Tag Archive for: corporate conservation

The Greening of Detroit – How DTE Energy and GM are Helping to Restore Nature in America’s Comeback City

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No other American city seems to fascinate like Detroit. Its rise, its fall and its rebirth have been captured by authors, movie makers, historians, planners, rappers and entrepreneurs. From its population peak of 1.8 million in 1950, the city’s decline started slowly and remained unnoticed until it flirted with bankruptcy beginning in 2012. In recent years, Detroit’s rebirth has been powered by continued commitments of locally-grown companies like DTE Energy and General Motors innovations of new urban agricultural pioneers, the emergence of the now iconic brand Shinola, and the investment of Quicken Loans and others in the Downtown, Midtown and New Center areas. And while this renaissance has been secured in the city’s commercial center, many of the surrounding neighborhoods remain empty and abandoned – with the exception of nature re-exerting itself in a powerful way. The city known as the Arsenal of Democracy, Paris of the Midwest and The Motor City, among many other nicknames, was this year also dubbed the “City of Queen Anne’s Lace” by Cuban artists Alejandro Campins and José Yaque, after the plant began colonizing the city’s empty lots.

But when it comes to nature in Detroit, there’s so much more beyond any sobriquet. This past July, board members of the Wildlife Habitat Council toured five corporate conservation program sites in and around Detroit. These programs illustrated the breadth of possible conservation opportunities, the power of innovation and imagination, and the role corporations can take in leading nature back into a city.

These five locations are proof positive that every act of conservation matters.

DTE Energy’s Downtown Detroit Headquarters Complex is a visible reminder of the company’s commitment to remain in the city following its merger with MCN Energy Group. Expanding on this footprint, DTE Energy recently added to the city’s vibrant park scene with the development and opening of Beacon Park, a key piece in its community improvement efforts. Nearby, the LEED-certified Navitas House, a redevelopment project that provides a workplace for 140 DTE Energy employees in a former Salvation Army building, contains green infrastructure and other ecological design features that helped secure WHC Conservation Certification in 2000. The pollinator garden, rain garden/bioswale and bat box were installed and are managed to bring nature and visual interest to a neighborhood with a lot more pavement than plants.

DTE Energy also showed its creative conservation efforts at the River Rouge Power Plant. Here, a passionate team of volunteers softened the shoreline, created tern nesting sites, restored a lawn into a prairie, and created and installed a beautiful sculpture to celebrate it all. The setting is industrial, but the team’s efforts have created a greenbelt around the site from the river to their next-door neighbors, reducing runoff into the river and visual blight within the community. The plant maximizes its restoration efforts by opening its lands for education, most specifically hosting classes of at-risk high school students for outdoor experiences and learning. The team members that hosted WHC’s tour were passionate about their work and rightly proud of their efforts and the many ways their stewardship benefits the community.

In some corners of Detroit, communities no longer exist, having fallen prey to abandonment following outward migration from the city, and causing an increase in unsafe places where fragments of neighborhoods retain just enough empty homes to be an attractive nuisance. In one such neighborhood bordering a Marathon Petroleum refining site, abandonment became opportunity as Marathon developed a vision for the neighborhood to connect downriver Detroit communities to the Rouge and Detroit rivers. Marathon Gardens Vision Plan is a community-centric development strategy focused on building green connections by growing a forest where there were once houses, restoring a prairie in place of sidewalks, and managing park-like spaces with community agriculture and outdoor education as resources to facilitate positive interactions between residents and nature. Standing at this project, WHC board members were awed by the serene location (despite the nearby highway), and the sense of peace in a place that was once dangerous.

General Motors presented our tour with two completely contrasting approaches to corporate conservation. At the Warren Technical Center, a designated National Historic Landmark, GM showed that native plantings can stand on their own against the work of iconic architect Eero Saarinen. Milkweed and evening primrose are planted in what were originally formal lawns and are now providing habitat for monarchs, as well as color and interest for employees. Across the Tech Center site, pockets of habitat thrive: in the former on-site tree nursery, a forest is taking shape; along buffer areas, no-mow zones reduce maintenance, save costs and support insect life; and throughout the site, bee blocks, bat houses, bird boxes and mobile pollinator gardens add color, texture and interest. These sprawling conservation efforts engage GM employees, community members and youth groups. In contrast, the Renaissance Center, GM’s World Headquarters, a group of seven interconnected skyscrapers in Downtown Detroit, uses tiny spaces in a hardscaped landscape to insert nature in ways that surprise. A parking deck doubles as an urban rooftop garden protected by a living wall. A bat house, a butterfly garden and other planting efforts create important oases for wildlife in an urban environment.

All cities, regardless of their economic standing, need to welcome nature back. As these conservation programs demonstrate, green growth in a gray landscape has multiple benefits for people and wildlife. In Detroit, nature is reasserting its presence, with corporate stewards giving it a helping hand and showing that no matter the size, no matter the location and no matter the corporate operation, conservation can happen.

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Keeping Fireflies from Blinking Out for Good

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I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been seeing many fireflies in the last few summers.

Growing up, we called these little guys “lightning bugs.” I remember many summer evenings watching our backyard glow with what seemed like a million blinking little lights floating in the air.

Unfortunately, firefly populations seem to be declining in recent years. Although the reasons are not certain, they appear to be affected by light pollution, which disrupts their flashing displays for mating, as well as habitat destruction and improper pesticide use.

Like many bioluminescent species, fireflies—which are actually beetles, not flies—create this seemingly magical glow with a chemical reaction. A compound called luciferan contained in their abdomen combines with oxygen, calcium and adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and this reaction produces light. Both males and females use this display to help them find a suitable mate, and each species of firefly (of which there are 2,000 worldwide) blinks this light in a specific pattern.

In addition to their spectacular nighttime displays, fireflies are also beneficial. You may be surprised to learn that the adults of most firefly species are pollinators! With diets consisting primarily of pollen and nectar, fireflies play an important role in the propagation of many flowering plants. Their larvae are equally helpful, eating invertebrate pests like snails, slugs, worms and grubs.

Fireflies tend to thrive in habitats that are warm, humid and near standing water. A favorite habitat for the larvae especially is areas with abundant rotting wood and leaf litter along the edges of ponds and waterways. They also like forest edges, meadows and marshes.

If you want to help fireflies in your neck of the woods, here are a few tips you can incorporate into your site’s habitat management:

• Reduce the use of pesticides near firefly habitat (check out NAPPC’s Pollinator Friendly Practices for helpful guidelines on responsible pesticide use near pollinator habitat)
• If you have riparian habitat or other warm, moist habitats near water, consider management practices that encourage the presence of leaf litter and woody debris.
• Provide vegetation for adult fireflies to seek shelter in during the day, such as tall grasses, low-growing flowering plants and creepers, and shrubs. Even mowing the lawn less frequently and at a higher height can benefit fireflies, as they often rest in lawns on or near the ground.
• Plant flowering plants with bloom times throughout the growing season to make sure adult fireflies have enough nectar and pollen to feed on.
• Wherever possible, turn building lights down or off to reduce light pollution. (This will also help migrating birds, who can become confused by and collide with buildings that are lit up at night.)

If you’d like help with managing for fireflies as part of your corporate conservation program, contact WHC’s Strategy and Planning team at strategyandplanning@wildlifehc.org.

Stop Making Conservation Complicated. Just Do It.

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We all know the power of Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan. It’s simple, direct and inspiring. This campaign has been around since 1988 and “Just Do It” is now a part of our lexicon as a call to action to get things done. Its use is not limited to athletes and fitness professionals, but applicable to every challenge, however large or small, immediate or distant. It could be effective as a call to action for our planet and the restoration actions we need to take, but in the hands of the conservation community, Nike’s call to action would become, “Just Do It, but only once you’re 100% satisfied that “It” is evidence-based, that to “do” it is complex and expensive, and that having eventually done it, indicators and metrics are available to prove that it was worthwhile in the first place.” Hardly an inspiration.

Recent examples of how the conservation world engages in complexification and reinvention of the wheel include: a half-million-dollar grant to an NGO to study the value of wetlands to migratory bird species; the creation of yet another corporate collaboration to place value on ecosystems; and the launch of one more mapping platform to encourage alignments of local conservation programs. It can seem we are spending more time and money on redundant planning and frameworks instead of  implementing and just doing it.

Every day, a football field-sized area of wetlands vanishes in Louisiana. Every year, 50,000 square miles of forest are lost across the planet, and extinction permanently removes species from the world at a rate over 1,000 times that of the natural rate of extinction. Yet, we still study, we still research, we still create initiatives, collaborations and cooperatives. We have to ask ourselves, are we studying nature to death? Are we collaborating toward system collapse? Are we funding inertia over action? Are we making it more complicated than it needs to be? In an era with limited resources and limited time, are we not better off just doing it?

In the world of corporate conservation, we’ve seen, time and again, companies becoming paralyzed between research and implementation, science and management, corporate cares and operational requirements, and most importantly, between the proposed cost and the actual budget. We’ve seen programs fail to launch because of this paralysis, and have identified why and propose here, some solutions to overcome this reluctance to action.

What stops companies from just doing it:

The corporate echo chamber. Corporate sustainability roads are well-traveled, with sustainability professionals and the consultants that advise them grouping and regrouping at a small number of big conferences where success stories are shared in the language of the community of practice using performance indicators and outcome metrics. Through this sharing, a sense of conservation as theory and numbers is developed, while the action itself is often overlooked. Across the company the story is told the same way, creating a distance between operations, where the work happens, and communications, where the work gets polished and packaged for external consumption.

The gravitational pull of the big greens. Large organizations want to work with other large organizations, and in the corporate, conservation NGO and academic communities these collaborations come with large price tags that create an expectation of a sophisticated work product that outlines complex approaches to biodiversity assessment and protection but falls short at implementation. On more than one occasion, WHC has been commissioned to “translate” such products into actions that consider the real-world operating environment as well as the larger conservation context.

The resource needs of the small greens. A common stressor on small- to mid-sized NGOs is tight financial resources, driven in part by a government and philanthropic funding model that requires these groups to work with razor-thin overhead costs. These groups see potential corporate partnerships as a solution to this stress and present over-complicated, expensive proposals for work, which, having been formulated with the corporate budget in mind, fall apart once the operations budget at the site is considered. All too often WHC hears from its members about outlandish project estimates from local NGOs that result in no action being taken and trust being eroded between potential partners.

A perceived absence of knowledge. Within the conservation sciences, as within many academic disciplines there can be a tendency to forget or ignore common knowledge which leads to a sense that only the experts can plant a pollinator meadow and that only the certified and qualified can lead a reforestation project. This misperception then creates budgetary and other issues that can place a project that could be easily designed and implemented by existing resources into indefinite limbo.

But, these barriers to action can be overcome.

We need to just do it.

Corporate sustainability officers – recognize with your fellow travelers the echo chamber that you’re in, and don’t forget that people and programs tell a far better story than charts and slides.

Big green groups – continue relationships with corporate leaders. You’re driving change, but please consider setting aside a minimum of 20 percent of the program budget for implementation. If you’re going to spend $1 million to do a study with the result that you will advise a company to plant trees, set aside $200,000 to plant the trees. Philanthropic foundations should consider the same.

Small green groups – consider whether your relationship with the company is about conservation or currency. If it’s truly about conservation, be prepared for the appropriate budget. However, if what you really want is a charitable contribution to support your organization, seek it from the corporate level, not from the site.

Finally, for those at the site level who think their knowledge is not adequate to implement a conservation program on their lands, think again. There are multiple sources of information like WHC Project Guidances to help you build a strong conservation project. Remember, one of the most meaningful things you can do is to plant the right thing in the right place at the right time.

Just do it.

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The Importance of Pollinators

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Pollinators play a special role in native ecosystems and in managed agricultural systems. Unfortunately, pollinators such as bees, bats, butterflies and ants have slowly suffered from loss of habitat and diseases. Factors such as increased land use have guided these habitats to a floral abundance deficit and exposure to parasite and pesticides have led to local extinctions of select pollinator species across the world

Thankfully, 10 years ago, the U.S Senate took the matter of declining pollinator populations into their own hands by creating National Pollinator Week.

The goal of Pollinator Week is to raise awareness about pollinators and promote conservation of pollinator habitats at a national level. Over time, this event has grown into a worldwide celebration of the beautiful and hardworking job that animals do daily through pollination.

Approximately 1,000 of the plants grown for food, beverages, fibers and medicines need to be pollinated by animals in order to produce the goods on which we rely. In fact, one out of every three bites of food, from vegetables to fruits to edible oils, are a direct result of pollination services. In the U.S. alone, bees and other insects produce $40 billion worth of products annually through the process of pollination.

In addition to their value to agriculture, these animals also play a vital role in maintaining our ecosystems. Other wild animals rely on pollinators for the production of food sources such as wild fruits, and they benefit from the conservation of pollinator habitat. Flying from flower to flower and transferring pollen along the way, pollinators have had substantial historic, economic, social and cultural impacts in our world.

The White House’s National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators (National Strategy) was also released in May 2015 to inform public-private partnerships their necessary role to implement the Pollinator Health Task Force. The Wildlife Habitat Council has been working with businesses for 30 years to facilitate high-quality pollinator conservation projects on corporate lands and to ensure companies have taken action to protect pollinators, increase public awareness around the issue, and create pollinator-friendly habitat.

Some of the strategies presented by the National Strategy are:

  • Restore honey bee colony health to sustainable levels by 2025
  • Increase eastern monarch butterfly populations to 225 million butterflies by year 2020
  • Restore or enhance seven million acres of land for pollinators over the next five years.

Whether it inspires your team to grow a small garden for pollinators outside your site’s entrance or to learn more about pollinators in order to pass along the information to other employees, Pollinator Week can serve your team well.

Resources

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Securing the Standard: Next Steps for Conservation Certification

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In conservation, “adaptive management” is a term used to describe a process whereby monitoring information is used to make adjustments or corrections to actions in order to achieve desired outcomes. Many projects recognized by WHC’s Conservation Certification use adaptive management to strengthen their outcomes.

The concept of adaptive management can also be applied to systems and processes. This is exactly how we at WHC will approach the updates needed to strengthen Conservation Certification and the processes that support it. As we review the first year of applications against our new standard, we continue to embrace its original design elements while seeking a more formal approach to its development through adaptive management.

The elements that originally informed the design of Conservation Certification were drawn from best practices in voluntary sustainability standards design. These elements are:

These design elements remain foundational to Conservation Certification. Its future development will continue to be informed by these design elements, as well as by best practices in voluntary sustainability standards that are focused on adaptive management across three key areas: standard setting, compliance to the standard and impact reporting.

Early next year, we will begin to work on the foundation documents that will drive these developments. We will seek the best practices and align ourselves with standards bodies like the ISEAL Alliance to ensure that we reap the benefit of existing multi-stakeholder efforts to define certification standards that meet the needs of both business and the conservation community.

As we do that, WHC will continue to be guided by our belief that “every act of conservation matters.” We will remain accessible and recognize value in the smallest efforts while scaling up to address efforts that are site-based as well as efforts that are landscape-scale. We will remain supportive of our participants while also building a strong team of independent reviewers to ensure compliance with Conservation Certification. We will also drive change by creating a credible mechanism to report impacts through Conservation Academy webinars, Corporate Conservation Success Stories and White Papers to showcase exceptional efforts, while also using the data we collect through the Conservation Certification website to create a metrics-based assessment of corporate conservation.

As WHC continues to develop Conservation Certification, we must continue to invest in it. We must continue to invest in the technology to both support our applicants and inform the impact statements from both a site-based and landscape scale.

As we invest, we see each program becoming a natural asset account for our participants and each application review providing a statement on that account. We envision every effort contributing to a company-wide metric that integrates operations along the “stream,” across different landholdings and beyond geopolitical boundaries. We see the private sector’s impact being measured in ways that are meaningful to multiple stakeholders, both internal and external to the business. Increasingly, the rest of the world sees these opportunities too.

In other news:

From December 4th through 17th of this year, nations, academics, NGOs and the private sector will meet at the 13th Conference of the Parties (COP13) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). WHC will be there. I am speaking at the Business and Biodiversity Forum. The theme of the Forum is “Mainstreaming Biodiversity,” which calls for integrating conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in business plans, beyond corporate social responsibility strategies. The Forum is focused on the production sectors of agriculture, fisheries and forestry, but other sectors are also represented by companies, including WHC members CEMEX and General Motors.

While the CBD is a UN instrument focused on government decisions and actions, the inclusion of the private sector at COP13, represented by the number of thought leaders assembled for the Business and Biodiversity Forum and the amount of side events that contain a corporate voice, shows a growing recognition that companies have a role to play in protecting our planet’s biodiversity; that their actions need not be confined by national regulations or lack thereof, and that their conservation actions can add value to both the bottom line and the planet.

As the private sector continues to evolve in its interactions with nature and as leading companies continue to show the way and set the benchmark for biodiversity, it is critical that Conservation Certification, and the infrastructure that supports it, continues to adapt to meet members’ needs, align with contemporary conservation practices and priorities and drive change by clearly showing impact.

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Habitat Design that Invites Exploration

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One of the best ways to spread awareness of and interest in biodiversity conservation is to provide opportunities for people to enjoy wildlife and their habitats. While unstructured, even “messy” habitats have their place, a nice-looking habitat will create a much more inviting environment that employees and visitors will want to spend time in.

The main thing to keep in mind is to make the project look intentional and inviting to exploration. Here’s a few ideas to get you started:

Make it more colorful by using a diversity of native plant species with colorful flowers and attractive foliage.

Make it highly visible. If you are able to choose the location for your project, put it somewhere folks will easily see, such as placing your pollinator garden near a building entrance. This visual reminder will entice people to visit the habitat.

Use plantings and maintain vegetation to create attractive lines and shapes. Install or maintain vegetation in such a way as to create soft, rounded corners and curving lines, instead of hard, straight edges with corners.

Plant seeds or plugs in “drifts” composed of one or two species or maintained mowed borders around the edges of plantings to create a more attractive, intentional look to large planting projects like meadows or prairie restorations.

LS_ROW_Exelon West Chicago2008 Make it accessible to users of all abilities. It’s easy to feel like accessibility is a burden, so instead, look at it as an opportunity to allow more folks to enjoy and learn about biodiversity. Ensure that both able-bodied and differently-abled people can get to your habitat and can use it without difficulty once they get there. Look to ADA guidelines or talk to a local disability advocacy group for ideas on improving accessibility in realistic ways, like adding braille to signage for visually-impaired users or providing a level trail with railings for mobility-impaired users.

Add structures that encourage folks to pause and enjoy the scenery, such as benches, wildlife observation decks, or friendly signage with information about what they’re seeing nearby.

Add a trail or boardwalk to make it easy for folks to get to your habitat, or to enjoy a walk through the habitat once they get there.

If your team is feeling particularly creative, you might even consider adding artistic features that celebrate habitat while also enhancing it, like these artful rainwater design projects created by a team at Penn State University or a pollinator garden shaped like a butterfly.

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Peregrines: Not Your Average City Dweller

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One of my favorite bird species is the spectacular bird-of-prey, the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus). This bird can be found on six continents around the world, though it does not occur in large numbers in most areas.

This bird is amazing because not only has it recovered from the brink of extinction in North America, it is now thriving in many regions because it has adapted really well to urban settings. It naturally nests on ledges high up on cliffs, easily out of reach of most predators. With the increasing growth of cities with tall buildings and abundant prey in the modern era, peregrines have found new nesting opportunities on the roofs and ledges of skyscrapers and other tall structures like water towers, power pylons, and bridges.

At WHC’s main office in Silver Spring, we routinely see the resident pair of peregrine falcons soaring high above us and hunting the city’s numerous pigeons. Peregrines and other falcons are aerial hunters, meaning they catch their prey while in flight. Peregrines use a swift dive, or “stoop,” that is spectacular to watch. A peregrine’s stoop can reach over 200 mph (320 kmh), making it the fastest animal on earth!

These birds are known for using their speed and agility to prey upon a wide variety of birds, mostly medium-sized birds, including several species that can be a nuisance in urban settings like pigeons and starlings. Although falcons won’t eliminate the pigeon or starling population in a city, they can certainly help to keep it in check.

A nest box like this one at DTE’s River Rouge facility is a common way to enhance habitat for peregrines.

A nest box like this one at DTE’s River Rouge facility is a common way to enhance habitat for peregrines.

If you want to help peregrines at your corporate facility, one of the best ways is to work with your state wildlife agency to implement the appropriate measures for your site. These birds are still protected by law and can be very defensive of their nests, so before taking any actions it will be important to consult with the agency about things like safety precautions or requirements related to their protection. A common and often successful project is the installation and monitoring of a nest box for peregrines. This kind of structure provides a secure, ledge-like nesting location that provides some protection against the elements, and many facilities use a nest cam to monitor the nest with minimal disturbance to the birds. Discussions with your wildlife agency will also help determine if other projects such as artificial raptor perches, banding of peregrine chicks, or release of captive-reared peregrines would be appropriate for your facility.

Migratory Species are Blind to Borders, But We are Not

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Migratory species from sandhill cranes to polar bears travel thousands of miles each year as the seasons change. Without the aid of GPS technology they find their way with an instinct as old as each species itself. This instinct allows them to traverse both natural and man-made landscapes effortlessly without regard for state lines or international borders. Despite migratory species’ remarkable navigational skills, their journeys are not always safe, and their destinations may no longer exist in their natural forms upon their arrival.

When it comes to protecting migratory species, thinking within the boundaries of your own backyard is not enough. If the bald eagle enjoys safe refuge in Alaska during the summer months but finds their habitat devastated by human activities when it migrates to California for the winter, their life is still in grave danger.

International law has begun the expansive process of protecting migratory species. Globally, states that have ratified the Convention of the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) recognize that they are the protectors of migratory species that live within or pass through their national boundaries. Therefore, member states seek “to conserve the habitat of migratory species that would significantly benefit from international cooperation.” These conservation efforts are required to include trans-national coordinated conservation and management plans. North American countries are not a part of the CMS agreement, but they do work to conserve migratory birds through enforcement of the U.S. Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. This treaty declares that killing, selling, and possessing migratory birds is a felony punishable by federal fines and imprisonment.

In addition to acting in accordance with conservation laws, corporate conservation teams can play an active role in protecting migratory species in other ways. For example, by using the free IPaC planning tool, it is possible to learn what species’ habitats are on your property and if those species are migratory. If any species are migratory, you can find out where they migrate to and contact corporations working in that region. The point of this contact should be to initiate a joint effort to protect and conserve your common migratory species. This communication could prove valuable to both corporate teams and wildlife, as the conservation effort could allow you collaborate with other corporations, while also ensuring the presence of both the summer and winter habitats needed by migratory species.

We cannot protect wildlife by thinking like a human. Instead, we must be willing to look at the world through the eyes of the migratory species we wish to protect, looking beyond their borders, and spotting new opportunities for connection.

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The Nature of Fire

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By now you’ve almost certainly heard about the massive wildfire that has devastated Fort McMurray, Alberta, nicknamed “the beast” by local firefighters. This wildfire has so far destroyed about 10% of the city of Fort McMurray, as well as hundreds of thousands of acres of native boreal forest in the surrounding area. As of this writing the fire is still not under control and additional evacuations have been ordered. The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.

Fires in nature act as a clearing mechanism for accumulated organic debris, and in some ecosystems fire is actually required to release seeds from pinecones or to stimulate seed germination. In North America, naturally-occurring fire regimes historically ranged from frequent, low-intensity fires that cleared the understory every few years, to infrequent, stand-replacing fires every few hundred years. However, the former is much more common, with many species in fire-adapted ecosystems able to withstand these low-intensity fires.

However, policies that result in the total suppression of wildfires in many areas has led to the accumulation of fuel on the forest floor – dried leaves and pine needles, branches, etc. If a fire burns through areas with this kind of accumulated fuel, the fire burns hotter, taller, and faster than the forest can withstand, leaving little unburned. You can see in this video from the Guardian the flames in the Fort McMurray wildfires were sometimes so tall and hot they engulfed entire mature trees.

Dry conditions like Alberta experienced this winter and spring increase the likelihood that fires will start from lightning strikes or other ignition sources. A dry fuel load and low humidity exacerbate the intensity of fires that do ignite.

One effective compromise between the need for fire to maintain fire-adapted ecosystems and the desire to protect homes, businesses, and wildlife from uncontrolled wildfires is to use controlled burns, in which land managers intentionally set, contain, and manage a controlled, low-intensity fire.

For more information about the Fort McMurray wildfire and the role of wildfires in ecosystems, I encourage you to read this article by Leyland Cecco, which uses the Fort McMurray wildfire to provide an in-depth analysis of the conditions that lead to the destructive power of these kinds of wildfires.

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Taking Nature Out of the Corner and Into the Spotlight: Biodiversity and the Circular Economy

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In the now classic movie, Dirty Dancing, the final scene starts with everybody’s favorite movie line, “Nobody puts Baby in the corner!” This iconic line comes to mind every time I see an infographic explaining the circular economy, but the “Baby” in this case happens to be nature, expelled from the closed loop although materially impacted by it.

Circular economy or closed loop systems are, depending on who you ask, merely grandiloquent terms for recycling or the next best thing to address the impact of industrial processes on the planet. The Ellen Macarthur Foundation, one of the leading voices on circularity, presents the various schools of thought on the concept with a diversity of approaches to circularity, some of which are more transactional than others.

William McDonough’s Cradle to Cradle manifesto is one of the few to address nature and its needs as an integral part of the system, beyond being just an ingredient within the system. His circular model calls for respecting biodiversity as a value rather than an input. This respect for biodiversity is contained within McDonough’s ethos of a respect for diversity in all of its forms. In contrast, the concept of biomimicry views nature as a commodity, providing its biology, chemistry and engineering to solve human problems.

Circular economy approaches are very valuable at driving innovation in manufacturing processes, waste management and consumption patterns. Removing waste from industrial and consumption cycles, reducing materials used to make goods, and encouraging cascading benefits of by-products are all positive steps toward decreasing our collective weight on the planet and increasing the life of our natural resources.

But this approach shares many of the same weaknesses with respect to nature that natural capital accounting, ecosystem service valuation, and other economy-first initiatives share ― they all put biodiversity in the corner to the detriment of all life on the planet.

As McDonough says in Cradle to Cradle, “When diversity is nature’s design framework, human design solutions that do not respect it degrade the ecological and cultural fabric of our lives.” It doesn’t have to be this way.  It’s just the easier to extract a process and close it than attempt to interweave processes the way nature does in the ultimate closed loop that is planet Earth.

One environmental thought leader who expressed the need to integrate biodiversity loss into environmental impact assessments and to think about species beyond their use as resources is Pope Francis, writing in Laudato Si, a document released by the Vatican in June 2015. Although this papal encyclical has been politically reduced to a plea for action on climate change, the Pope covers a broad variety of environmental issues and says that “a sober look at our world shows that the degree of human intervention, often in the service of business interests and consumerism, is actually making our earth less rich and beautiful, ever more limited and grey, even as technological advances and consumer goods continue to abound limitlessly. We seem to think that we can substitute an irreplaceable and irretrievable beauty with something which we have created ourselves.” He’s not just talking circular economy in this passage, but he certainly highlights the shortcomings of a closed loop process that ignores the thing on which it sits.

There are many things that industry can do to address its impact on nature and embrace the restorative imperatives contained within circular economy models. Where impacts are direct ― like on lands used for extraction ― approaches to land management during operations and design of reclamation and restoration can focus on exceeding regulatory requirements to provide maximum benefit for biodiversity. At its Marblehead Quarry in Ohio, LafargeHolcim is actively managing for the recovery of the rare and endangered lakeside daisy by using crushed limestone screenings to create the alkaline conditions required by the plant, whose only known occurrence in the state is in Ottawa County where the quarry is located.

Across all industrial sectors, non-operational lands can be managed to respect biodiversity and restore nature, rather than managed in ways that limit its exuberance  such as through frequent mowing or landscaping with non-native species. By including the entire industrial footprint in the closed loop, a circular process can have a significant restorative impact on biodiversity. WHC’s recent white paper, Prioritizing Pollinators in Corporate America, shows how easily an entire footprint can be utilized for positive outcomes that meet a national need.

No loop is fully closed or sealed off. Every process contains manufactured goods and the ingredients that make them – all must be moved across the globe, and these movements create pathways for the spread of invasive species and wildlife diseases. By including product movement in the closed loop, operations along the manufacturing process, from extraction all the way to retail, can have an impact on two of the greatest threats to biodiversity worldwide.

Finally, the needs of biodiversity can be considered in the cascades, or by-products of a closed system.  General Motors set – and already surpassed – a global goal to achieve 100 landfill-free facilities by 2020. They are creating circularity in their manufacturing processes in many ways. The company also has a biodiversity goal that all of its manufacturing facilities worldwide secure WHC Conservation Certification by 2020. These goals became intertwined when GM started to convert scrap Chevy Volt battery covers into nesting boxes for wildlife, cascading a product to benefit biodiversity.

Whether it’s called circular economy, regenerative design, cradle to cradle manufacturing or any other fancy word for recycling, it’s not necessary that these waste elimination and resource-use reduction processes and approaches be laminated onto nature. They in fact can include nature in many ways and fully embrace the restorative imperative. We just need to open the closed loop and take biodiversity out of the corner.

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Tag Archive for: corporate conservation

Native Grasslands Conservation

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From small roadsides to vast landscapes, grassland habitats benefit corporate biodiversity and sustainability goals
Sponsored by Ontario Power Generation

Grasslands are one of the most common habitat types in the world and one of the most threatened. An opportunity exists for corporations to manage privately owned grasslands in nature-friendly ways that will realize multiple values for many stakeholders, including benefits to climate change mitigation and adaptation, stormwater run-off, cost savings and aesthetics.

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Nature-Based Employee Engagement

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Perspectives on corporate programs that offer meaningful opportunities for employees to participate in conservation
Sponsored by Waste Management

With historically low unemployment rates, competition for talent acquisition and retention are driving companies to invest in engagement efforts for a competitive advantage. Employee engagement programs that are focused on conservation and biodiversity offer meaningful and accessible opportunities for employees to get active, learn something new and make a positive contribution to the environment.

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Key Aspects of a Successful Conservation Certification Application

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In this webinar, we will focus in on key criteria for projects to qualify under WHC Conservation Certification. We will cover what the different project classes are, as well as the most important and most misunderstood aspects of habitat, species and education projects.

You’ll learn:

  • The similarities and differences between habitat, species and education projects
  • What is crucial for a project to qualify
  • Where you should focus your time when working on an application

Presenters:

  • Emily Voldstad, Director, Conservation Certification and Technology, Wildlife Habitat Council
  • Caitlin Banigan, Manager, Conservation Certification, Wildlife Habitat Council

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Building a Successful Conservation Program: A Toolkit

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Suitable for those who are either beginning a new program, or improving a current one, in this webinar we’ll discuss the keys to building a strong and successful corporate conservation program. From planning and design to implementation, monitoring, maintenance and evaluation, a variety of tools are available to help you meet biodiversity and community engagement goals.

You’ll learn:

  • How to select a project, set objectives, meet conservation and community needs, and implement activities that reflect your resources
  • Strategies to develop partnerships and teams to support your goals and alignments
  • How to document your progress and maintain momentum
  • Best practices for maintenance of the project over time and monitoring protocol basics
  • Tactics for evaluation and adaptive management (why, how, and what to document)

Presenter:

  • Colleen Beaty, Manager, Conservation Content and Partnerships, Wildlife Habitat Council

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three yellow birds on branch

Birds: Nature’s Key Performance Indicators

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A call to action for corporate landowners to restore, enhance and manage habitat for birds
Sponsored by Ontario Power Generation

Birds are everywhere. From the grey pigeon seen on city streets to the brightly feathered tropical species found in rain forests, birds have colonized every continent and evolved to inhabit niches both specialized and general. Because they are everywhere, birds can easily be the focus of a corporate conservation effort. Most species respond well to conservation management, making them an ideal indicator to overall ecosystem health. With accessible technology and an increased need, now is the time for corporate landowners to engage in bird conservation projects.

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Business and Biodiversity: A Critical Partnership for the Future

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In today’s competitive landscape, engaging in corporate conservation is emerging as an innovative approach to meet both business and environmental needs. Indeed, corporate spending on sustainability and circular economy initiatives is on the rise — and yielding increased sales and cost savings. Demonstrating leadership in corporate conservation is crucial to meeting sustainability goals and achieving stakeholder collaboration.

You’ll learn:

  • Links between conservation program investment and business benefits, including cost savings, risk reduction, increased employee engagement and productivity
  • How biodiversity-based programs offer the advantage of flexibility not only to adapt to different size companies, operations and lands, but also across types of landscapes
  • How to use the WHC model to create measurable, meaningful conservation and community engagement projects
  • Tools available to get started in building your business case for biodiversity-based programs

Presenter:

  • Thelma Redick, Senior Director, Conservation Content and Partnerships, Wildlife Habitat Council

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The Conservation Connection

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How on-the-ground actions for biodiversity and education can contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals
Sponsored by Chemours

All businesses can contribute to the prosperity of the communities in which they are located, as well as contribute to protecting, restoring or enhancing nature through ecological stewardship practices on their lands. The SDGs provide the ideal framework from which to connect corporate lands to community improvement, and to report interconnected corporate citizenship actions into CSR initiatives.

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Grassland Birds in Decline: How You Can Help

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Grassland birds are in decline across North America. Can your meadow or grassland habitat help to support populations of these resident and migratory species? Would you like to move beyond nest box projects to see your meadow or grasslands come alive with the sound and movement of native avian species, further strengthening your habitat restoration goals? In this webinar, you’ll hear from experts in grassland birds, land management and partnership building who will provide resources applicable to grasslands and meadows, both large and small, in regions across the United States.

You’ll learn:

  • The current state of grasslands bird species and factors that contribute to their decline
  • How specific management practices can help to bolster breeding populations and what programs and partnerships can help you create habitat for migratory species
  • Tools for better monitoring of grassland species and how your efforts support your Conservation Certification

Presenters:

  • Daniel Casey, Coordinator, Northern Great Plains Joint Venture
  • Joel Merriman, Conservation Specialist, Wildlife Habitat Council

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Business and Biodiversity: A Critical Partnership for the Future

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In today’s competitive landscape, engaging in corporate conservation is emerging as an innovative approach to meet both business and environmental needs. Indeed, corporate spending on sustainability and circular economy initiatives is on the rise — and yielding increased sales and cost savings. Demonstrating leadership in corporate conservation is crucial to meeting sustainability goals and achieving stakeholder collaboration.

You’ll learn:

  • Links between conservation program investment and business benefits, including cost savings, risk reduction, increased employee engagement and productivity
  • How biodiversity-based programs offer the advantage of flexibility not only to adapt to different size companies, operations and lands, but also across types of landscapes
  • How to use the WHC model to create measurable, meaningful conservation and community engagement projects
  • Tools available to get started in building your business case for biodiversity-based programs

Presenter:

  • Thelma Redick, Senior Director, Conservation Content and Partnerships, Wildlife Habitat Council

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An Introduction to Land Conservation Agreements

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Land Conservation Agreements limit a property’s uses in order to protect its conservation values. This enhanced or permanent protection of corporate lands can help conserve the natural, scenic, or rural qualities of the land for today and for future generations, adding to the depth of your Conservation Certification® goals. Join Sylvia Bates of the Land Trust Alliance to explore the basics of conservation agreements. You’ll also hear case studies of successful corporate and land trust partnerships.

You’ll learn:

  • What is a land conservation agreement, also known as a land trust
  • How to choose an appropriate land trust partner for your project
  • Benefits of conservation easements and other types of conservation strategies to help meet your goals
  • Questions to ask to ensure success of your project and partnership
  • How a land conservation agreement fits into your Conservation Certification program
  • Successful outcomes from case studies that demonstrate how real-world companies met challenges and realized benefits by working with land trusts

Presenter:

  • Sylvia Bates, Director of Standards & Educational Services, Land Trust Alliance
  • Stephen T. Johnson, President, North American Land Trust
  • Kamara Sams, Environmental Community Relations, The Boeing Company

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