State of Corporate Conservation 2025 | Working in Tandem: How Business and Nature Are Shaping a Sustainable Future
As a leading international NGO focused exclusively on enabling private sector action for nature, Tandem Global has convened professionals working at the intersection of business and nature since 1990. This post is a transcript of Tandem Global CEO Margaret O’Gorman’s 2025 State of Corporate Conservation speech, presented in Detroit at the 2025 Tandem Global Conference on June 3, 2025.
Good afternoon. It’s my absolute pleasure to welcome you to our conference this year. If you have been attending this conference for more than ten years, you know that it used to be called the Wildlife Habitat Council Symposium. If you’ve been attending for more than five years you may have seen it referred to as the Conservation Conference, or just WHC Conference and today, I am welcoming you to the Tandem Global Conference.
While the name has changed, the reason we gather has not, as always, since 1989, we gather to honor the hard work and dedication of corporate operations providing meaningful uplift for nature and to deliver content and inspiration.
So why the name change?
As some of you may recall, Wildlife Habitat Council merged with a group called the World Environment Center last year. This merger of two groups who have worked at the intersection of business and the environment for decades was carried out in recognition that together leads to better. We came together understanding that there is nothing more vital or essential than safeguarding and stewarding our resources. It’s true for everyone and it’s true for business. We all know that without a nature mindset there will be no business to do.
As we moved through the merger, we knew that we wanted to launch with a name that captured the essence of what we are trying to do now, which is how we came to Tandem Global.
We chose our name, in part, because our work happens at the intersection of critical global forces: business, climate, water, and nature. It has never been more important for humanity that these forces work effectively in tandem. As a result, our name represents a focus on partnerships with businesses at all levels to develop and activate strategies that support long-term positive impacts on our shared environment locally and globally.
Our name also honors our origin as an organization formed through the combination of two others, whose strengths are now leveraged in tandem for the benefit of business and the environment.
We believe in the power that lies at the intersection of business and nature. Our name reflects that belief and positions us to share our proven strategies, our network, and our know-how so that businesses can support the health of environments everywhere. We are for the future and know that we can only get there by working in Tandem.
Tandem, nexus, integration, connection are all words that we use to describe the approaches we advance because everything is connected, no man is an island, no population is an island, no landscape is an island and in terms of impacts of the many global environmental crises like climate change and biodiversity loss, no island is an island any more, everything is connected, everything is impacted.
This interconnectivity, which we all know deep down and innately, but which has been ignored by policy makers for decades is finally seeing its moment in the sun.
Last year, the Convention on Biological Diversity (the CBD), the global body responsible for herding the world’s governments towards a better outcome for nature, held its bi-annual meeting where the interconnectivity between biodiversity loss and climate change was highlighted repeatedly. Shortly after the meeting ended, the CBD sent a message to the global Climate Change Conference pressing the two bodies to ‘work in tandem together’ this was fortuitous timing for me as the message was sent the day before the board of Tandem Global convened to learn about and approve our new name.
Tandem Global, as WHC, was well represented at the global meeting last year which saw 20,000 people come to Colombia to build a better future for nature. Across 6 events, we showed how business can work for better biodiversity outcomes with partners like CEMEX, Celsia, ExxonMobil, bp, and others. And as a partner in the Global Business and Biodiversity Partnership we launched a report highlighting positive incentives that are key to progress towards the global biodiversity goals. This important report highlighted the work of our members to show that corporate lands can provide positive impacts for nature.
After the COP and the call for climate and biodiversity to work in tandem, another global body, the Intergovernmental Panel and Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) published a paper called the Nexus Report. The report opened with a statement that biodiversity is essential to our very existence, supporting our water and food supplies, our health and the stability of our climate. And noting that despite biodiversity being essential to life and livelihoods, it is still declining in all regions of the world and at all scales, impacting ecosystem functioning, water availability and quality, food security and nutrition, human, plant and animal health and, resilience to the impacts of climate change.
Today, we live in a world with 70% less biodiversity than when I was born. By less biodiversity I mean fewer birds, fewer insects, less diverse plant communities, fewer fish and significantly fewer invertebrates of all types. Since the 1970’s, the loss of the sound and color of our natural world has been incessant and shows no sign of slowing or stopping.
This loss as we know, is the result, in large part by human-driven conversion of land and has been measured in real terms like billions of birds missing from our skies and in comparative terms as billions of dollars in lost ecosystem services causing floods, soil erosion and other natural disasters worldwide. It has also been measured in psychological terms with the recognition of conditions like nature deficit disorder and ecoanxiety.
A brand new study, published this year has found that of nearly 500 bird species across North America, three-quarters are declining across their ranges, with two-thirds of that total shrinking significantly and dramatic declines in areas where less than twenty years ago bird species have thrived leading researchers to deduce that places that were once suitable for birds – healthy ecosystems with adequate food and shelter – are no longer able to support such populations.
The study was done with Citizen Science Data with scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology modelling changes in sightings recorded into the app eBird between 2007 and 2021. If your program contributes to the Cornell Lab through eBird, your data was part of this study. But the study was not all doom and gloom, the researchers found pockets of stability in bird populations in their analysis, such as the Appalachians and western mountains. In addition, 97% of all bird species had some pockets where their populations were increasing.
If you’re interested in learning more about how data collected at your site contributes to greater learning about the health of nature, there are a couple of people from Cornell Lab of Ornithology at our Conference this week. They are participating in a panel discussion with Kailey Miller from WM talking about bringing nature back into cities.
But back to this nexus report. One of the nexus areas the report highlighted was the nexus of biodiversity loss to climate change. Biodiversity loss exacerbates climate change while climate change in turn exacerbates biodiversity loss. Recently, Tandem Global convened an Executive Roundtable on nature strategies. Our Executive Roundtables are an opportunity to gather high level corporate representatives for deep and diverse discussions. At the roundtable on Nature Strategies, sponsored by Shell, our attendees heard from Dr. Dominik Spracklen at the University of Leeds in the UK about how deforestation, loss of trees in the Amazon Rain Forest can cause 20% reduction in rain fall downwind of the forests which lead to less cooling and challenges for people, farmers, livestock, crops and yes, biodiversity. An interesting fact that Dominik Spracklen shared with us is that one large tree provides the same cooling as 3 air conditioners running continuously.
Climate change impacting biodiversity loss can be seen in a recent study of bird loss, again in the Amazon that found harsher dry seasons significantly reduced the survival of 83% of species. A 1 °C increase in dry season temperature would reduce the average survival of birds by 63%.
And a recent article in the Guardian newspaper in the UK highlighted the early emergence of butterflies as an item of concern where increased temperatures in spring lead to butterflies emerging too early when there is not enough food for them. This is called phenological mismatch or trophic asynchrony – when the timing of species interactions, in the case here between the butterfly and its food sources, get out of step. These mismatches are known to increase with climate change and cause a variety of outcomes related to nutrition availability and breeding success, if the food is there too late or too early, the impact can be felt across a species’ entire life cycle.
Another significant nexus exists between biodiversity and the ecosystem services that keep our planet livable
An economist I heard on the radio recently talked about his work getting people to understand the value of nature by placing a dollar amount on it elicited an exasperated response from the interviewer when she said, “Is money the only language we speak?” to which the economist replied, “No, but it is the one that is widely understood.” He was trying to show the value of ecosystem services and had a great example of a nexus between a whale and the services it provides.
He started off by explaining that in our current system of valuation, a whale, killed and harvested for meat was currently considered far more valuable than a live one. But a live whale delivers incredibly valuable ecosystem services. It sequesters 3 times as much carbon over its lifetime as a 500 year-old oak tree, it transports nutrients that support entire food chains and when allowed to die of natural causes creates a micro ecosystem called Whale Fall that supports an abundance of sea life for decades and even as long as a century. But a dead harvested whale is valued higher in monetary terms. The economist lists a value of $3 million per whale – while alive – for the services it provided and the carbon it sequestered.
The same economist calculated that the sea grass around the islands of the Bahamas were worth $150 billion in carbon sequestered while the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has valued pollinators to add as much to the global economy as the combined value of Ford, GM and Stellantis, while mangrove forests, those hyper productive wetlands that grow in subtropical and tropical climes deliver 855 billion dollars in flood protection services every year e.g. In 2017, mangroves prevented $1.5 billion in flood damages in Florida, protecting over half a million people during Hurricane Irma. Damages were 25% lower in those Florida counties where mangroves were present. And Mangroves are significant in value to the fishing industry where only 2.5 acres of mangrove forest can support commercial fishery valued at $37,000, and of course their carbon sequestration potential is huge too with some studies showing that mangroves can store carbon up to 400% faster than land based tropical forests.50% of the worlds mangroves have been destroyed, so we at Tandem Global can be proud of our members’ efforts to restore mangroves through Freeport McMoRan’s work in Indonesia, the Earth Lab’s efforts with the Sisal Ejido community in Mexico, Cemex’s effort in the Dominican Republic – all told, protecting 8,000 hectares of wetlands – that’s about 80% the size of the island of Manhattan by preventing shoreline deforestation. And worth 170 million dollars in commercial fisheries. It adds up quickly.
And of course, when we think about mangroves and the nexus with economy, we also think about water, both quality and quantity. The nexus between biodiversity and water is multi-faceted.
Biodiversity loss puts water systems at risk, loss of the biodiverse mangrove forests from destruction leads to increased flooding, poorer water quality and less productive water systems. Loss of biodiversity because of invasive species can lead to reduced productivity in inland fisheries.
And degradation of water systems puts biodiversity at risk through pollution from plastics, nutrient overload, inefficient use of water and poor infrastructure all impacting nature in diverse ways. You’ll hear more about the nexus with water from keynote speaker and new board chair, Emilio Tenuta tomorrow at 9:15 a.m.
Yet another nexus; the nexus of biodiversity and health is significant. It can never be overstated. Broadly, healthy ecosystems create healthy outcomes for humanity but specifically, biodiversity offers us solutions for some of our most complex health challenges.
The Gila monster, a venomous reptile that lives in the southwestern United States.
The horseshoe crab, a species of arachnid that lives in the east coast waters of North America. Taxus Brevifolia, more commonly known as the Pacific Yew.
These species, a venomous reptile, an ancient arachnid, and conifer, are plants and animals that have something in common. They contribute to human wellbeing by containing within them compounds, hormones, proteins, cells, acids and other isolates that keep us healthy, make us well and in some cases, prolong our lives.
Taxus Brevifolia is the pacific yew, the bark of the pacific yew is the source of Taxol, an important drug that slows cancer growth in the human body. Other trees, like the willow, wintergreen and birch contain salicylic acid aka aspirin which has a large number of uses, especially in the treatment of pain, inflammation and fever.
The Gila Monster, this crazy looking lizard is to thank for Ozempic and other Semaglutides that are changing the way the medical world thinks about and treat a range of disease from diabetes to obesity. The inspiration for this medicine came from the knowledge that the reptile is known for being able to fast for long periods of time. It can survive on a few ‘meals’ a year thanks to a digestive-slowing hormone in its venom. The hormone that allowed the animal to avoid hunger during periods of fasting was identified and isolated by scientists to become the starting point for an entire class of drugs helping people today for obesity and diabetes but with the potential to do more than regulate appetite – they may be able to protect neurons, reduce inflammation, and promote survival of brain cells in conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. All from a lizard that lives on the US – Mexico border,
But one of my favorite examples of biodiversity helping humanity, one of the most powerful gifts that nature has given us, is the horseshoe crab, whose unique blood has an incredibly high receptivity to toxins that may enter the bloodstream, this property in the blood has been isolated as something called Lysate which is currently used to test every single drug, implant or vaccine used on humans. Consider that the blood of these creatures keeps all of us safe.
To supply the pharmaceutical industry, the blood of crabs is harvested from the existing population. Annually 500,000 crabs are caught and bled in labs.
But the horseshoe crab’s contribution is not just limited to humanity. The horseshoe crab also contributes to biodiversity by being the food source for a species of shorebird that depends on its protein-rich eggs to fuel one of the longest migratory flights by any bird species.
The red knot, a small shorebird that weighs about the same as a standard deck of playing cards, has a lifecycle that sees it over winter in Bahia Lomas, a bay in Tierra del Fuego which is the archipelago at the southern tip of South America. When winter approaches in the southern hemisphere and summer is just about to start above the equator, the red knot flies north and stops briefly on the shores of the mid-Atlantic to refuel before undertaking a non-stop flight of 2,500 miles to its breeding grounds in the Canadian Arctic. It’s estimated that the bird flies 20,000 miles round trip per year.
When the bird stops to refuel in the mid-Atlantic, on the shores of the Delaware Bay and elsewhere, it has already lost a lot of weight and must bulk up to allow it to arrive in a state to breed and feed in the Arctic. The eggs of the horseshoe crab are the perfect fuel for this small bird. They are soft and rich in protein and provide the energy source the bird needs for its onward journey.
At the first full moon in May, the horseshoe crabs lay their eggs in the sands of the Delaware Bay and other mid-Atlantic beaches, right at the same time the red knots and other shore birds are moving through. The crabs lay their eggs with the highest tides which positions the eggs far from the threat of being washed out on the daily tides.
To breed and lay eggs, horseshoe crabs must reach 9-11 years before they can reproduce and the females spawn. So, a long life is needed for the female horseshoe crab, yet the female is the one preferred by the labs that bleed them and mortality from shock and loss of blood can be 30% of all crabs harvested. It is estimated that the horseshoe crab population in the Delaware Bay has declined by two thirds since the 1990s.
Because of this, we have seen precipitous declines in the red knot populations as the number of female horseshoe crabs have decreased, the availability of eggs has decreased, and the survival and breeding success of red knots is reduced. Historically, 50,000 red knots used to visit the Delaware bay beaches and last year, 13,000 individuals were observed. While the decline in horseshoe crab numbers is not the only factor in the bird’s survival, it is the major one.
Red knots depend on horseshoe crabs for survival, so do many species of sportfish include horseshoe crab eggs in their diets, even loggerhead turtles migrate to the bay to eat horseshoe crab eggs, so many species depend on the horseshoe crab but, so does the pharmaceutical industry.
The industry depends on the blood of the crabs to test their products, in the vocabulary of risk management, one of their biggest dependencies is also one of their biggest impacts. If the population of horseshoe crabs’ collapses, the industry is exposed.
So, what can be done?
Well, luckily, something has been done by Jay Bolden, a senior biologist at Eli Lilly in Indianapolis who spent years on research to prove that a synthetic enzyme, recombinant factor C, can replace horseshoe crab blood in endotoxin tests. In fact, he was able to prove that the synthetic enzyme is more efficient and cost effective than the crab’s blood and doesn’t require a live animal. The recent acceptance of this alternative into the US list of accepted medicines means that a last remaining hurdle to its full-scale acceptance and use has been removed, thus paving the way for reduced harvests of horseshoe crabs.
Along a similar vein, the chemical Taxol was seen to be a miracle medicine for the treatment of leukemia and late stages of breast and ovarian cancer, but the pacific yew tree died during harvest of the bark and the pacific yew tree is a slow growing species. Environmental groups sounded a warning, and scientists have now developed semisynthetic approaches to creating Taxol that does not harm the Pacific yew tree.
These are just two examples from science, specifically from chemistry to show how our lives are deeply intertwined with nature – anyone who has ever taken an aspirin has a willow tree to thank, anyone who has had a vaccine, medication or implant owes the horseshoe crab a debt of gratitude.
They are also just two examples of how our exploitation of nature harmed nature, but our curiosity and ingenuity reversed the course.
So yes, biodiversity – plants and animals – has a nexus to so many parts of our lives, our livelihoods, and our planet. Our intelligence has provided us with the ability to leverage these nexus areas, but our weakness as a species is in not understanding the limits of what we can take without causing irreversible harm to that which we use.
And here we can learn from nature about understanding limits and avoiding overexploitation.
Dr. Susana Muhamed, the President of the most recent global meetings on biodiversity talks eloquently about the intrinsic sustainability of nature. Dr. Muhamed, a former Minister for the Environment in Colombia notes the beautiful efficiency of nature – that a forest doesn’t create waste and that a spider never uses more energy or materials than it needs for its web. And we can add to this the fact that a photosynthesizing plant reaches 100% efficiency.
If you think about it, nature is sustainability writ large, natural systems provide for present day needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This is the very definition of sustainability and at the core of how nature as a system organizes itself.
And if we zoom out from particular species like a spider or a photosynthesizing plant and think about nature overall, we can see that for natural systems, sustainability is not an afterthought created from the need to rectify overconsumption or extraction but fully integrated into the design of the system from the beginning.
Nature can teach us so much if we just take the time to listen and observe and the time to participate in nature, and that act of observation can be difficult; when was the last time you stopped to watch, listen and even smell the nature around you?
I saw a beautiful movie last year about a man who cleaned public toilets in Tokyo, it was a lovely story about the meaning of work and a good life. In the movie the man stood on the threshold of his small apartment every morning to take a beat and acknowledge the day – the rain, the sun, the birdsong, the movie was called Perfect Days, check it out and consider taking a beat to stop, watch and listen.
Susana Mohammed talked about the challenge of observing too. She said that modern conservation has created nature as being apart from society, that we’ve been creating museums of nature with our ‘preserved’ places, wilderness areas and game reserves. We’ve been othering nature as a way to restore it, but we’ve not been restoring our relationship with it.
When Dr. Muhamed called for restoring our relationship with nature, she framed the request as the need to make peace with nature. To make peace with nature, we need a peace deal. We need to reach for a new way of living with it, restoring our relationship and restoring nature goes hand in hand.
To restore nature all we need to do is plant the right thing in the right place at the right time and step out of the way. Nature, like all sustainable systems, has great resilience and once we remove our interventions and give it a push in the right direction, a certain magic takes over that never fails to impress me. This year, bp has given Tandem Global a chance to deliver this magic with a 1.5 million dollar grant to restore the endangered Dune and Swale ecosystem along Lake Michigan as part of the company’s commitment to enhance biodiversity around major operating sites and support restoration. This funding along with another $1.2 million from sources as diverse as US EPA, USFS, NFWF and DTE Foundation will allow us to have real impact on the ground in some of the communities that need it most and, most importantly, with the communities that need it most.
Like here in Detroit, Savanna Delise who works on our social impact team convened a large-scale planting event in the Mt Elliott neighborhood that saw the installation or a 4,000 sq foot rain garden, a 2,900 square foot pollinator garden with partners like Arcelor Mittal, Rocket Mortgage and the Detroit Police Youth Explorers – a diverse group of partners fostering urban restoration, youth engagement and community pride shows that anyone can act for nature.
This idea that anyone can act for nature was a founding principle of WHC, Wildlife Habitat Council, the precursor to Tandem Global. And the idea that any employee can contribute to a sustainability goal centered on nature is a founding principle of Tandem Global today. Anyone from the security guard to the CEO can act for nature. Over decades and across projects, we have seen CEOs participate in planting efforts, security guards contribute to monitoring protocols, and everyone from accountants, engineers, research scientists and others come out from behind their screens to enjoy nature restoration and engagement and education efforts.
Participation is possible for all jobs and as most of you here today know, acting for nature can be part of your job too. Recently a group called the Proteus Partnership developed a program called Every Job is a Nature Job to illustrate how different business functions can make a contribution to a company’s nature goals. The guidance they have produced so far focuses on procurement and business development professionals in a company, but it’s broadly applicable to all employees. The advice boils down to a number of key items that almost any position can consider as follows:
- Understand your company’s nature-related goals and strategies
More companies that ever have nature related goals and pillars. Being aware of what these are can help you figure out where you can contribute.
- Plan for Nature from the beginning and engage stakeholders in the early stages
As with any new project, the sooner you insert a non-material aspect like nature, the higher likelihood it is that it will remain. If you are developing a new process or product or a new location, if you are planning a remediation project, the addition of stakeholder-informed nature aspects will be more likely to succeed if it is considered early in the discussions. - Benchmark against competitors
How are your competitors considering nature or biodiversity in their work? Our consulting team has carried our biodiversity benchmarks for many companies in recent years to help members see where they sit with respect to their peers and competitors. What are your competitors doing and can you learn from them? - Translate commitments into contracts
Can you ask your vendors and suppliers to align with your nature commitments? Some member companies of Tandem Global have inserted biodiversity requirements into vendor selection rubrics with a goal of amplifying their goals along the supply chain. The key to success in this arena is education and capacity building and showing smaller businesses how they can contribute to nature In some cases, you may be willing or able to pay a premium for goods and services that adhere to nature-friendly practices and policies. Make this a deliberate discussion at budget time and explore what the value, the cost you’re willing to bear, for nature, is. - Measure
Whatever your role is, add a nature-based KPI to it. Can you measure the water use of your activities, the air impact, or the biodiversity uplift? Can you use proxy measures like the number of commodities or materials purchased that adhere to practices for better environmental outcomes or the contracts that now have nature priorities listed in them? What about the plans/activities that have considered nature in their design? There are ways to track every job as a nature job.
Of course this sounds easy, but it is far from it. The work of making change is difficult. It is incremental but each action in a corporate ecosystem adds up to more than the sum of the parts. Every contract that contains nature, every vendor that adopts nature and every stakeholder that contributes to a nature-related action adds up. But we’re seeing more and more companies engage in this way. In the last six months alone, we’ve supported 7 different companies in assessing aspects of their business interface with nature – these companies span 5 different industry sectors and 10 different countries. Of these 7 companies, 3 are already driving on-the-ground engagement and action with 2 preparing to do so soon, all of this in 6 months, may the momentum continue!
An example of this work has been led by one of our consultants Jacque who has travelled to manufacturing facilities across Europe and the Caribbean for one of our members, making assessments, providing actionable recommendations and building capacity site by site for projects that will contribute to a corporate commitment for nature. It is this approach, site by site, team by team, that makes all the difference. It’s not a single act; it’s multiple acts done again and again.
As Wendell Berry, the great thinker, poet and farmer says, life’s problems won’t be solved by one big simple solution – it will be solved by scores of people taking responsibility and performing small actions. These people won’t get famous, they won’t get rich, they won’t get tenure, but they will contribute to a more sustainable future for everyone.
Or as the writer Rebecca Solnit says – sometimes a few passionate people change the world; sometimes they start a mass movement, and millions change the world.
While our community is not yet millions, we can claim thousands of people taking responsibility and performing small actions to create habitats and restore ecosystems and work with businesses at all scales. Some of these are the staff at Tandem Global and you, the members and partners we work with. This year we have: Supported 211 corporate sites as they worked to plan, develop, maintain or grow a corporate biodiversity program. Supported 41 companies with a variety of services including conservation assessments, micro-forestry planting, biodiversity management plans, lawn to habitat conversation plans, program manager transition guides in English, Spanish and French, TNFD readiness assessments, prioritization exercise and finally feedback to 52 programs before last year’s certification deadline, the team has been busy in the past year.
And with Tandem Global, our reach now extends beyond corporate operations to smallholder farmers and micro sized women-led businesses in south and central America. With the support of the Walmart Foundation, we transformed 227 hectares of farmlands with better management practices and new technologies. We built capacity with 818 smallholder farmers in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. We provided 719 micro, small and medium sized enterprises across 10 countries in south and central America with business development services, creating 28 full time jobs and resulting in better employment outcomes for 421 businesses. This is all done with 46 cross-sector partnerships in the region.
At Wildlife Habitat Council, before we became Tandem Global, our mantra was “Every Act of Conservation Matters.” This mantra is a salute to the simple act of turning the earth, planting the seed and creating nature where it had not been recently before.
Today, we’re Tandem Global and we’re working to bring business and nature even closer together so we can shorten our mantra to say that “every act matters” – wherever it happens and in whatever capacity with however many resources, these acts matter and can be done on scales both big and small and can be done by all of us in our day jobs and home lives to bring uplift for nature and better outcomes for humankind.
This year we can see the big and small efforts through the celebration of the certification results with 278 programs submitted for certification and of these, 52 submitted for the first time. Today we can proudly say that Tandem Global has certified 621 programs worldwide. New to our certification family this year is Celanese with a wetland and deer management program in Texas, La-Z-Boy with a forest project at their headquarters in Monroe, Michigan, Syensqo with two programs, one in the UK that achieved silver certification and GFL with four programs – 2 in Canada and two in the USA one of which received gold certification.
We will honor 24 outstanding projects this year with awards across 21 projects areas and of course our three big awards that recognize company efforts for gold program of the year, employee engagement and our corporate conservation leadership award, our only award that recognizes a single company for exceptional uplift for nature.
Every year I ask the Tandem Global team for stories of the engagements they have had with our members and partners and every year I get enthusiastic response about the companies and most frequently, the individuals we work with whether it’s a report on the GM team in Sao Paulo Brazil who expressed a deep appreciation for inclusion in our recent white paper or the external experts in conservation topics like seed collection, monitoring or green infrastructure that connect with us, everyone we work with shares our passion for making the world a better place.
One of our long-time local partners here in Detroit, Alkebu-lan Village is a prime example of inclusive and community driven conservation – working in partnership with Tandem Global and Arcelor Mittal, Alkebu-lan Village has transformed 2,500 sq feet of pavement to green space and planted 100 trees, created a natural playground, a pollinator habitat and a rain garden, they have a booth in the exhibit hall so make sure you visit with them.
And the work of a member who is local and global – General Motors – the people at GM are always trying to solve problems – and solving one of the stickiest problems of habitat restoration, monitoring has been on their minds lately. Their ‘habitat in a box’ effort has elevated the idea of passive monitoring beyond anything we’ve ever seen before…this solution aligns remote monitoring technology for birds, bats, amphibians, moths, weather and other aspects of a project with WHC certification and other frameworks for data collection.
And yes, we are still certifying corporate conservation under our WHC name because we want to honor our many long-time certified programs with a trusted brand.
Other comments I receive from the Tandem Global team can be reflections on observing our members as companies recalibrate their efforts and pivot in response to political headwinds, tailwinds and tornadoes, the observation this year is that companies are staying the course, maybe in a quieter fashion than before but still committed to pursuing community work, social impact work and nature-based work, small pivots are happening to adjust to current circumstances but we are not seeing wholescale reversals or pull backs anywhere.
These pivots though are not helpful since the direction for biodiversity loss, climate change, water quality and other planetary challenges remain stubbornly unchanged. For many of us, these pivots on corporate sustainability and environmental commitment can be demoralizing and depressing. But for those with perspective, it’s just further proof that we’re not so much following an elegant arc of progress, but a switchback road up a steep and rugged mountain.
But we keep going, we keep pivoting, we keep implementing, we keep seeking solutions, and over the next few days you will find solutions here at the Tandem Global conference.
We have sessions like I mentioned on cities, we have sessions on restoration, on nestbox creation, on data, on communications, on invasive species, on education and many other aspects of the work we all do. It’s my hope that you leave Detroit with knowledge and tools to help you act for nature in whatever capacity you can, and at whatever nexus you operate at.
We, Tandem Global operate at the nexus of business and the environment, Tandem and Nexus are different words, but they mean essentially the same thing – Tandem means “in conjunction with” while nexus means “connecting to.”
Another word that can be deployed as both a conjunction and a connector is the word ‘and.’
It’s a small but mighty word that shows the power of your work.
For example, Freeport-McMoRan, Cemex and the Earth Lab are restoring mangroves and providing employment and education for local people.
Alkebu-lan has transformed pavement to plants and developed a youth-based air quality monitoring program. GM is developing solution to passive monitoring and successfully maintaining 70 certified programs in China, Brazil, Canada, Argentina, Mexico and the US.
And makes our efforts stronger and more resilient to political winds and pivots.
Let’s always operate where ‘and’ lies and recognize that we can support healthy businesses and nature, biodiversity and economic prosperity. That we can mitigate risk and leverage opportunity. Serve big business and small business. Bring environment and people together to build the future where nature is flourishing and water is healthy and the climate is changing towards healthier outcomes.
We is the pronoun version of ‘and’ – and there is power in ‘we’ because we all understand that our planet needs our help, we all want to help, and we want to do so not at the expense of something but in addition to it.
Because even in these politically weird times, as Lady Bird Johnson once said, “The environment is where we all meet, where we all have a mutual interest. It is the one thing all of us share.”
