Companies who use the Earth’s natural resources more wisely are likely to see bigger profits and enjoy more stable and predictable businesses, a new report published today argues.

Many of the planet’s ecosystems such as fisheries, forests and water supplies are in decline. This could in as little as five years, trigger increased costs for companies who rely directly and in-directly on nature-based services.

Therefore companies who manage ecosystems more prudently and who invest in their care and conservation are likely to enjoy multiple benefits including enhanced profits, improved reputations among consumers and new business opportunities.

They will also be better placed to respond to sudden shocks including higher oil prices, a dramatic fall in the availability of raw materials or greener rules, regulations and laws that may be in the pipe-line.

Meanwhile, research and development in cleaner and greener technologies will increasingly be needed to reduce ecosystem damage and to better use nature’s goods and services.

Investment in new technology is likely to pay dividends and spawn new products and businesses as governments, local authorities, shareholders and consumers demand higher standards and greater accountability.

These are among the findings of the latest report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment entitled Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Opportunities and Challenges for Business and Industry.

Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) which has played a key role in the Assessment and its spin off reports, said: In the past the goods and services delivered by nature have all too often been seen as free and available at little or no cost. This report makes it clear that this must and will change as these resources become increasingly scarce and society demands higher standards of environmental care.

Much of the Earth’s remaining natural capital, including genetic diversity up to the carbon storage of greenhouse gases and the materials and services underpinning tourism and developments in the food, pharmaceuticals and tourism industries are found in developing countries. For example the carbon absorption and storage capacity of the world’s tropical forests are now conservatively estimated to be worth $60 billion a year. We need imaginative financial mechanisms and incentives to give these resources real value and to encourage re-investment in the natural capital we have already over-used, he said.

In doing so we will not only conserve the life support systems upon which current and future generations depend, but also provide new income flows to overcome poverty and help us meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals whose implementation will be reviewed at the 2005 World Summit in New York in September, said Mr Toepfer.

Fortunately, many corporations are already aware of this and are grappling with these fundamental issues through initiatives such as the UN Secretary-General’s Global Compact. New markets, such as those that trade carbon and access and benefit sharing of genetic resources, are also developing. And many governments are drawing up regulations and legislation to steer firms onto a more resource efficient path, he said.

However, given the scale of environmental damage and the urgency to act much, much more needs to be done. I hope this report, the work of over 1,300 experts including representatives of business, will be that wake up call, said Mr Toepfer.

The overall Millennium Ecosystem Assessment has concluded that two thirds of the world’s ecosystems ranging from wetlands and coastal areas to forests and soils are either degraded or being managed unsustainably.

The new spin off report argues that this has important ramifications for business and industry.

Some key Points from the Report

Business and industry rely on ecosystems such as forests, grasslands, mangroves, rivers, lakes and the like for a variety of services including water and air purification, storage of greenhouse gases, nursery grounds for fish, pollination of crops, raw materials and new products.

The impact of ecosystem degradation will be felt over the short term, the next five years, and the longer term, the next 50 years.

Changes in ecosystems are increasing the likelihood of surprises in the future such as a collapse of previously reliable sources of food, pest outbreaks, catastrophic floods or the disappearance of economically valuable species.

The net value or benefit of many ecosystems is higher when they are intact than when they are damaged or converted to other uses. For example, an intact wetland in a northern country is worth nearly $6,000 a hectare. Drained and changed for intensive agriculture, the value falls to just over $2,000 a hectare.

Intact mangroves are worth $1,000 a hectare. Cleared and converted for shrimp farms, the value falls to about $200 a hectare.

Water scarcity is probably of greatest importance to businesses and will, like changes in the oil supply, impact companies globally. Up to a fifth of freshwater use currently exceeds long-term sustainable supply and is being met by water transfers or unsustainable mining of groundwater.

Companies will have to make decisions about where they locate operations based on water supply. Meanwhile, businesses that find new and more efficient ways of recycling and using water will fare better.

Climate change presents significant threats and opportunities for business and industry in terms of the impact on ecosystems and their goods and services and the chances to develop and sell profitable low carbon technologies.

Overexploitation of the marine environment is already impacting some businesses as a result of lower catches of fish for food and animal feed. More are likely to suffer as a result of pollution triggering disease outbreaks and blooms or dead zones in the world’s oceans and seas.

The decline in fish stocks has triggered a growth in farmed fish and products such as shrimp. Increasing consumer awareness of the environmental impacts of farmed fish and seafood is now favouring those companies with more sustainable and less environmentally damaging practices.

Companies who continue to pollute and damage ecosystems may find themselves squeezed out of profitable locations by other industries. The report cites the case of tourism.

With tourism becoming the world’s largest employer and an important economic factor in developing countries, native forestlands, coral reefs and other natural resources will be increasingly perceived as vital business assets of many private companies, it says.

Companies who fail to factor in the business risk of declining ecosystems and the business opportunity of conserving them may find that raising finance and insurance becomes harder and more expensive.

Environmental risk and the importance of ecosystems to a corporation’s bottom line are increasingly being recognised by fund managers. This is underscored in numerous recent surveys and reports including ones by UNEP’s Finance Initiative endorsed by a wide range of financial institutions.

What Business Leaders are Saying

Antony Burgmans, chairman, Unilever N.V: The solutions of the past are often not robust enough under the conditions of global change and need to be re-thought and re-implemented.

Steve Percy, retired Chief Executive Officer of BP America and co-chair of the new report: All businesses will be more competitive if they create their strategies with the current and projected condition of ecosystems and ecosystem services in mind, and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment provides an excellent source of information on the trends and linkages important to business.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development: Business cannot function if ecosystems and the services they deliver like water, biodiversity, fiber, food and climate are degraded or out of balance.

Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Electric Company: We will focus our unique energy, technology and manufacturing, and infrastructure capabilities to develop tomorrow’s solutions such as solar energy, hybrid locomotives, fuel cells, lower-emission aircraft engines, lighter and stronger materials, efficient lighting, and water purification technology.

Original press release: Natural Capital Investment or Higher Costs and Lower Profits (UNEP)

A new project aimed at helping the Amazon Basin and its 10 million inhabitants conserve and better manage the region�s economically important waters, forests and wildlife was announced today.

Pollution hot spots and damaged habitats and ‘ecosystems’ are to be identified. Measures will be drawn up to reduce the threats and restore the damage.

Other aims include moving to harmonized laws covering the management of the Amazon Basin.

A regional vision on how to achieve true sustainable development across the eight countries concerned will also be drawn up.

An important part of the project will be helping vulnerable countries and communities adapt and cope with acute climatic change.

Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said he believed the new project would play an important part in helping the region meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

These internationally-agreed goals cover issues such as poverty reduction and reversing the spread of diseases like malaria to the empowerment of women and the provision of safe and sufficient quantities of drinking water.

“This new project, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), fundamentally acknowledges the crucial economic value of nature and the goods and services provided by river systems, forests and other ecosystems,” said Mr Toepfer.

“It reflects the fact that the environment is not a luxury good, affordable only when other issues have been resolved, but is ‘natural capital’ on a par with human and financial capital. Indeed, this project underlines that sustainable development and the achievement of the MDGs will only be possible through respect and good stewardship of the Earth’s natural resources,” he added.

The new Amazon project, announced at the GEF Third Biennial International Waters Conference taking place in Salvador Bahia, Brazil, is being implemented by UNEP/GEF.

It is being undertaken by the Organization of American States with the Oganization of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty as the regional body. The nearly two year project will cost just under $1.5 million.

The people, the land and the wildlife of the Amazon Basin are becoming increasingly vulnerable to climatic phenomenon, health concerns and a declining natural ‘capital’ as a result of deforestation, mining, urbanization and other land use changes.

This was graphically underlined in the severe El Nino year of 1997. The drought was so severe it led to millions of acres of forest going up in flames triggering respiratory and other health calamities.

Lagoons dried up affecting wildlife such as turtles and the region experienced power rationing and a reduction in the transport carrying capabilities of the Amazon and its tributaries.

Experts are worried that climate change, linked with rising global emissions of carbon dioxide and other so called greenhouse gases, are set to aggravate the basin’s problems making it harder and harder for people and wildlife to cope.

Meanwhile, there is also an urgent need to deal with other environmental issues including pollution of rivers from activities such as agriculture and mining which have impacts on drinking water and human health.

The new project, covering Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela, will aim to coordinate the numerous but fragmented national efforts currently underway designed to better manage and conserve the basin�s natural resources and natural ‘capital’.

It will also draft a shared, long term strategy on how to more effectively achieve sustainable development for current and future generations living in this vast and diverse region.

Five pilot projects, designed to show how different communities can cost effectively deal with climatic extremes, are to be undertaken.

The project is designed as a preparation or corner stone for an even bigger and more wide-ranging $10 million ‘mega-basin project’ scheduled to commence in 2007.

Original press release: Amazon Waters Project Gets Green Light (UNEP)

The air pollution in Central London and the London borough of Croydon is being forecast daily as part of a pioneering ESA-backed project.

Around a thousand asthma sufferers and other vulnerable individuals in Croydon should soon receive text message warnings to their mobile phones before elevated air pollution days, with additional patients in other London boroughs receiving the service later on.

The YourAir service predicts levels of the pollutants nitrogen dioxide, ozone and airborne particles - exposure to which can harm people with asthma, lung and heart problems, and in the very highest concentrations can harm otherwise healthy people.

The forecasts include predictions of overall effects on health on an index from one to ten. Unlike previous systems, YourAir resolves air pollution down to the scale of individual streets - highest levels are often found along routes with heavy traffic or other pollution sources, so information on street-by-street changes in pollution help vulnerable people make informed choices about their travel routes.

The prototype service covers Central London and Croydon in South London. Croydon is one of the largest boroughs by area and the largest by population, with 330 000 residents.

YourAir is being developed by Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants (CERC) as a demonstration service of ESA’s PROMOTE project, intended to deliver atmospheric information to support informed decision making in this field and improve quality of life.

PROMOTE is itself part of Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), a joint initiative between ESA and the European Union to integrate all available space- and ground-based information sources to develop an independent European environmental monitoring capacity from planetary to local scales.

“The YourAir service works by combining data from the various sources available,” said Iarla Kilbane-Dawe of CERC. “It combines regional air quality forecasts provided by PROMOTE with information on local road traffic patterns.

“We also employ information from monitoring stations around the city. Because their coverage is limited they don’t help with generating forecasts, but serve as a key way of validating our results, which so far have been around 90% accurate. For the next stage of the project we aim to improve the accuracy further by integrating other data sources, especially satellite observations and more data on traffic patterns.”

Regional air quality information is important because not all the pollution affecting a city actually originates there. Depending on the weather, studies show that up to half the air pollution found in some European cities might have come from elsewhere in the continent - the Ruhr in Germay for instance, or as far away as Italy’s Po Valley.

“With air pollution arising, its distribution drops off steeply away from major roads or other sources because it mixes vertically as well as horizontally,” Kilbane-Dawe explained. “On most days the air rises, taking the pollution with it - as high as 800 metres in the winter, or two kilometres in the summer. So within an hour or so of rush hour the concentrated pollution can waft away.”

Some of the highest pollution levels occur when the meteorological situation means local pollution remains trapped close to the ground, combined with pollution plumes from elsewhere.

In the case of London this happens most often during the winter - the animation above shows citywide pollution patterns during the 24 hours of 15 November 2000, when such a high pollution event took place.

“This animation was created by us for the Building Exploratory, an interactive exhibition in the London borough of Hackney,” Kilbane-Dawe added. “The traffic data used to generate this animation isn’t yet available in real time - the animation includes detailed data from all 31 London boroughs - but it illustrates well the way pollution can concentrate near major roads and follows traffic patterns, and it demonstrates what we expect will become a routine type of urban air quality forecast within a few years.”

A linked project called airTEXT involves sending a text message to the mobile phones of a thousand vulnerable individuals during the evening before days when air pollution may be moderate or high. The message will also advise on steps they can take to minimise their pollution exposure and manage their symptoms.

Also backed by PROMOTE, AirTEXT is a partnership between CERC, Croydon Council, the Croydon Primary Care Trust and the South West London Health Protection Unit.

PROMOTE and GMES

PROMOTE is an ESA project that seeks to develop beneficial operational services for organisations and citizens that will use atmospheric data to address the concerns of both policymakers and individual citizens.

The four areas in which PROMOTE services are being developed are air quality, stratospheric ozone, UV exposure and climate change. Partners in the PROMOTE consortium include M�t�o France, the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) and the Max Planck Institute in Germany.

The project is part of the GMES Services Element (GSE), an initial portfolio of services being developed as part of GMES. This is a joint initiative of ESA and the European Commission designed to establish a European capacity for the provision and use of operational information for Global Monitoring of Environment and Security.

Original press release: Street-level London air pollution warnings coming via mobile phones (ESA)

Beijing, China - WWF commends the Chinese government for establishing 24 new protected areas in Heilongjiang province in north-east China.

Totaling 1.8 million hectares - an area equivalent to more than one-third the size of Switzerland - these protected areas were created between 2002 and 2005. The government will add another 1 million hectares by 2010, bringing Heilongijang’s total protected area cover to 6.4 million hectares, or 14 per cent of the province’s territory.

“As our province is one of China’s - and the world’s - richest areas in terms of biodiversity, the Heilongjiang government is making it a priority to save our natural resources by establishing protected areas and managing them effectively,” said Han Lian Sheng, Director of the Heilongjiang Forestry Department.

Heilongjiang province takes its name from the Heilong River, which forms a natural border between China and Russia. The province is home to one of the world’s most distinctive temperate forests, and has one of the last stands of mixed temperate deciduous and conifer forests in east Asia.

It is also a critical area for conserving endangered animal and plant species, including yew trees (Taxus), Siberian tigers (Panthera tigris altaica), and leopards (Panthera pardus orientalis), as well as musk deer (Moschus moschiferus), brown bears (Ursos arctos), Asiatic black bears (U. tibethanus), and rare bird species such as the Siberian (Grus leucogeranus), and red-crowned cranes (G. japonensis).

These key species and their habitats are threatened by commercial logging, forest firests, poaching, wetland conversion, over-fishing, pollution, and dam construction.

“Because of the global significance of this exciting initiative, and its potential to help ensure the survival of a variety of endangered species in the wild, WWF has recognized it as a Gift to the Earth,” said Prof Lars Kristoferson, Secretary General of WWF-Sweden. “We applaud the Chinese government and remain committed to working together with our partners for the future of this vital area.”

A Gift to the Earth is WWF’s highest accolade for applauding good conservation work. Each of these Gifts represents an important success within one or more of the global conservation priorities recognized by WWF including: protection of forest, freshwater, and marine ecosystems; endangered species; prevention of climate change; and elimination of toxic chemicals.

“The establishment of these new protected areas is a big step forward for both forest conservation and species protection in China,” said Dr Zhu Chunquan, Director of WWF China’s Forest programme.

“This Gift to the Earth is a great example for other conservation initiatives in China. We hope it will encourage our neighbours to create a cross-border ‘Green Belt’ in the Amur/Heilong ecoregion.”

In addition to bringing 6.4 million hectares of protected areas in the Amur/Heilong Basin under protection by 2010, WWF offices in Mongolia, the Russian Far East, and China are also working to create a larger unified region of networked protected areas - a ‘green belt’ - set aside for conservation purposes.

Local communities in Heilongjiang province have participated in the establishment and monitoring of the newly protected areas, and will be involved in co-managing them. WWF and its partners will also work with local communities to develop sustainable livelihoods. The Gift to the Earth celebration, held in the province’s capital, Harbin, will help strengthen conservation awareness amongst the local communities.

Original press release: China declares new protected areas (WWF)

Heilongjiang Province Gift to the Earth Summary (WWF)

Sydney needs to more than halve its water consumption to prevent a dire water shortage in 25 years, research by national water utilities concludes.

Water experts say the answer lies in a huge change in personal and industrial attitudes to water use, not just water restrictions.

Complete article: Do or dry, Sydney: cut water use by half or face a crippling shortage (Sydney Morning Herald)