's an increasing appreciation actually that this can be done within their own value chains as well now or actually even on land that's owned by the company themselves since this is sometimes called in setting as well as opposed to offsetting in setting but really I mean we've kind of gone down the climate mitigation path. I want to bring us back what you said at the beginning Catherine this isn't just about climate mitigation there can and should be like many co-benefits for when NBS are done well and so on that line of getting you know the maximum benefits for people and nature as well as climate. Earlier this year the NCS Alliance is the Natural Climate Solutions Alliance. It's a multi-state colder group with business and other stakeholders co-convened by the World Economic Forum and the WBCSD. They actually launched some guidance laying out what high quality nature-based solutions in the context of carbon market credit looks like. So when we say high quality I mean we're simply saying that they should achieve and demonstrate net positive benefits for the environment as well as social benefits that they need to have clear robust and transparent accounting methodologies which then when starting reporting on this can hopefully try to breach some of this trust that's been lost but then these quality criteria they're not just applicable then for that offsetting you know the external to the value chain but they're also relevant in setting as well because yeah I think as companies leading companies are appreciating that we need an integrated approach on climate nature and people they're starting to realize that nature-based solutions when done well provide those co-benefits of climate nature and people. Adrienne I can see you nodding is that your experience as well? I think it is and I think if I may talk to Tom's point that maybe that the approval process isn't ready I think the approval process is a fairly simplistic business approach you know benefits case and understanding of achievement towards targets but I think what Nadine's relating is actually it's those broader benefits at a local level two different stakeholders across the supply chain that are part of that rich benefit that rich value the MBS offers and I guess that's the bit that we're just trying to get clear is to work out where that is the challenge I think is often global businesses want global solutions but nature is by definition a global issue or it's a local issue globally so all the changes happen at a local level so you have to understand the benefits at a local level and they'll be very different based on geography and soil type and culture and whatever so I think Tom alluded to like water water projects landscape level projects are absolutely the way these things are going to get done we are busy trying to really realise the value that Nadine is alluding to in her comments I think we're making good progress in that space okay well we're getting into the challenges surrounding this and of course our webinars subtitle is corporates overcoming the fear of the uncertain and the unknown so I want to ask you all what we mean by that so for you when it comes to actually getting MBS projects approved what uncertainties do you think are most problematic I guess let's continue with you Adrian um I guess no it is for me a very simple cost benefits case at the most simplistic level but to try and bring a value consideration to that is the important thing I think that a business can make and does make very strong commitments what is achieving globally but it then has to find strategies and and progress across the various elements of supporting to get there I think the uncertainty is just really trying to turn that value that broader value into um comparative a comparable with another project so that the money is then prioritised into project aims instead of project B at the end of the day the pot is this big in terms of what you're investing this year and everyone within that business is fighting for a piece of that pie so I think the uncertainty is just really around is that value there and I think what we're realising is the the holistic nature of this the the value potential is so broad and across many different stakeholders it's about whether you turn that into a you know you turn that into an actual dollar value outcome or not um through some sort of process or methodology that enables you to do that comparative nature and I think that's where the help is needed how do we demonstrate the value of these projects the broader value and the broader benefit to the organisation that achieves the targets but achieves much more but maybe it's difficult to put down an absolute dollar to dollar versus dollar comparison okay so if you haven't got that is there a way of overcoming it to get started already that's still to me yes I think I think there's lots of reasons why these MBS projects are important to drive forward and whether your leadership are are committed to these targets you can show this is a strategy to get there or whether you recognise and I think you must recognise that your stakeholder expectation regulation and legislation and your responsibility across your whole supply chain is going to be coming at you squarely and you're going to be expected to make these changes so you need to move forward quickly to get ahead of the curve on these things I think there's lots of justification why these sorts of projects are the right way forward the right ones to prioritise and you have to accept that you're not going to get to an absolute dollar valuation on the benefits some of it will be subjective will be assumptive but I think the numbers are there where the challenge is is to demonstrate those are really overachieving some of the target geographers in terms of cost benefits if they get very close to a threshold I think that's where I've seen the most difficult conversations because they really want to know the numbers and if they're close you need to like the ninth decimal point to try and prove it that's of no value to anyone the value is there the numbers are very big but you have to find a way to agree a methodology to turn that valuation into an agreement Great, okay, Tom what about you what do you see business decision makers struggling with? I think and it very much connected to what both Nadine and Adrian have mentioned it's the unknown it's the uncertainty nature is not a predictable entity you know we're getting better at it but we still don't know everything we need to know about ecosystems biodiversity climate how soils work these things are I mean if we knew everything then a lot of university professors would be looking for jobs I think so that's important and what results can be achieved how much getting back to the dollar value keeping in mind that these are all things that businesses need to know it's very new for a lot of companies out there they don't have the in-house capacity to deal with these things and so all so new for them is how do I do this do I work with a partner and that's another unknown for them so I think all those things we have to consider and companies have to get a little bit more comfortable with the unknown and the uncertainty that's true because at the end of the day people are all individuals and they have their own doubts their own needs how do you help colleagues get more comfortable than Tom? I think you have to start looking what you have to learn about your colleagues a little bit you know what's their value proposition what's interesting for them how do they learn you know we've always understood that you know some of us work better visually others can read so how do you present your information make a lot of examples available some people are very comfortable working with data the problem is when you're starting out in in NBS the results come slowly so you may consider compiling different results different metrics into an indice an index I'm sorry that would give a faster view of progress so they understand also how all these things are connected it's like looking at regenerative agriculture and soil carbon soil carbon is is the ultimate goal there it's also restoring soil health maintaining or increasing productivity so a number of things are going on there these are complex topics but you need to figure out how your audiences will react to these different types of information and what's the best way to package them I think that's that's super important now one of the big things I think is also looking at what's the cost of the the opportunity cost of the status quo and I think Adrian mentioned that you know everybody's interested in putting a dollar value on this what's the or monetary value what's the value of not doing nbs what's the risk to your business to your supply chains if they don't if you're not doing something to counteract the impacts potential impacts of climate change and I think that's one way to stimulate everybody and to get them looking and say gee if we don't do something even if we don't know all the results that's that's that's better than just than just sitting here and at least we'll be making some progress and making our business more future proof again that's a change of mindset and Nadine I'll bring you in on that because I know you've plenty of experience with that yeah one of my favorite subjects and actually I think what we're touching on today is some of the barriers we hear is definitely technical yep they're probably half of those barriers are technical for the other half of the barriers they really are back to this what we're trying to do is change systems and all systems are ultimately made up of individuals just Tom like you were saying earlier on like you know even people in business they're actually human beings and how are they making decisions what mindset are they coming in with so I think one element to bring into this is where is that individually that you're speaking to how aware are they of nature I saw some really good comments in the chat box here in LinkedIn now just saying you know it's linked to consumer awareness like we're all rapidly learning what this space looks like we've just about got climate change now well what doesn't it what does nature look like in natural systems we've watched Blue Planet we're now watching the well the next one with David Attenborough and so as that awareness comes along they're still within a company there's a different awareness as well and so what I've seen in my work is that you get asked very different questions whether somebody's coming from a I've been asked about this by my by my bank my bank is asking because it's about a safeguards issue this is about managing risk versus I think we can actually do some good here it will do benefit for our business but actually it's also going to be really good for the sake of the landscape a totally different mindset and so perhaps be honest and think about if you're working in a company or with a company be honest about where are they on that journey and then pitch it then I guess accordingly and maybe a reference to think about and I'll throw it into the LinkedIn box here now as well is we did a piece of work before and for the future recently on just and regenerative mindsets of business and a compass to help kind of you navigate and see where you are on that and so I think really again nature-based solutions when they're done well they solve societal challenges at scale which are also a benefit for the business too and communities and they can't be done on your own and this is not about making a profit at the end of the day this is about that great to good Paul Palmer talks about net positive as well in terms of impacts that business can have and so yeah this is yeah leading companies get this my questions I just like for all of us how do we bring others more rapidly on that learning journey so they realize that yeah profit maximization isn't good enough risk management isn't good enough like the nature-based solutions offer a way for business to contribute not just to future proof their supply chains and their value chains but more broadly for society as well Adrienne I can see you're itching to leap in there yeah it's great to hear the conversation I think as a strategy to help progress this I think partnership is is a really powerful tool this thing of if you want to go far you go with others but my working in partnership also helps spread the cost of this and de-risks that choice you're making and Tom's right there's a lot of knowledge and understanding needs to be there so be involved with the program but the work that CRCEL is doing you can step in and ensure your specific needs are actually met or prioritized or considered and answered as part of the work and at the same time you're building your own and your business's knowledge on this whole topic and then you know I've come from director general side platform and that is about collaborative working and collaborative working is really happening then we've heard that business is sort of a new kid on the block region ag is equally that a new terminology that's heavily being progressed and what's our platform is doing is really grand truthing the activities and the actions for regenerative agriculture and the same thing will be true of this we will ground truth them in specific areas and then work at what can be applied on a more global basis you can't simply pick it up and move it is that global challenge but you can understand and you can apply the same approaches in the process but if you're challenged internally to get things approved then you can actually reduce a lot of that risk by working with others some of it will be ahead of you you can steal from if you're one of these people who are not involved today you can be part of that solution and utilise the thinking that's already been done and bring that much more quickly into your own organisation it's a really powerful way to make progress quickly that's interesting and talking about partners but some other questions are focusing on when you are a company and you don't have direct impacts on land or maybe you don't own any land and how then could you do MBS Nadine have you seen any examples of that Yeah well I guess this often if we think about our value chains and so we're now like not primary probably secondary tertiary level of value chain so one of the next questions is well who are you supplying from somebody is on the land somewhere and so one of the starting points is actually to have greater transparency then in your supply chain and so yeah one of the questions stop but I just buy it I can't possibly know it was actually you can and so actually this is one of your first steps and we talk about nature-based solutions here but just in general getting ready for science space targets for nature to match SBTI for climate that need you need to know just scope three you need to know where you're coming where you're supplying from and so actually building on some of that information you're getting on the climate side might provide an opportunity to identify potential landscapes you could invest in back for that in setting that we talked about earlier so yeah first step is like know where you're sourcing from and I guess that goes to one of the questions just to clarify we've been asked is nature-based solutions about giving value to ecosystems that help business or restoring ecosystems to enhance businesses or both well I think it's depends on your perspective doesn't it well value is such a laden word right if we say value is something where we give importance to something we recognize it's valuable efforts it's important at the end of the day what do we want we want a nature positive net zero and equitable world how do we get there we need to reduce the pressures on nature we need to have positive contributions to nature to do that we need to find a way to both halt the loss of nature and reverse the loss of nature so if that means some business actions about restoring absolutely important but we also need to stop the loss of nature as well I'm not sure if I've answered that question or dodged it thank you anyway right well we're running out of time but I do just want to pick up one of the questions we got in advance which was about engaging the supply chain you talked a bit about the need to do that Nadine but Tom you've got some ideas maybe on how to get your hands dirty with your supply chain well Adrian mentioned a number of them and I think the biggest thing there is to understand who your partners are or can be within the supply chains first off as Nadine says understand where your your supplies are coming from that's a big one I'm always surprised at the lack of knowledge many major companies have about where their products come from where their raw materials come from so I think that's a big one right there you need to engage everybody in the supply chains I don't be afraid of of looking at all those stakeholders finding out who they are talking to them remember that NBS has a societal benefit it should have a societal benefit so how are you going to make their lives better you know you're going to have to do your due diligence about particular partners I think you really need to again getting back to something I mentioned what's the value proposition from everybody there so it's different for say maybe a trader of a particular product versus the small farmer that produces that that's just worried about making money this year or not losing money or losing a crop so you really need to appeal to these people for them to understand how nature-based solutions are in their long-term benefit okay we are at time so I thought we would just close by going around each of you and asking you for your top tip so what would your top tip be for somebody who is struggling to persuade their colleagues to consider let alone approve an NBS project Adrienne let's start with you is that so hard when it's a short session I really would have to continue the discussion on Thomas raising there but I think if if you're needing to get a project approved and you're struggling to find the actual value proposition that's going to engage the approvers I think you have to emphasize that there is a lot of stakeholder pressure that's coming very quickly in many geographies in many regulations and legislations that will force the responsibility into your business and this will enable you to show your making progress much more quickly than just being demanded of it by regulation that's coming to to be addressed so that learning will give you a better thing so the broader challenge and what's coming down the pipeline will actually help emphasize why it's worth making taking action now Nadine what would your top tip be ah I think just yeah summarizing a thread what we've all been saying but really you know yes we're talking technically but think about humans who are making these decisions at the end of the day so really Taylor your pitch let's say on what we're talking about nature based solutions be think about how aware they are on just sustainability in general and the links between climate and nature and people you can minute where they are meet them where they are raise their awareness you know make sure that they're willing to actually take action before then you come with the guidance on how to do it and I think also I mean stories help convey a lot right and so I saw a great link just shared about some you know great and a map of where different nature based solutions are around in the world so again I think they're so vast in nature based solutions so think specifically what are we talking about here solutions to what find an example that's similar and then use that perhaps to communicate and to raise our awareness Finally Tom quickly perhaps your top tip I would say thinking in terms of tailoring your message the old slogan of what's in it for me and think in terms of what is the value proposition for the person you're addressing you're talking to you're engaged with and making sure that they can see how nature based solutions will not only help the business but also help them because they're probably in a very difficult position to try to push this forward and then finally if you're engaging with people in your supply chain as I mentioned before farmers, traders all these people have to have some benefit out of this for you to move it forward that's just human nature and I think that's how we're going to get it done Awesome well we were typed on time as you say Adrienne there's loads sitting beneath this topic that we haven't got to today but I'm just going to close with a reminder to you all about CISL's Get MBS Ready project and the output that will be coming in March it's going to be a diagnostic that will hopefully help companies unlock investments in nature based solutions within their value chain by making it easier or less painful should I say for that first project to get approved by your company so we've posted in the chat a link for you to sign up so that you can make sure that you're the first to know when that publication is out and with that I'd just like to thank Adrienne and Nadine and Tom for the very lively conversation we've had today obviously in LinkedIn we can keep the chat going thank you all for participating have a great rest of your day bye bye Thank you everyone Bye bye Thank you, bye