The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has launched an online platform, Natural Infrastructure for Business, to increase awareness of the business opportunities in investing in ecosystems–or natural infrastructure–and scale up action. The ultimate objective of the initiative is that, by 2020, companies systematically assess natural infrastructure options when investing in new sites or projects, thereby contributing to the protection, restoration and creation of new ecosystems. According to the WBCSD, 60 percent of the world’s ecosystems have been degraded over the past 50 years and taking into account land use change, this degradation is responsible for approximately 20 percent of carbon emissions globally. To continue to benefit from ecosystem services and secure access to resources that are key to their operations, the council calls on businesses to invest in reversing this trend.
