On November 19th 2018, during the 14° edition of UN Biodiversity Conference COP-14, which took place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt,that happened on Sharm El Sheik, in Egypt, LIFE Institute promoted the side event “LIFE Institute: Including Biodiversity on Business Practices – Real Cases”.

The opening remarks were made by Oliver Hillel, CBD representative, who emphasized the importance of engaging the business sector in the conservation of biodiversity and highlighted the LIFE Institute initiative. After his speech, Maria Alice Alexandre, executive director of LIFE Institute, presented the LIFE Methodology, a strategic tool that supports organizations on the decision making process regarding their sustainability with focus on the maintenance and resilience of ecosystem services.

The sustainability manager of Boticario Group, Maria de Lourdes Nunes, presented how they include biodiversity on business decisions. After her presentation, Ariel Scheffer, Superintendent of Itaipu’s Environmental Management, presented the company’s biodiversity program, which guides the regional sustainability in its area of influence in Brazil and Paraguay. Closing the event, Eduardo Franchini, manager at JTI, talked about the inclusion of biodiversity and sustainability on agribusiness supply chain.

During the event, the project “International Standard for Sustainable Territorial Management”, a partnership among LIFE Institute, Itaipu Binational and Itaipu Technological Park Foundation (FPTI) was presented as an innovative project which aims to meet a worldwide demand for indicators that integrate the different dimensions of sustainability into an ecosystem approach. The Standard will be an important guideline for public and private organizations that together implement the management of the territory for sustainability.

In his presentation, Scheffer also mentioned the challenges and benefits that the project offers for reaching the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and mentioned its potential to become a reference worldwide.

A total of 60 people attended the event, representing organizations from several countries, enriching the discussions on the business practices being implemented for biodiversity conservation and the maintenance of ecosystem services.

COP 14

The COP of the Convention on Biological Diversity – CBD is the largest convention about biodiversity on the planet, counting with representatives from more than 190 countries, and presence of several companies, nongovernmental organizations, specialists and academics of different areas and specialties.

In addition to analyzing the progress in the deliberations of UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the Parties discussed new conservation measures, sustainable use, and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of the genetics resources. Discussions included solutions to reduce biodiversity loss and protect ecosystems that provide security of food and water for billions of people. Governments discussed the efforts needed to achieve the Aichi Targets and discussed the document that will succeed the current Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020.

LIFE Institute presence at COP 14

Since its establishment in 2009, LIFE Institute has been present at COP 10 (held in Nagoya, Japan in 2010), COP 11 (held in Hyderabad, India in 2012) and COP12 (held in Pyeongchang, South Korea in 2014). In all these editions, LIFE organized a side event, presenting its initiatives and highlighting the actions carried out by its partners.

In this year’s edition, besides promoting the side event and attending to other side events, the representatives of LIFE Institute, Maria Alice Alexandre and Regiane Borsato, also attended the Business & Biodiversity Forum, an event that discussed the connections between biodiversity and business operations.

For LIFE Institute, participating on events of this magnitude represents more than networking and disseminating LIFE Methodology, it is an unique opportunity to actively be part of discussions of this relevance and to strengthen ties to achieve a common goal: living and producing in harmony with nature.