By Imogen O’Rorke, Nature Lead, Achill Legal
Let’s talk about nature security. The IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment last month and the government’s report on Nature Security in January – should have sharpened legal minds to the existential risks posed by nature loss for businesses and financial institutions – indeed for our entire economic and social systems that are dependent upon the services freely provided by nature (water, food, flood resilience, clean air etcetera).
Only 1% of all businesses formally report their nature risks – the scientists behind the publication from the ‘Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’ went as far as to say businesses “risk extinction” if they didn’t wake up to the seriousness of biodiversity collapse and its interconnectedness with climate resilience and adaptation.
The IBA’s new ‘International Bar Association’s ‘Nature-Intelligent Legal Services Toolkit‘ is a helpful resource for LSPs in assessing their client portfolios for nature risk exposure and developing positioning to advise accordingly. This is a wake-up call on a par with the net zero imperative. Legal services providers have a vital role to play in assisting the return to “nature intelligence”.
As Wangui Kaniaru, co-chair of the IBA’s subcommittee on ESG, puts it: “ Nature risk has shifted – it’s not just an environmental conversation anymore. It’s a legal and financial risk conversation. The question for lawyers at every level is no longer whether this matters to their clients, it’s whether they have the knowledge and tools to respond. All businesses, including law firms, depend on services provided by nature as sources of value, either directly or through their supply chains. Meanwhile, we know that many business activities are adversely impacting nature, for example through contributing to climate change, pollution or over-exploitation of ecosystems. These impacts and dependencies on nature create risks for organisations and their value chains.”
As Jenni Ramos, corporate and nature lawyer, suggests “is it time for all lawyers to think like nature lawyers?”
There are other engines of invention humming away in the nature litigation space. The Rights of Nature movement that encompasses various strategies for legal personhood for natural ecosystems and non-human entities – as well as for ‘Mother Nature’ herself – has been growing in scope and ambition.
Following The Rights of Nature Symposium last June (jointly hosted by Achill Legal, ELF and FSQ) and the resulting white paper, Achill Legal has been continuing the conversation through working groups. The RoN ‘Law & Policy’ working group under the LSA brings together the groups at the heart of the movement together to map existing law and policy initiatives around RoN and share best practice for advancing adoption of its principles. While those discussions are under the Chatham House Rule, there will be a presentation event on 3 June at 5pm, kindly hosted by Simmons & Simmons. Please register your interest to attend via manager@legalsustainabilityalliance.com.
A second group, launching in late March, is working on how RoN approaches might intersect with, and strengthen, nature finance and risk management. While the concept of enforceable rights for Nature might still be a controversial one, RoN is fundamentally a theory of change that can shift decision-making from “minimising harm” towards protecting and restoring ecological integrity.
If you would like to contribute to this work please contact Imogen O’Rorke on imogen@achill-legal.com.