Everything you need to know about COP16
Key moments from the global biodiversity summit include progress on corporate targets, data, metrics and nature credits.
The dust is still settling on the COP16 biodiversity summit, but it’s already clear that things did not go to plan.
According to reports, the negotiations dragged on until so many officials had returned home from the two-week event in Colombia that there weren’t enough left to make key decisions.
By the end of the summit, only a fifth of countries had revised their biodiversity goals, and plans for a major new fund to support efforts in lower-income countries were put on hold, along with an updated framework to monitor national-level progress.
New costs for companies using wildlife DNA
On the corporate side, there was one potentially big deal made: negotiators agreed to create a mechanism to take payments from firms whose products are made using genetic data from plants, animals and microbes.
Companies, especially those making drugs, cosmetics and food supplements, can currently access databases full of free information about the DNA of wild organisms (known as digital sequence information, or DSI), which helps them design products.
It was agreed those firms should pay either 1% of their profit or 0.1% of their revenue to a UN-managed ‘Cali fund’, to help ensure those plants, animals and microbes can continue to thrive.
From top-level corporate pledges to specific targets
At entity level, progress remains slow.
Just 233 companies have any biodiversity commitments, according to S&P, which analysed more than 8,500 companies for a new report. Less than a quarter of those know the impact of their business activities on biodiversity, “meaning they have not yet assessed what meeting that commitment will take”.
Shareholder network Nature Action 100 published more detailed overviews of the 100 listed companies it believes are most impactful for nature this week.
It found that, while no company was close to managing nature-related risks and opportunities adequately, 60 had a public commitment to protect nature, 46 of which applied it to their wider value chains.
And those ambitions began to get more granular.
Kering, GSK and Holcim became the first firms to formally adopt targets approved by the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) this week, linking specific business operations and assets with specific goals.
The targets cover freshwater and land use, and SBTN told REP about 150 companies are preparing to follow suit over coming months.
WWF just published a report explaining how SBTN’s guidance stacks up against the nature-related targets firms are required to disclose under CSRD.
Data and metrics
Real Economy Progress reported last week that the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) had seen a surge in uptake, with more than 500 entities planning to report in line with the framework by 2026.
But that wasn’t its only announcement during COP16: it also confirmed plans to road test a new data lake to tackle concerns about the availability, quality, comparability and assurability of nature-related information.
“These concerns are shared, not only among the largest corporates and financial institutions with complex global value chains, but also by the small and medium-sized enterprises around the world,” said TNFD.
Similar to the Net Zero Data Public Utility (NZDPU), launched by Bloomberg and the French Government in 2022, the Nature Data Public Facility (NDPF) is expected to serve as a library of free, online data for all stakeholders.
However, unlike NZDPU, it will focus on the data companies need to input into their assessments (including geospatial data), rather than what comes out the other side.
“The most pressing priority and most significant pain point for market participants concerns the state-of-nature data required to locate and assess their potential nature-related issues,” TNFD explained, adding that many entities are currently unable to complete the first parts of their TNFD evaluations because they can’t access adequate information.
On data, it’s also worth noting that financial regulators in the EU published recommendations this week on how to move forward with Europe’s own data lake, the European Single Access Point. The platform will eventually pull information through that’s been disclosed under various European laws, including CSRD and the Taxonomy.
Meanwhile, the Nature Positive Initiative will close a consultation next week (November 8) on a set of standardised state-of-nature metrics.
The non-profit project, whose 27 members include TNFD, said the number of metrics currently out there (it found more than 600) was “confusing, intimidating and discouraging” for companies.
It will pilot its proposed set of state-of-nature metrics in 2025.
Transition Plans
Transition plans saw a boost during COP16, when TNFD released guidance on how to produce a dedicated corporate nature transition plan (WWF is expected to produce further advice on the subject later this month) and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero published guidelines on how to integrate nature into climate transition plans.
Nature-based Credits
The EU made a series of announcements at the summit, including outlining its thinking about the future of biodiversity credits – a market it said could “help companies set nature-positive goals, and reward those who protect and restore nature, including farmers, foresters, fishers, and other sea- and land managers”.
It is currently piloting projects in France, Estonia and Peru, but insisted none of them would enable offsetting.
In another breakthrough for the space, the Biodiversity Credit Alliance, the International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits, and the World Economic Forum co-launched some “high-level principles to guide the biodiversity credit market”.
