Increasingly aware of their environmental impact, more and more companies are committing to sustainable development. Through a CSR policy, they work to make their activities more responsible. This eco-friendly positioning is good for the planet, but not only since the benefits of such an approach are also very positive for the company, its staff, its image and its performance.
Biodiversity and Companies: The Importance of Getting Involved
It is no secret that biodiversity is in danger. Numerous reasons explain this decline, most of which are related to humans and their lifestyle. Yet… Biodiversity plays a crucial role in our lives and well-being. Ensuring its maintenance (and even more, its restoration) is one of the key challenges of the 21st century, at all levels (governmental, societal, entrepreneurial, etc.).
Ecosystem Services Provided by Biodiversity
Biological diversity plays an essential role in the functioning and maintenance of ecosystems. It provides us with many ecosystem services that contribute to our well-being. These include photosynthesis, air and water purification, and the production of raw materials.
According to Wal-ES (a federating platform), these services can be grouped into three main categories:
- Provisioning and production services that cover food, energy, and raw material needs.
- Regulatory services that help regulate natural phenomena (e.g., floods), air and water quality, diseases, etc.
- Cultural services related to leisure and outdoor activities.
The Impact of Businesses on Biodiversity Loss
Although essential to our economic and social structure, the business world has an undeniable impact on biodiversity loss. We construct buildings and artificialize the soil, select horticultural plants to beautify our flowerbeds, and eliminate weeds, resulting in the degradation and fragmentation of natural habitats or the spread of invasive alien species into these environments. We also use phytosanitary or cleaning products, which generate pollution. Through their activities, companies can also contribute to climate change, which in turn contributes to the decline of biodiversity.
However, companies can also act to promote biodiversity and work toward its conservation. How? By making sure to develop their site in a sustainable way. Whether it is at the level of buildings, managing green spaces, or raising awareness among their employees, the actions are many and can have a significant impact.
CSR: A Real Performance Lever
Beyond any ecological or social issue, making your business more sustainable is also positive for your company. A real performance lever, CSR* offers many advantages It is accompanied by an improvement in economic efficiency (e.g., through reduced water or energy consumption), financial performance (e.g., through better productivity), and social benefits (e.g., improving employee well-being).
And that’s not all. A clear and impactful CSR approach brings more:
- Competitiveness: thanks to the various actions implemented, you project a modern and innovative brand image.
- Employee motivation: CSR creates value. It contributes to the well-being of your employees, thus improving their productivity.
- Attractiveness: you become more attractive to candidates, investors, banks, and clients…
*CSR: For a company, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) refers to the voluntary, systematic, and consistent integration of social, environmental, and economic considerations into the overall management of the company (Belgium.be).
Everyone’s Role: Inform and Raise Awareness
For an effective CSR approach, the mobilization of everyone is necessary. Since it involves sometimes significant changes in habits, your company must ensure that all its stakeholders understand and support the process. This involves creating information and awareness campaigns and providing long-term monitoring.
How to Succeed in Your Awareness Campaign?
Communicating and raising awareness properly is not an easy task. Several factors are indeed needed to ensure the success of your campaigns:
- Management support: If the leadership and managers don’t believe in the need for a sustainable development approach, it will fail. Why should employees make an effort if their superiors don’t?
- Involve all stakeholders: For it to be effective, all stakeholders in your company (employees, partners, suppliers, etc.) must be involved from the very beginning of your sustainable development project.
- Listen and engage in dialogue: Since change doesn’t suit everyone, you will inevitably encounter resistance or outright rejection. In this case, you must remain open and engaged in dialogue rather than confrontation.
- Refine your messages: Communication is a job in itself. Your messages must be short, simple, and impactful. Preparation time is crucial to ensure the success of your sustainable approach.
- Repeat: To ensure the message is understood and to motivate your employees, you must communicate regularly.
Available Communication Tools
There are many different tools to communicate. It’s up to you to decide which ones will impact your employees the most:
- General information session
- Posters
- Emails
- A dedicated brochure
- Themed day or event
- Video on a screen at the reception
- …
Actions to Implement to Promote Biodiversity
Communicating, raising awareness, involving, and so on are all necessary to succeed in your sustainable development policy. But what concrete actions should you promote among your company stakeholders? What can you put in place to support biodiversity? There are, of course, many possibilities. Most of them involve (re)thinking the design of your site.
Plant Native Vegetation
Better adapted to our local fauna, native plants will attract more small animals from our regions (birds, insects, etc.). They also acclimatize much better to our weather conditions, requiring less maintenance.
Moreover, some exotic plants eventually invade our natural habitats at the expense of local species. Avoiding them limits the proliferation of so-called invasive alien species, which is one of the five major causes of biodiversity decline.
Consider Differentiated Management
Differentiated management of your green spaces is a more reasoned management based on the specificities and needs of the different areas of your site. It involves encouraging the creation of free vegetation areas or meadows, reducing (or even banning) pesticide use, preferring manual, thermal, or mechanical weeding, and using natural techniques such as soil mulching or eco-pasturing, among others.
Develop the Surroundings of Your Company
- Select plants that are both aesthetic and nutritious for your entrance. These will attract pollinators.
- Design a permeable parking lot (e.g., with cellular slabs or gravel).
- Plant hedges and trees to provide shelter for birds. Integrate a natural water point on your site to attract aquatic fauna (frogs, dragonflies, etc.) and flora (water lilies, irises, reeds, etc.).
- Install various shelters for animals: birdhouses, bat houses, insect hotels, beehives, piles of wood or stones, etc.
- Consider green roofs if your building has a flat roof.
Want more ideas? Read our article Biodiversity and Companies: 5 Actions to Implement
E-BIOM, Partner of Sustainable Companies
As ecology consultants, we combine innovative technology and scientific expertise to help companies in their sustainable development efforts. As a true partner, we offer complete support. Based on your needs and goals, we offer:
- Awareness and information workshops
- Corporate training
- Biological inventories on-site: analysis of fauna and flora
- Strategic support: creating an action plan in line with your CSR policy.
