Business and biodiversity
In 2020 as part of our Digital Dialogues series, we held an event called ‘Visions that shape a sector’ - with more than 500 people watching several CEOs discuss their visions for the future and how business can contribute more to biodiversity. Here are some excerpts:
Joao Paulo B. Ferreira, CEO, Natura & Co Latin America
On Brazil’s biological and culture wealth and how his early visits to Amazon communities shaped his later career and work with Natura employees:
“This country and those communities could be leading the low carbon economy with so much wealth in terms of ingredients, the forest, nature, the knowledge, and yet all is being wasted because there is no coordination, science and technology are not properly deployed and there are some ideological disputes on how to best use this wealth. So, I discovered I could do something to help this, through my work, and that is what I have been trying to do ever since, to push people in that direction so that they open their eyes and use their creativity and talent to use the richness of the bio-economy to transform the world.”
Elisa Aragon, CEO, Nelixia
On whether we are putting ‘bandaids’ on these huge challenges or whether we need an entirely new system:
“Everyone must act. But the private sector has a good chance of really changing things on the ground. This is why we need to make sustainability and all the strategies we are talking about, mainstream. So that day by day we move the entire sector.”
Sebastien Sieben, CEO, Martin Bauer Europe
Answering a question about blockchain from the audience, and a question from Maria Julia Oliva, the UEBT moderator about what in the future will ‘change the game’ in terms of sustainability:
“Transparency is the game changer, not blockchain. For many countries for decades the secret they guarded the most was their supply chains because that is really the intellectual property of trading and production companies and now suddenly you take a different approach and you say ‘I will put everything in that area on the table’ and companies that are willing to do that, that is the game changer. The game changer is the willingness to be transparent about supply chains rather than keep it as a business secret. And then there are technologies of how to do that. But blockchain is not the gamechanger. The change in attitude is the game changer.”
Michael Brenner, Member of the Executive Board, Weleda Group
In response to an audience member who asked how Weleda promotes ethical sourcing with suppliers and how it measures supplier success related to the company mission:
“One of the most important things for our vision is that we have direct partnerships with our suppliers. That is the most critical thing. With them we are defining projects, we are promoting their stories with customers. And so on. And we are in a very lucky position because we are a purpose-driven organisation and it helps that all partners are driving in the same direction. And finally, the luckiest thing is that we have owners that allow us to do this.”