Leading the way in pledge to get nature positive by 2030

Ground Control is amongst leading British businesses working towards halting and reversing the decline of nature by 2030

Ground Control is proud to be amongst leading British businesses working towards halting and reversing the decline of nature by 2030, as a founding supporter of the Get Nature Positive campaign.

The target is considered crucial in achieving the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. Aligned with COP26 ambitions, business leaders will be joining forces to create a global goal for nature.

The Council for Sustainable Business (CSB) last month challenged their peers to take further actions. Ground Control is proud to be one of the 95 British companies that has signed up to its Get Nature Positive campaign. The news coincides with the CSB’s Business Lunch Reception on COP26’s Nature Day (Saturday, November 6^th) attended by The Secretary of State for the Environment, Lord Goldsmith, Under Secretary of State at Defra, Rebecca Pow, NGO leaders and Al Gore, the former Vice President of the United States.

Ground Control joins forces with the likes of Severn Trent Water, National Grid, Forestry England, GSK, Bulb, ITV, Sainsbury’s, Financial Times and many more, uniting with a shared goal of contributing to a nature positive world by 2030.

As part of nature day at COP26 today, a number of participating organisations, some of which we are proud to work in partnership with, are unveiling new actions to protect and enhance the environment including:

Severn Trent pledges to restore over 2,000 acres of peatland across England and Wales by 2025, improving biodiversity, carbon sequestration and water quality
Co-op, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose pledge to slash their impact across climate, deforestation and nature by 2030 in ‘Retailers Commitment for Nature’ with WWF

Jason Knights, Managing Director at Ground Control said:

As a proud partner of Get Nature Positive, we advocate the positive impact of nature on our planet in everything we do. Like many of our fellow supporters, we have set ambitious environmental targets that we are showing evidence of achieving sooner rather than later. For example, in March 2021, we were certified by the Carbon Trust as carbon neutral, four years ahead of our original target. We are now collaborating with Cambridge University’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership on our biodiversity positive strategy and with the Carbon Trust to achieve carbon net-zero by 2025. In 2020, we set up our Evergreen Fund, dedicating five percent of annual profits to investments in carbon-reducing technologies and woodland creation. In the past 12 months, we have invested £615,000 in six ventures and planted 42,000 trees in protected areas. We are working closely with customers and private landowners to plant one million trees in the next five years.

Ground Control is pleased to be amongst fellow, high profile organisations pledging to make a positive difference now, many of who we have collaborated with in the past.

As part of the G7 Nature Compact, the UK has committed to nature positivity by 2030, reinforced through a legally-binding and world leading target in the Environment Bill to halt species decline. This target is not only crucial to achieving net zero carbon goals, but also to sustaining the healthy ecosystem that we all depend on.

The CSB, a group of business leaders appointed by Defra to advise on how businesses can achieve the government’s 25 Year Environment Plan, launched its ‘Get Nature Positive campaign’ and its Nature Handbook for business, back in October 2021 to help businesses understand the impact they have on nature and support them in navigating the global effort to arrest the decline in nature by 2030. The Nature Handbook includes 140 actions across six business sectors for nature. The Handbook, developed with Accenture, also sets out to help businesses supercharge their carbon strategies through nature-based solutions to climate change.

The handbook toolkit, is relevant and relatable to a wide range of sectors that Ground Control serves. It showcases some of the ways that we can and are becoming more nature positive, helping the planet but also ultimately supporting companies’ long-term financial sustainability. The handbook also includes examples of how good business actively contributes to the general well-being of all parts of society.

At today’s event in Glasgow, hosted by Liv Garfield, Council for Sustainable Businesses CEO, a range of CEOs and Group Heads of Sustainability from multinational businesses will come together to share their work and make new announcements, with the aim of inspiring more businesses to look at opportunities to protect nature and boost biodiversity.

Liv Garfield, CEO of the CSB and also CEO of Severn Trent, said:

Every business in the UK, whether they know it or not, impacts nature and has a role to play in protecting it. No nature, no business – it’s that simple. There should not need to be a choice between business success and nature, the two should go hand in hand.

“95 UK businesses backing Get Nature Positive is truly phenomenal. This level of support allows us to begin our journey of making a difference and helping the UK become a greener, more resilient country. Whether it’s businesses planting trees, saving water, helping to restore peatland or improving rivers, the UK are now global leaders in protecting nature for generations and tackling challenges from climate change, biodiversity and nature loss head on.

Environment Secretary, George Eustice, said:

The UK Government is committed to putting nature on the road to recovery – it is essential if we are to implement the Paris agreement and tackle climate change. However, transforming our relationship with nature will require global cooperation across the entire commodity supply chain.

The commitment from business today gives me further encouragement that we can overcome this challenge together to reverse the decline of nature by 2030.

Justin Francis, CEO of Responsible Travel, is leading the CSB’s Get Nature Positive campaign, said:

All of us in business, whether we fully understand it or not, create impacts on nature. To reverse the losses we need to understand them, reduce them and then restore nature – and our nature handbook will help businesses prepare. The successful businesses of the future will be far more nature friendly than now.

We aim, that with the Government, we will build a community to deliver just that.

Lord Goldsmith, Minister for the Pacific and the Environment and Minister Pow, Domestic Environment and Nature Recovery Minister, said:

We are determined to tackle the twin challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, and our landmark Environment Bill is putting the environment at the heart of all government policy-making for generations to come.

But to achieve our goals, we need to work hand in hand with business and this brilliant handbook provides the tools it needs to get nature positive. In the year that we host the COP26 UN Climate Summit, UK business has the opportunity to show global leadership and encourage the rest of the world to follow.

Tony Juniper, Natural England Chair, said:

The depletion of our natural environment doesn’t just impact upon species and our natural world, it also harms our society and economy. This is why recovering nature is everyone’s business, including the private sector.

Today’s company pledges are vitally important, but they must be backed by action, harnessing the critical role businesses must play in achieving nature recovery. This means taking the challenge to heart of business strategy.

The world is changing, and so are expectations, and becoming nature positive is ultimately in the interests of the private sector. We’d encourage every organisation, whether FTSE 100 or start-up, to sign up to the Get Nature Positive journey. Nature recovery is in our grasp – provided we act together, now.

To read the full press release, access the handbook, and to learn more about the actions businesses are taking to protect and restore nature, click here.
To learn more about Ground Control’s significant role in protecting nature and the environment, click here.

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