Over 100 business leaders attended the UK launch of the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance (CBA) last week an event hosted by King Charles III at St James Palace, London.
The CBA was launched with scientists and indigenous leaders with the aim of identifying new nature-based approaches in industries such as fashion, food and pharmaceuticals.
Attendees – including Hargreaves Lansdown’s head of platform investments and PA Future Committee member Emma Wall, St. James’s Place head of responsible investments Andy Ford and Lombard Odier Investment Management’s UK CEO Jasbir Nizar-Baker – discussed the need to ‘Re-Nature’, ‘Re-Think’ and ‘Re-Activate’ to create an ecosystem that connects international companies, local stakeholders and the finance industry to holistically redesign supply chains around regenerative landscapes.
The CBA also launched two ‘Living Labs’ to focus on how to create regenerative landscapes and nature-positive supply chains with local communities and indigenous people. Initiatives include a regenerative fashion scheme in India which will focus on landscape restoration for sustainable cashmere, a nature-based medicinal plant production in Italy, and several educational initiatives in the Amazon and Australia.
“Nature is the keystone infrastructure regulating our planetary system, including its climate, the food we eat, the water we drink and the oxygen we breathe”, said Marc Palahí, CEO of the CBA. He is also chief nature officer at Lombard Odier Investment Management. “Nature is also the basic fabric supporting all our economic activities, even if our economic system fails to value it because bees, birds and trees do not send bills to us. It is time to reimagine our world and centre it around Nature – our most important capital and the basis for human health and wellbeing. This requires understanding, valuing, and investing in Nature to transform our economy rather than to offset for its failure. We have the knowledge and technology for this transformation, we just need the wisdom and mindset to do it.”
Meanwhile, the event also saw the launch of the Fellowship for Reimagining Nature Finance and Inclusive Capitalism, in collaboration with the ERANDA Rothschild Foundation. The Fellowship seeks to accelerate the transition to a circular bioeconomy.
