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In the Original Thinking Podcast, experts and academic colleagues discuss their latest research and original thinking at Alliance MBS.
For a list of our latest webinars, news and useful business content please visit ambs.ac.uk
[00:09]
Welcome to the latest Original Thinkers podcast here at Alliance Manchester Business School. My name is Jim Pendrell. I'm the research communications lead here at the school today. I'm delighted to be joined to my left by Anna Gilchrist and by Katie Jo Luxton. And we're here today to talk about driving biodiversity recovery through business action.
[00:33]
Before we proceed any further, I'm going to ask both of you to introduce yourselves and talk briefly about yourselves.
[00:38]
Katie Jo Hi. Yeah, I'm Katie Jo Luxton. I have the truly brilliant job of being the RSPB's global conservation director, which means I lead our conservation mission, the science, policy and ecology work, but also our international operations for rspb. And my background is really, I started off as a bit of a policy wonk working in government, trying to understand how you create the right frameworks to restore nature, particularly on agriculture was my background. And I've just been very fortunate to have a career that I feel so passionate about that I've been able to have my love of nature and then really thinking about how to fix it.
[01:18]
How do we get change to happen for the betterment of humans on the planet, really?
[01:27]
Anna?
[01:28]
Yes, I'm Dr. Anna Gilchrist. I am a senior lecturer here at the University of Manchester. I'm actually in the sister school, so in the School of Environment Education and Development. And I wear quite a lot of hats.
[01:41]
But I guess one of the reasons why I'm here today is that I'm a. I'm the co Program director for our brand new MSc in Nature Recovery, Restoration and Rewilding.
[01:47]
Okay, great. That sounds fascinating. We'll come on to that definitely later. Well, it's very opportune that we meet here today in February 2026, this Week in Manchester being held the. I'll get the title right by reading it out.
[02:04]
The Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity in Ecosystem Services. That's quite an acronym, isn't it? But yeah, just tell us a little bit about Katie Jo. What is this meeting in Manchester this, this week? Because it's not an organization I'm particularly aware of.
[02:22]
I think some, some have described it perhaps as, you know, a little bit like cop, but somewhat smaller. Just tell us a bit more about what it is and why it's in Manchester.
[02:30]
Yeah, so many people have heard of the IPPC on Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This is kind of the equivalent for nature. And this meeting here is the, the 12th plenary, so the 12th time that all of the 120 countries that signed up to wanting to restore nature are coming together to discuss the latest assessment. And they've done lots of different assessments on biodiversity and how to recover it, but this one particularly focuses on the interface between nature and business and what business can do to help restore and recover nature.
[03:07]
I think crucial subject, crucial topic. Do you think enough's known about what their work actually, you know, because it's not, you know, copy is extremely well known. I think everyone knows about that.
[03:20]
This not not so well known. Maybe.
[03:23]
I'd agree. I mean, definitely with a name like that, it BEZ as the acronym. Yeah, we've got to do a lot more to promote it, but it does underpin all the things that happened at cop. So. So the discussions that happened in Kunming, Montreal, for the latest convention of Biological diversity, all of that, the evidence of that came from the IPBES assessments.
[03:56]
So back in 2009, there was this report that said a million species are at risk of extinction. And that was really one of the first kind of driving forces of change. And I think the important thing about the IT Bears platform is we don't want to be debating the evidence endlessly. It's about bringing together the latest assessment of all the evidence and getting agreement on it. Because we all know from the history of things like tobacco and impact on health, debating the evidence is a way of slowing down the action.
[04:29]
So actually we really want to have an agreed evidence base and that's what IPBEs can, can do for us. And this time it also brings that applied nature with policy to it, so that governments can start to coalesce around shared mechanisms and frameworks that will work around the globe. And that's particularly important for business because so many of our companies are not just working in one nation, they're trading internationally and broadly.
[04:49]
I mean, what is the evidence at the moment? I mean, there's a big question for you, but I mean, broadly speaking, where are we at in terms of.
[04:57]
Well, one likes to be hopeful and positive, but I'm afraid the picture for biodiversity is really concerning. I've mentioned the 1 million species at risk of extinction, and that's global. We are seeing ecosystems begin to get to the point of breakdown. And although we know about a lot of the importance of these ecosystems that link into climate regulation, the importance of our corals and sea temperatures, the importance of tropical forests to stabilize the climate, and also hugely important, rich biodiversity, those ecosystems are all still under threat and all still facing declines. So it's a really important moment for the planet to sit up and you might have seen in the news, just a week or so ago, the UK government published the Joint Intelligence Committee's work on the National Assessment of Risk from Ecosystem Breakdown.
[05:44]
And you see the list of things that we're facing in there. You know, migration, food systems breaking down, wars. They're all things that are starting to already happen. And biodiversity and biodiversity loss is actually at the root of some of those really big, frightening changes that we, we face here in the uk, but indeed globally.
[06:22]
Anna, I mean, from, as an academic point of view, I'm sure these are areas which you've studied an awful lot. Broadly speaking, what would be your view? Do you echo what.
[06:31]
Absolutely, yeah, I think so. I think, I think actually that that point about communication you made about Ipbez kind of carries through to nature as well, really. If you, if you spoke to somebody in the street and you said to them, what do you think the biggest environmental threat is that's facing the planet? I think the majority would say climate change, but actually there's been a lot of work done that's looked at a range of different planetary boundaries, so nine planetary boundaries that are essentially looking at the critical systems that we depend on from life and the extent to which we've kind of exceeded the threshold and the extent to which that we've gone over that point at which we can no longer support both our human life, but also non human life on, on the planet. And the boundary that has gone the furthest is biodiversity, not climate change.
[07:13]
And yet the perception, I think, from most people is that climate change is a bigger risk.
[07:21]
And sorry, on that point about biodiversity, I think broadly speaking, people, it's a bit confusion probably between what that means, the difference in that and nature. Just help us out a little bit with some of the terminology here.
[07:32]
Yeah, so I think that the concept of biodiversity really came out originally from the Earth's Summit. That was where one of the. I mean, it predates that, that. But certainly this kind of general definition of recognizing that it is the sheer diversity of life which spans everything from the genetic level. And we know how important genetic diversity is right through to the variety of ecosystems and global biomes.
[07:57]
And that's really what biodiversity is talking about, is talking about the biological diversity. But you're right, it's quite a technical term. And because it's technical, it often gets appropriated and used really as a kind of synonym for nature. And actually I'm a big advocate for just using the word nature because I think everybody knows what that means. I think it's Important that we recognize that we are nature.
[08:22]
Humans are just part of nature. So I often talk about nature and non human nature from humans and non human nature. So yeah, I think it's kind of breaking down that boundaries. So biodiversity is a term, certainly has its application and its use, but I do think there are some challenges around kind of using terminology that just switches people off and that they don't understand or it gets misused in other contexts as well.
[08:41]
And likewise, which organizations and businesses can understand. Which brings on to why businesses this particular this year, this the meeting is focusing on business. What do you think what they hope to achieve by focus on business? I mean is it sort of a sort of toolkit to businesses or giving business ideas to think about? What is the.
[09:04]
Why the focus of business?
[09:09]
So I think one of the. Sorry, I think one of the key points of doing the IPAs work is to have this agreed evidence platform. And so one of the key things we will get from this is that businesses will be able to understand their impacts on nature. So through things like supply chains, but also the opportunities that exist for, for business in restoring nature. And that's probably not something that has been talked about as much.
[09:43]
So there's a big opportunity in having this report to think about that. We're also then going to see with the policy recommendations that the governments will be discussing and hopefully bringing forward will be approaches to how business can better participate in nature recovery. And at the moment we know we have between a 5 and 6.5 billion pound gap in the funds that are needed to restore nature. And that can't all come from the public sector. We know already that we're not able to meet that with public sector investment alone.
[10:16]
So we need private sector to come in and be part of that. But also it's going to shine a spotlight on the things that government is already doing that are perhaps not helping. They're kind of driving investment into the wrong areas or public sector funding is actually funding, you know, subsidizing damaging activity. So we're hoping some of these things will be flushed out and then help to create the framework that will be supportive for business to participate in nature recovery.
[10:43]
I mean, I presume a lot of business, a lot of businesses already are looking at this, already doing things and you know, you can be practical on some examples of best practice. But I guess the idea here is that there's far more that many others could be doing as well. Maybe haven't even really thought about it seriously. Is that kind of where we're at Because I mean, a lot of companies are doing things, aren't they?
[11:06]
Yeah. So a lot of companies have started to see both the kind of risk and resilience aspects of their business and starting to see that if nature is declining in the areas that they value, this is a serious business risk to them. And how do they participate? We've also got issues like flooding becoming more common and areas of the country not being able to get insurance. So you could reach a point where insurance industry doesn't really work because there are so many uninsurable risks.
[11:38]
So people don't go for insurance. So a lot of the companies that are really stepping up as, and looking at this now are insurance companies, the banks, because they want to see more resilience in their economic model. But we need it to be hardwired through the whole of the economic model. And that's the big change that we need to see. And hopefully it best will give us the common tools, the common language and some of the frameworks that can be applied internationally that we can all get behind.
[12:10]
Yeah, I mean, exactly that point about being hardwired and you know, the frameworks is important. I mean, there's, there's, there's also a lot of academic work in this area and there's Professor Paolo Catroni, based here at the school. He's written about importance of nature on the balance sheet and actually reflecting it as a part of the auditing process. You know, these sort of ideas, they are getting traction, aren't they? But I guess we've got a way to go.
[12:33]
Yeah, I think, I think. And that is, that is partly what it bezes about. You know, the amazing thing, as Katie Jo said, is that is that ability to look across global research. You know, you think how many academic papers are published each year across the world and they're looking at the ones, you know, that we can coalesce to say that where the, where the certainty is around this and where the gaps are. And I think that's one of the huge advantages of IPBEDs is securing that evidence base.
[12:57]
And yeah, the huge challenge is that there is an enormous amount of positive work, but it is still piecemeal. And on the whole it's opportunistic. So it's where businesses see the opportunities or maybe there is such a risk that they feel motivated to act. But actually I don't think there is that general appetite at the moment to do this. And I think the risk is that we kind of see this as such an urgent thing that government should act and Therefore, we'll wait for this policy.
[13:22]
We're going to wait for governments to kind of dictate what needs to happen. And that is going to be too slow. We already know that our responses to climate change and biodiversity loss are not happening at the rate we need. And actually, I think business is a brilliant example of what can happen because they're innovators. Right.
[13:47]
That's kind of what they're set out to do. So they're actually amazing at responding, seeing short, medium and long term risks and responding to those much better than governments are.
[13:57]
So what are the barriers at the moment for businesses? And you mentioned there, you know, there's. Because, yeah, they have a lot going on at the moment. Businesses face economic pressures, etc. You know, one of the barriers that stopped them from perhaps putting this.
[14:11]
Yeah, how long have we got?
[14:12]
Oh, not.
[14:13]
No, I'm joking.
[14:14]
Yeah, no, but yeah, yeah.
[14:16]
I mean, there are a lot. I think there are a lot. And I think, I think one of them is definitely about how we account for biodiversity, so. Or nature, as you should maybe say. So if we think about carbon, that is a single entity that is really easy to quantify and calculate and generally you can see it in terms of stocks and flows.
[14:45]
Biological diversity is far more complex than that. As we've already said, it covers multiple scales from the genetic level right through to biomes, kind of significant chunks of the planet. And ecologists are still struggling to work out how we actually measure and quantify biodiversity. So if ecologists are struggling with that, how do we then actually communicate that into a measurable, auditable form so that businesses can operate? So that's a barrier, I think, demonstrating the relevance to a lot of businesses.
[15:13]
If you're a water company, you can see why it is relevant for a water company to want to have the ecosystem services, the benefits that nature provides to us, because they need potable water ultimately. But, you know, if you're, I think, you know, a software company or a law firm, how is nature relevant to you? And I think trying to communicate to those businesses that are operating where risks and, yeah, kind of further down the supply chain is much harder to do. So there's a couple of them, but there's probably more.
[15:37]
There's probably more. Yeah. I mean, is there a sense, Katie Jo, that the governments are rather following this whole debate? You know, organizations are always waiting for sort of things to happen and. Well, how long do they wait, you know, before.
[15:51]
Yeah, I mean, we're here today with a big intergovernmental process at the ICBEZ is an intergovernmental process that we are hoping something is going to come out of, but it takes a long time. This is a rapid assessment of color over many years. It's taken a long time. And you know, I think we've probably put too much store in expecting our politicians and our governments to lead. I think increasingly I look back at what's happened since the earth summit in 92 and really there hasn't been as much leadership as the scale of the challenge requires.
[16:22]
So we need others to step into that space. And business is, as you say, much better at innovating, moves much more fleet of foot, is able to respond rapidly. I think the NGO sector and civil society has played a really key role, but again finds it really hard to scale, scale up. We've got some brilliant examples of projects that offer great hope about how to fix this really big, challenging crisis around the loss of nature. But they are just projects.
[16:52]
What we need is kind of scale and we need systems. And that's where I think business can really help us help and then governments will follow, I think.
[17:04]
How do we turn the dial in a meaningful way? You know, is it, is it the communications around this as much as anything, you know, you know, how do we get more, far more organizations to sort of be mentioned there? Those perhaps aren't most obvious in terms of their, you know, say, pressure services, people in offices. What's relevant for me? How, dad, are there other sort of perhaps things we can do to help turn the dial?
[17:33]
Well, I think that, I mean, there's lots of things we can do. I mean, us humans have spent most of our evolution outside, so we have a very deep seated need for nature. And most people feel relaxed when they're in green biodiverse space. And I think what we've got to do is really connect the public back up with nature so that they can feel that personal connection and passion and want to be part of the big solution to solve it and to put pressure on plan political leaders and to make the right choices in terms of the consumer products they're purchasing and making sure that those have a good environmental footprint. So I think there's the comms end and the engagement end, but I do think systems really matter here.
[18:10]
And this is why we need this collaboration between business and government. Because until you hardwire nature into decision making, it will always be an externality for business, one that you can get for free. And so why would you pay extra for it? Why would you make that reinvestment? So I think having the systems and the policy frameworks that will enable business to invest.
[18:48]
And we've got a really pioneering example that's been set up here in the UK called Biodiversity Net Gain. So this is a system, it's not perfect yet. There are issues with the metrics and all those kind of things. But the idea is that as developers building new developments, properties or infrastructure have an impact on biodiversity, we're trying to quantify that at the footprint level on the ground and then creating a framework for investment back into nature. Now that market is just beginning, it's really nascent, but it offers tremendous opportunities to restore nature here in the UK and potentially internationally if there became an international framework for biodiversity Net gain.
[19:26]
You do hear a lot about the building industry being doing a lot of proactive, you know, stuff, don't you, in this whole area? I've read, you know, I was reading about some. Was it swift bricks, you know, this one example. But you know there's, there are things going on.
[19:39]
There are things. And again, this is a demonstration of where business can innovate. So the development of nature friendly kind of products essentially that are providing habitats for biodiversity in, in the built development area. They've been developed. At the moment the policy is slow to follow but green minded businesses and developers are taking those on board and they're actually really looking forward to implementing those.
[20:06]
And we've just seen with the Scottish government, last week they finally passed the legislation that means that swift bricks will be put into all new developments.
[20:12]
But it was just that means for purposes of the field, that's bricks which.
[20:16]
Yeah. Which basically are providing a very small gap which replicates the, the habitats that swifts would, would normally nest in. And actually they used to do that underneath, underneath the, the kind of roofs of houses, but kind of plastic fascias have meant that that is no longer possible. So by putting these. And they're just, they're put into the.
[20:34]
It's much better than boxes which will degrade over time and need to be replaced. These are just installed and they're just
[20:41]
one small example, isn't it?
[20:42]
Yeah.
[20:43]
And if I can, if I can extend that out. So RSPB has been working with Barrett Redrow around development. They've got near Aylesbury called Kingsbrook, trying to look at how you can bring nature right into the heart of a development with waterways and sustainable urban drainage. Because the other thing that swifts are really struggling with is not just places to nest, it's also the insect life that they feed off. And we have got so Much less insect life.
[21:08]
I mean, certainly as a kid, I remember in the dark with the headlights, it was with insects, now you don't see that so much. So actually it's the food source for the swift. So we really need to make sure that around those developments we have got water bodies and seed sources and insect sources as well as the homes. And we need to be thinking in the round. So those are some of the examples we need to be thinking about.
[21:34]
But I'd also be keen to think about with the agricultural industry. What does that mean in terms of pesticide use as well? Well, so we need to think more broadly across all of the industries and how they can play their part in restoring nature.
[21:51]
Sorry, yeah, just finally, the MSC you mentioned, we were here sat in a university, we talked there about the Turner dial, also the importance of perhaps tomorrow's business leaders being as well aware of these subjects. But they are, many surveys will say that they're really passionate about climate change and nature, I guess. But the reality is you've got to build curricula which actually then teaches them as well the skills they're going to need. And which brings the msc. Just talk to us briefly about this new MSC here.
[22:23]
I think you're absolutely right. I think for a very long time nature has been something that actually has been quite an exclusive club. And actually if you couldn't identify X number of birds or all these species of butterfly, you kind of felt excluded, like a bit of an imposter in the nature space. And I think it's really, really important that we recognize that everybody actually has a connection to nature. We know there is.
[22:53]
Every human has an innate connection to nature. It's called biophilia and you only have to plunk a child in the natural environment to see that. But evidence shows that as children get older, about the 12:13 stage, if anybody's got teenagers, they'll recognize that there's a shift away from nature. They kind of become disconnected and in the most nature connected countries in the world, they refine that connection as they enter adulthood. And what we really need to do is kind of tap into that.
[23:24]
So in terms of the curriculum that we're offering on the new msc, that is about ensuring that we're not just teaching the natural sciences, we're absolutely trying to bring in across the discipline. So it very much is a mixture of the natural sciences and the social sciences. So that we don't just have people that understand nature, but they can actually go out and advocate for nature to other people and the other Thing that we've ensured is that there is no disciplinary requirement for our incoming students. So you do not have to have studied anything specifically in terms of environmental science or ecology or zoology. So we, we made it across the board and we have in our first cohort students who have done law, business, linguistics, art history.
[23:55]
And 50% of the cohort are people with that background and 50% with a more natural science background. And that blend is amazing because if we can embed that from childhood through to high school, we've now got the natural history GCSE and actually starting to make degrees that really demonstrate whatever you do there is a relevance to nature. Then we're sending advocates out into whatever career they want to go into.
[24:13]
That's fascinating. You're that such a broad mix of professions and it's the MSC. What's the title of the MSC?
[24:19]
Nature Recovery, Restoration and Rewilding nr.3 for sure.
[24:23]
Okay, just, just. Finally some closing thoughts, Katie Jo. I mean, you know, are you optimistic about next five, 10 years in terms of this agenda and businesses really embracing this?
[24:38]
Well, so if you work in nature conservation, you have to be an optimist. And although, you know, the big picture is really quite scary, there are so many good examples of restoration. Every project that I've visited in the last year, I've been really inspired by, you know, the skills of the people, the aspirations they have. The challenge really is how do they scale it up. So the opportunity I see from Ipbez in really bringing business into this conversation is they can help us do this at scale and help us find more measurable ways of understanding our impact.
[25:13]
So this feels like the moment that business joins the conversation or where we get some of that kind of spark of innovation that the Alliance Manchester Business School has been so famous for, as I've been reading about since I've been here in Manchester. So this feels like the start of something. So, yes, I'm very optimistic.
[25:34]
That's a, that's a very fitting way. But Anna, my final words.
[25:38]
Yeah, I was just going to say I totally agree in that actually. It is easy to kind of get depressed, but if we look at the pace of change that we have actually already realized, you know, if you'd asked me 10 years ago, we're going to have beavers living wild in every country of Britain. No, I wouldn't have thought that was possible. Rewilding has really caught the imagination of people around the world and I think, you know, we need to ride on the back of that to really make a change.
[26:00]
Well, thank you both for a fascinating discussion. We could have been here for a couple of hours, I think, discussing this. But it's been lovely to speak to you both and many thanks.
[26:10]
Yeah, thank you very much.