Picking up the Pace – Accelerating public policies for positive outcomes
In a perfectly aligned world, public policy-making would enable business to play as full a role as possible in conserving and sustainably managing ecosystems. It would capture insight from industry experience in the areas of target setting, resource allocation and financing mechanisms to deliver a positive outcome for biodiversity and ecosystems. The WBCSD would like to help make this happen by working with business and policy-makers.
Picking up the Pace – Accelerating public policies for positive outcomes, is the second WBCSD report on ecosystems and biodiversity policies for which PwC was the primary author. This new publication builds on Effective biodiversity and ecosystem policy and regulation, and aims to:
- Provide constructive and practical input from business to support government efforts to deliver on the Aichi targets; positively influence the design and implementation of biodiversity and ecosystem policy to improve both its efficiency and effectiveness in delivering environmental outcomes:
- improve policy-makers’ awareness of the positive and negative business experiences of biodiversity and ecosystem policy and highlight lessons that can be learned from experiences to date: and ,
- present a policy process framework that demonstrates how government and policy-makers can positively engage business in the policy-making process.
This publication was developed through a PwC-driven WBCSD review of case studies on biodiversity and ecosystem policy implementation. In the course of reviewing the case studies, the WBCSD developed nine key messages for policy-makers that should be considered at each stage of the policy process in order to ensure win-win outcomes. The key messages relate to four stages in the policy-making life cycle:
During policy design (Accelerator step 1 in the policy framework in this report)
- Enter early dialogue with business
- Provide commercial benefits
- Consider policy options in the context of the overall policy landscape
Mobilize business (Accelerator steps 2 and 3 in the policy framework in this report)
- Provide targeted technical and financial support
- Clarify property and access rights
Coordinate (Policy control step 3 in the policy framework in this report)
- Facilitate ongoing multistakeholder dialogue
- Communicate results
Monitor (Policy control step 2 in the policy framework in this report)
- Develop strong monitoring frameworks
- Give business time to adapt
Each of these key messages poses realistic goals for policy-makers, all of which can be achieved by focusing on certain enabling factors that have been instrumental in effective policy-making around the world.
