SNC-Lavalin calls to ‘Make it Mandatory’ for nature ahead of COP15

SNC-Lavalin, a fully integrated professional services and project management company with offices around the world, has joined a campaign urging governments around the world to require all large businesses and financial institutions to assess and disclose their impacts and dependencies on nature by 2030.

The ‘Make It Mandatory’ campaign is led by Business For Nature, a global coalition of business and conservation organizations, and has been launched ahead of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) on the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity – which takes place in Montreal in December.

Dr Hentie Dirker, Chief ESG and Integrity Officer, at SNC-Lavalin said:

“As a global business with a clear roadmap for our ESG journey, it is absolutely the right thing to support this campaign as we look ahead to COP15 taking place in our corporate home city.

“The 2020s was defined by the UN as the decade for action to reverse the damage on nature and to accelerate the implementation of nature-based solutions as an alternative to heavy engineered infrastructure.

“However, globally there is not enough progress being made and taking this step to assess and disclose industry’s impact on nature, will enable the business community to have a much better understanding of the scale of the issue – that means we can take the right action.”

Signatories to the business statement were made public on 26 October 2022 as part of the campaign to urge governments to be as ambitious as possible within the Global Biodiversity Framework, which is due to be agreed and adopted at COP15.

Claire Wansbury, Associate Director and SNC-Lavalin Ecology Fellow in the UK, adds:

“It is a crucial year for biodiversity and we are hoping to see a commitment on the level of the Paris Agreement from 2015, to address the challenge we face.

“By making it mandatory for businesses around the world to assess and report on the impact of their activities, we will be making an important step towards reversing the loss in nature which threatens to undermine our future resilience to climate change.

“Mandatory reporting will help businesses become part of a Nature Positive future, benefiting our economy and society in many ways as well as helping the natural world. An ambitious Global Biodiversity Framework will benefit us all.”