When the rules and regulations are clear, businesses can successfully manage risk and plan with confidence. They know where the boundaries of safe practice lie in their duty to maximise profit while maintaining a healthy business - and their investors, insurers and shareholders know it too.
Right now, businesses spearheading sustainable practices are at a competitive disadvantage. Setting a boundary for what is legally and morally acceptable raises best practice, creates a level playing field for sustainable enterprise and rewards those doing the right thing.
Clear parameters unleash creativity. Business will be stimulated to ask the right questions, rebalance demand away from goods created through harmful practices and direct resources and talent towards developing new regenerative business models systems that work in harmony with nature.
When destructive channels are closed, investment and insurance will shift naturally to favour sustainable projects. Policy and best practice will follow suit.
By working with nature rather than against it, business operations will become more efficient and effective.
The new legal framework will encourage tapping into on-the-ground expertise and knowledge in the workforce as new approaches are explored for working in better harmony with nature. Employee commitment, motivation and satisfaction will significantly improve.
Clear responsibilities set out in law will deter climate and environmental injustice at source, providing a guide rail towards greater fairness and a culture of care and ensuring that key decision makers take their responsibilities seriously.
Ecocide law will favour and encourage business models which work in harmony with a thriving, evolving environment, replacing a harsh, destructive economic cycle with a virtuous regenerative one.
BUSINESS AND FINANCE - OPEN LETTER
Business, finance and governments have a unique opportunity to respond to climate and ecological collapse.
By acting together now to hold those responsible for unlawful or wanton destructive practices to account, we can create better and fairer ways of doing business that are firmly supported by international legal frameworks.
ENDORSING ORGANISATIONS INCLUDE:
KEY PUBLICATIONS
ECOCIDE LAW IS A “GAME-CHANGER” FOR BOARD DIRECTORS, SAYS INVESTOR NETWORK
A new policy “viewpoint” document Biodiversity as Systemic Risk: 10 Game-Changers for Board Directors and Stewardship Teams has been released by the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), highlighting the criminalisation of ecocide as an essential emerging framework.
RACE TO ZERO ACKNOWLEDGES ECOCIDE LAW AS KEY DRIVER FOR CLIMATE ACTION
Ecocide law has been significantly highlighted in the recent Race 2 Zero "Pivot Point" report on the importance of moving from voluntary to regulatory measures to accelerate climate action.
The report, launched to great fanfare during New York Climate Week and the high-level week of the UN General Assembly, at the Climate Action: Race to Zero and Race to Resilience Forum where COP26 and COP27 Climate Champions.
It features a significant section on ecocide law as a "driver and influencer" in this process - see Chapter 7 section (c) of the report (p58).
CONTACT / NEXT STEPS
By acting together we can create better and fairer ways of doing business.
Support our EU Environmental Crime Directive Position Paper by signing as your business or organisation.
Show your support publicly by downloading and using our endorsement stamp on your social media channels and/or website.
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