Lydia Neely Martin, MSc

As someone who is competitive by nature, I love a good league table – especially when the project I worked on is at the top. Volans worked with Unilever on its first Climate Policy Engagement Review and it’s now official that the review has set a new best practice. According to InfluenceMap’s assessment, it is the first such review to fully meet the expectations of The Global Standard on Responsible Climate Lobbying, which is backed by investor groups such as Principles for Responsible Investment, Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), Ceres, Inc. and Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR). What we need now is a race to the top. We’ve demonstrated it’s possible to score 100% for ‘robustness of corporate climate policy engagement review’, so I hope we’ll soon see more green at the top of this table. Who’s up for it? Danone Facundo Etchebehere Nestlé Rob Cameron Procter & Gamble Virginie Helias ... https://lnkd.in/eWZDJYp9

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Greenwashing guides popping up. This one offers a useful global perspective of regulatory changes concernig #greenwashing. However, I am not a fan of quick checklists. 🛑There are no shortcuts; collaborating with experts on different ESG topics remains essential, which is not mentioned in this guide. #sustainability #esg

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Pleased to help shape this article that offers businesses a clear path to prepare for coming regulations around #deforestation and #biodiversity. Transparency and accountability are key to making measurable progress toward #netzero. Go FLINTpro!

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Businesses need to consider their impacts and dependencies on nature if they want to achieve their commercial and sustainability goals. Explore how you can embed nature in your business strategy, with PwC UK's Nature Strategy Handbook, part of the Business for Nature coalition's 'It's now for nature' campaign. #COP16

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A super useful document to understand how the various pieces of new and upcoming EU ESG regulation (#CSRD, #CSDDD, Green Claims Directive, etc) relate to each other. Thanks Andreas Rasche for sharing this - and for all the other thought-provoking corporate sustainability content too!

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There are so many ways organisations like PWC and their supply chains can help nature. A great way is to support and invest with organisations like Chiltern Rangers Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT), The Woodland Trust and others to take action in their local areas. Working locally reduces travel and creates a better, more connected landscape. Not only can positive activity sessions like Be a Ranger days help directly e.g. tree planting, river cleans or coppicing in the woods; these days are great for teambuilding, health and well being, giving back to the community and much more. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/dmm27gDx What stops your company for booking these sessions and making the difference for people, place and nature??

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Some really important new research from UNEP-WCMC, showing just how valuable investing in nature can be - for the UK, it's suggested that for every £1 invested in closing the natural capital gap, £34 will be returned in benefits. This benefit-cost ratio is well above the average for the 40 countries considered.     The total potential net benefit for the United Kingdom is about £1 trillion over the period 2021 to 2030.    The potential benefits are huge, not least as these figures are likely to be underestimates. They show how much of an opportunity there is for investing in nature and the scale of rewards to us all, as we tangibly see nature's recovery over time and for generations to come. This report follows recent research from Green Finance Institute that shared nature loss could lead to an estimated 6-12% loss of GDP in the coming years, greater than that in the global financial and Covid-19 crises.  Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eGRReRPy  #Economy #NatureBasedSolutions #Investment

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Did you know that despite the risks posed by nature and biodiversity loss, there is a huge global funding gap for nature? PwC UK's report, published with City of London Corporation, sets out a pathway for the UK to build on its position as a leading centre for green finance. Innovation is needed from across the nature finance ecosystem, with coordinated action and collaboration between public and private sectors. Read the report's recommendations. #NaturePositive #NatureFinance #COP16

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🦔 🦋 🐝 Hedgehogs, daddy long-legs, bees, butterflies, wasps. They were all common in my suburban garden when I was growing up but I’m seeing fewer of them every year. Yes, even wasps. UK Government statistics show that biodiversity has declined 19% since the 70s, cementing Britain firmly in top 10% of the world’s most nature-depleted countries. Construction and engineering has a massive role to play in changing the narrative - creating environments that aren’t just human centric but nature centric - putting livable wild spaces ahead of tidy plots of concrete and tarmac. BAM has a lot of work to do to educate our people, our industry and our clients about how we can do things better. But our industry isn’t alone, as our research shows. Our survey is a wake up call for UK businesses and the role they can play in helping to reverse catastrophic biodiversity loss. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, the more you read about the subject, the more frightening it becomes. It’s not too late to make a difference but the worst thing we can do is ignore it. Thanks to the incredible work from Sara Henriksson with help from YouGov to get this report across the line.

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Today we mark #InternationalDayforBiologicalDiversity with important milestones for two of our brilliant clients. 🌍 Business for Nature has announced that the first set of Nature Strategies from businesses have been reviewed and published as part of the 'It’s #NowForNature' programme. These strategies show the growing momentum from leading businesses to address nature loss and contribute to a Nature Positive economy for all by 2030. Read more here: https://t.ly/mzf3H 🌳 Meanwhile, Ponterra has revealed a groundbreaking new partnership with Microsoft, Carbon Streaming Corporation and Rubicon Carbon to restore 10,000 hectares of degraded agricultural land on the Azuero Peninsula in Panama, by planting >6 million trees from more than 75 native tree species. This is one of the biggest projects of its kind in Central America and one of the largest anywhere in the world to be fully financed up front: https://t.ly/igBIh The impact of both of these announcements is immense, and will play a major role in our collective mission to protect, restore and reverse nature loss around the world 🙌 Celia Francis Lucy Coast Anna Guyer Nick Boyle Georgia Crump Jo Swift Sindhu Ram Conor Quinn Emilia Mihaescu

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🦧 Insightful take from our Chief Sustainability Officer, Lorenzo Saa, at COP16 Colombia in Cali: #Nature and #biodiversity are complex, and meaningful progress requires actionable data. We're excited about our partnership with GIST Impact, helping investors measure and manage their biodiversity impacts effectively. #COP16 | #SustainableInvesting | #responsibleinvesting

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🚀 Cultivated Meat: could it be the game-changer for our food system? 🥩🌍 As the UK rethinks its food policies, cultivated meat offers a unique opportunity to lead in sustainable food innovation. The benefits are clear: ✅ Lower environmental impact: Significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions and land use compared to traditional animal farming. ✅ Resource efficiency: Uses less water and agricultural inputs. ✅ Animal welfare: Provides high-quality protein without animal suffering. ✅ Food security: Scales efficiently to meet global demand without crossing planetary boundaries. It’s time to embrace this future-proof solution! 🌱 #SustainableFood #Innovation #CultivatedMeat #FutureOfFood

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CSRD in a nutshell. Simple (as possible) explanation of a complex new EU Directive!

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When cheerleading brands, to avoid #Greenwashing it is INCREDIBLY helpful to know that a company has done its due diligence, and to be able to publish with onfidence its evidence for claims such as: 🚽 The UK's most sustainable toilet roll | The UK's most eco friendly toilet roll 🚽 Better for the planet | Gentler on the environment 🚽 50% smaller climate footprint than other eco brands 🚽 No bleach 🚽 No harsh chemicals 🚽 No plastic 🚽 Highest rated B Corp in our sector 🚽 Rated No.1 eco toilet roll by Ethical Consumer 🚽 Carbon cuts, not carbon credits Naked Sprout - B Corp® (128.4 score)'s comprehensive Evidence webpage is RIDICULOUSLY impressive and makes me breathe a big sigh of joy... Though I do wish all of the links would open in blank pages so that I didn't have to keep going back to visit the next document ;) https://lnkd.in/gBSrvFGR "We've recently undertaken a green claims audit to ensure that all our green claims are properly evidenced against the CMA and ASA guidelines. As a third party publishing information about Naked Sprout, you are responsible for ensuring that the green claims you make about us on your website are correct, so I wanted to provide you with a link to our evidence..." Thank you, David Pearce, Naked Sprout - B Corp® (128.4 score) and Tom Whelan.

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Food waste may be a dirty secret in your household—as it is in mine—but it poses a bigger sustainability challenge as we grapple with a growing global population. Clare Wood of Stewart Investors talks about the charms of 5 stocks in the sustainable food ecosystem, all of which left cheap behind some time ago. #COST, anyone? #sustainableinvesting #ESGinvesting #foodstocks https://lnkd.in/gwsCWzzW

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The BBC's Climate Creatives 2024 sessions are a must-watch for all communicators and content-makers, especially 'Creating Content That Connects'. It's full of insight from all speakers, including naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham's advice on achieving a just transition through a long-term comms strategy: 'When we frame our conversations, what we need to do is transform the public's perception from something they see as a problem into an opportunity' [...] 'we have to be tolerant because not everyone can take advantage of those opportunities at the same time. They may come at a financial cost, a social cost, a cultural cost.' 'We need tolerance and patience... Fueled by kindness.' And a call for all creatives to better integrate climate in our conversations.

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It's a full six years since we started our journey to become a B Corp. You might expect there was an epiphany moment that led us to certify 🤩 But the reality wasn’t anything like this at all… We read in a Sunday paper about this new way of doing business called B Corp. It was for organisations that made profits – yet with responsibility for looking after people and planet 🌍 Our entire career has been in the private sector, so we’re big believers in the power of competition and the innovation that it can spur. It’s just that we’ve seen too many cases where the pursuit of profit has caused collateral damage to other stakeholders. So the B Corp philosophy felt as though it was made for us 🙌 What about you, can you pinpoint events and places that made you want to do business differently? If you want to check out our 2024 impact report you can find it here: https://loom.ly/CQEFN6k #bcorpuk #businessdevelopment #bcorporation #smallbusinessowners

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