What a way to finish 2022! With an unprecedented number of progressive companies attending COP15 and thanks to country negotiators working tirelessly over the past few weeks, a new Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) has been adopted. We at BSL welcome this historic agreement as it defines our common goal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030, commits governments to require all large business and financial institutions to assess and disclose their risks, impacts, and dependencies on biodiversity, and promises comprehensive reform of environmentally harmful subsidies. This simply wouldn’t have happened without the effort and teamwork from a huge number of organizations, including many of our partners and leading companies stepping and showing up.
Business leadership and momentum
Business for Nature’s Executive Director, Eva Zabey outlining the outcomes for business at the closing of the High-Level Segment.
In a week of high stakes and high drama – with a tense World Cup thrown in for good measure (congratulations, Argentina) – it was exciting if a little emotional to see a new global agreement on nature adopted by 196 countries in Montreal in the early hours of 19 December. A united voice of progressive businesses had played a critical role in driving momentum and leadership in the run-up to COP15, and many companies showed up on the ground to urge governments to secure a Paris-style agreement on nature. 
Business Briefing sessions were hosted every morning to provide the latest updates on negotiations during COP15.
Hundreds of corporate leaders contributed to a wide range of business and finance events as either speakers or participants, including the official side events, the Business and Biodiversity Forum, the Business Hub in Place Quebec, the Nature Positive Pavilion, the Global Environment Facility pavilion and in offsite events such as TNFD’s Nature Labs. These rich conversations and discussions gave participants a shared sense of responsibility and, importantly, a feeling of being part of a like-minded business community committed to tackling the collective challenges we face.
We thank the CBD Secretariat and the GBF co-chairs who really lived up to the goal of delivering a Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) that takes a whole-of-society approach. Observers were welcomed in the negotiation rooms for most sessions – an effective way to engage stakeholders directly. This promoted a genuine and continuous interest in the status of the negotiations.
