Businesses Must Invest in Nature as Biodiversity Loss Threatens Economy, Experts Warn

• NCF, Natural Eco Capital unveil first Business Action Plan for Biodiversity

Bennett Oghifo

Nigerian businesses have been warned that failure to integrate biodiversity protection into their operations could expose them to growing environmental, financial and operational risks, as conservation experts called for stronger private-sector leadership and financing to halt nature loss.

The warning came in Abuja at the inauguration of Nigeria’s first Business Action Plan for Biodiversity (BAP), developed by the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) and Natural Eco Capital (NEC), in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Environment and with support from Business for Nature.

The initiative seeks to translate the country’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) 2025–2030 into practical measures that businesses and financial institutions can adopt to reduce their environmental footprints, invest in nature-based solutions and integrate biodiversity considerations into corporate decision-making.

Speaking at the event, the Director-General of NCF, Dr Joseph Onoja, said nature constituted the fundamental capital upon which virtually every business depended, warning that businesses that ignored environmental degradation could eventually pay a heavy price.
According to him, the profitability and sustainability of businesses were ultimately tied to the health of the natural environment.
“It is important for businesses to get involved in nature preservation because it ultimately determines the eventual profitability of any business,” Onoja said.

He cited the recent devastation witnessed in Nepal as a warning of what could happen when environmental pressures accumulate and ecosystems are degraded.

“When nature decides to act, when nature gives us her invoice, it destroys whatever we have made,” he said.

Onoja said biodiversity conservation had become a global priority and that Nigeria had responded by adopting and domesticating the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan 2025–2030 to reflect the country’s peculiar environmental and economic circumstances.
He, however, stressed that adopting the national framework was not enough without effective implementation.

He said the Business Action Plan was therefore developed as a practical implementation framework, co-created with the business community to help companies ensure that their policies, processes and activities did not unnecessarily damage nature.

“This plan will support businesses to see how they can ensure that their processes, actions and policies do not harm the environment,” he said.

Onoja urged companies across sectors to adopt the BAP as a toolkit for mainstreaming biodiversity into their operations, insisting that conservation could no longer be treated merely as a corporate social responsibility initiative.

He said the launch marked the beginning of the implementation phase and would require businesses to move from broad commitments to measurable actions that would make their operations more nature-positive.

Also speaking, the Director-General of Natural Eco Capital, Dr Eugene Itua, said the private sector had historically paid greater attention to climate change than biodiversity, despite its dependence on nature for raw materials, water, land and other resources essential to production.

“The private sector wasn’t really doing anything in this sphere, and we saw that as a need,” Itua said.

He explained that the new plan was designed to provide businesses with a clear and practical route to participate in the implementation of Nigeria’s biodiversity strategy.

“The plan will support the private sector to protect nature and the environment that they themselves depend on for their raw materials,” he said.

According to him, the framework had been structured to make it easier for companies to integrate biodiversity considerations into business decisions while understanding how their activities affect and depend on nature.

Itua said the plan would help businesses avoid preventable environmental damage, address existing problems and identify emerging threats before they escalated into major crises.

He said biodiversity risks were increasingly becoming business risks, making it necessary for companies to understand their environmental dependencies and impacts as part of their long-term planning.

The Director-General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Charles Odii, represented by the Assistant Director, Engineering, Technology and Infrastructure, David Aiyenigba, said the agency was ready to partner with the conservation organisations to ensure effective implementation of the plan.

Odii said the traditional framing of economic development and environmental conservation as competing objectives was outdated.
“For a long time, the dialogue between economic development and environmental conservation was too often framed as a trade-off. Today, we are turning the page on that outdated view,” he said.

He said sustainable enterprise, inclusive SMEs and healthy ecosystems were mutually dependent, stressing that integrating biodiversity targets into corporate strategies represented sound economics, risk management and responsible leadership.

According to him, the action plan provides businesses of different sizes with a strategic roadmap to assess and reduce their environmental footprints across their value chains, while investing in nature-based solutions and ecosystem restoration.

He, however, said achieving the objectives would require sustained commitment, accountability and innovation.

The initiative is also expected to strengthen collaboration between government, businesses, financial institutions, civil society organisations and other stakeholders in mobilising resources for biodiversity conservation.

Stakeholders at the event included representatives of the Federal Ministry of Environment, the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE), the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG), SMEDAN, private-sector organisations, partner foundations and other development stakeholders.

The launch also comes as Nigeria seeks to implement its biodiversity commitments under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework through the domesticated NBSAP.

The conservation organisations said the new business action plan was intended to close the gap between policy commitments and practical action, particularly by ensuring that investment and commercial decisions take account of the long-term value of ecosystems and natural resources.

For Nigeria, the stakeholders said, the challenge now was to turn the framework into measurable changes in business practices, financing decisions and environmental performance, with companies expected to play a more direct role in protecting the natural capital upon which economic activity depends.