UNCTAD's BioTrade Initiative
Why do ecosystem services matter to people?
That was a question that I was asking both of myself and of a group of business people and researchers when invited to meet with UNCTAD’s BioTrade Initiative on the 31st of March this year.
UNCTAD’s BioTrade Initiative was meeting in Milan to discuss why biodiversity is important to the fashion industry and to the cosmetics industry.
I was asked to come along to explain a bit about the ESPA Programme and how I thought research can link into the business community.
When preparing for the meeting, I realised I actually had more questions than answers. The most important questions I had for the business community were – Why does biodiversity matter to you? Why do ecosystem services matter to you?
During my presentation, I gave some examples from a number of ESPA regions outlining why ecosystems services are important. I gave examples of where ecosystems services are contributing to poor peoples’ lives. It was interesting for me to hear the feedback from the meeting that my message was too abstract and that I wasn’t speaking in a language that the business community could really understand.
I was asked to show how ecosystem services mattered to their business. I was asked to change my language such that I was talking about ecosystem services using the language of business, in terms of their supply chains, their values, and the risks to business.
This was an important lesson for me and one which also applies to number of groups that ESPA is working with. If the science of ESPA is really going to change peoples’ lives around the world, we need to understand what their needs are and, crucially, start talking their language.
I was also told that the business community and the private sector cannot wait for 7 years to see evidence from the ESPA Programme. They need evidence now and information now to inform changes in their businesses.
The delegates at the meeting encouraged researchers in the ESPA programme to think about how, as a group, we can provide evidence over the next few years – evidence that the business community can start to use to change the way they work, and to help them put a real value on the environment and the ecosystem services when thinking about the way in which they work and the products they sell.
This illustrates what’s different about ESPA. As a programme we need to listen to our end-users and engage them at the beginning of the programme. We must ask them to define the types of evidence and products that our research produces.
A big consideration for ESPA is how we handle communication.
As a world leading programme we need to provide high-quality research papers. At the same time, we must produce communication materials in a language that our stakeholder groups require and can understand and use. We must use a business language for business stakeholders and policy relevant documents and outputs for the policy community.
One of the things that the ESPA directorate will be doing to help projects is to design effective communication methods linking high-quality research to something that our end-users and stakeholders can utilise - by way of allowing them to easily convert the research into concepts and language that can be applied in their routine lives
Using these approaches will help ESPA develop world leading research into real results – i.e. actions on the ground that will reduce poverty through the sustainable provision of ecosystem services.
