Climate, nature and land are converging: what the three Rio Conventions mean for business

3 hours ago

2 min read

Three Rio Conventions. Increasingly, one business agenda.

Climate, biodiversity and land degradation have traditionally travelled through different international processes. For business, that distinction is becoming less useful.

The three agendas increasingly touch the same supply chains, investment decisions, risk frameworks, disclosures and governance processes.

September’s BCSDA LANDSCAPE brought together Fleur Downard from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Melissa Cotterill from the Department, and Ilona Millar from Gilbert + Tobin to examine what has changed across the three Rio Conventions — and what business should watch next.

Land

UNCCD COP17 in Ulaanbaatar put greater emphasis on land restoration, drought resilience, business participation and private finance. Business4Land is creating clearer pathways for companies to engage with land dependencies, sustainable land management, restoration, disclosure and investment.

Nature

CBD COP17 in Yerevan will undertake the first global review of collective progress implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. For business, Targets 14, 15 and 16 bring particular attention to mainstreaming biodiversity into decision-making, assessing and disclosing biodiversity-related risks and impacts, and addressing unsustainable consumption, waste and plastics.

Climate

COP31 in Antalya will operate through the Türkiye–Australia partnership model: Türkiye will host the conference and hold the COP Presidency, while Australia will serve as President of Negotiations. Türkiye and Australia, working with Pacific island countries, will also strengthen and elevate the COP31 Action Agenda. Finance, adaptation, just transition, implementation and the connection between negotiated outcomes and real-economy action will remain central.

The connection

The most important signal may be what sits between the three.

Capital deployed for climate action can also affect biodiversity and land outcomes. Nature-based solutions can deliver across multiple objectives. Supply chains increasingly encounter climate, nature and land dependencies together.

The question for business is therefore becoming less “Which sustainability agenda does this belong to?” and more “How do we make one decision that recognises all three?”