WJI 2030 Presents ‘Nature Roadmap’ at JCK  

At the JCK Las Vegas Sustainability Summit last Thursday, the Watch & Jewellery Initiative 2030 (WJI 2030) launched the Nature Roadmap, which provides a framework for businesses to act together in response to the nature and biodiversity crisis. It offers guidance on the key steps that companies need to take: assess, commit, transform and disclose. 

Why did WJI 2030 do this work on nature? What do you want to achieve for your members and the wider industry? 

The world is facing a global biodiversity crisis. Measures of the state of biodiversity are showing rapid and continual decline. Species and habitats are being lost, interrupting the ecosystem’s functioning. In the last few years, the international community has come together to discuss this issue and offer frameworks for approaching our interactions with nature and biodiversity. In December 2022, these efforts were formed into a global intergovernmental agreement known as the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), or The Biodiversity Plan. It has the overall objective to halt nature loss by 2030 and achieve full recovery of nature by 2050. The Biodiversity Plan is heralded as the equivalent of the Paris Agreement for nature, and explicitly mentions the role of business in addressing biodiversity.  

Regulators are responding with new and upcoming regulations in the EU, including on sustainability reporting (CSRD), due diligence (CSDD) and deforestation (EUDR). In parallel, new voluntary frameworks and standards — e.g., the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN), the Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) — detail the steps companies can take to assess and minimize their biodiversity impacts and contribute to nature recovery.  

Understanding and managing the relationship between business and nature is a crucial first step for companies to thrive in and contribute to a nature-positive world. The watch and jewelry industry needs to be a part of these global efforts to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity. This is why WJI 2030, as an industry association, started the work on demystifying nature to our members and offering them support to start the needed work. We want to make sure our members — and through them, the whole industry — recognize their dependencies and impacts on nature and act in a way that will lead to halting and reversing further loss of biodiversity.  

In collaboration with our partners and members, we work on identifying what makes this work difficult for companies in our sector. Having this clarity allows us to develop tailored support for our members that will enable them to advance in this journey. In the process, we recognize that different companies will have different challenges, so we work to provide support for those just starting, as well as those already on their biodiversity journey.  

Why is nature important for the watch and jewelry industry? Can you give some concrete examples? 

It is said half of our global GDP directly depends on nature, but we need to be aware that everything produced, processed, and consumed is ultimately derived from nature, through ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are the foundation of our economy and create benefits for our entire society. These ecosystem services are created through the interaction of biodiversity and nature.  

“Biodiversity” is the term used to describe the variability between living organisms. When we talk about “nature,” we refer to the living and nonliving aspects of the natural world. It is broader than just biodiversity and also includes water, soil and atmosphere. As nature and ecosystem services decline, it will become increasingly difficult for companies to do business, particularly those which are directly dependent on natural resources. This is why nature is important for our business. For example, water scarcity may affect mining operations and processing, limiting the availability of key mineral resources — such as colored gemstones and precious metals — for the watch and jewelry sector. Similarly, supply chains for cattle and their feed are likely to be impacted by drought and extreme weather, increasing the cost of leather. Forward-thinking companies are increasingly acknowledging that the economy is embedded within, rather than separate from, nature. 

What is the impact of new regulations connected to this topic? 

Policymakers around the world are reacting to the urgency for businesses to change, by including nature-related requirements in new sustainability directives, regulations, and reporting standards — nowhere faster than in Europe, where the European Commission is driving policy changes through its Green Deal. These European regulations will also apply to non-European companies with significant operations in Europe, expanding their influence to other jurisdictions. New EU regulations require companies to assess, report and act on their nature- and biodiversity-related impacts.  

The first outcomes we are starting to see are companies improving their understanding of their own supply chains and engaging with their suppliers. If this is done across an industry, meaning each company engages with its suppliers, relatively soon we could start seeing well-mapped and documented supply chains. This could result in accelerating the action steps, as we would be more aware of our impacts and dependencies. However, actions should not wait until we have it all figured out; companies can already start with where they are now.  

How can a small company start its journey? How do you support small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs)? 

Smaller companies may have fewer resources for engaging with nature in their sustainability work than larger companies do, but their supply chains are not necessarily simpler. While this may seem like a challenge, SMEs also have a big advantage: their agility and speed when it comes to decision-making processes and implementing new decisions.  

At WJI 2030, our members are large multinational companies, small family-run companies, and everything in between. We work to provide them with a safe space to communicate and learn from each other, while also striving to provide support to each of them based on their needs. The requirements and expectations we put in front of them take into consideration how feasible those may be for each company, and which timeline they may need to meet the defined goals. 

How an SME starts the journey will not differ much from how a large company will do it, but maybe instead of having a dedicated team, an SME will have a dedicated person. Instead of engaging with its suppliers through established annual reporting schemes, it may choose to engage with selected suppliers personally. WJI 2030 is collaborating with experts to develop appropriate tools for SMEs to start their journey in all the three pillars of our work: building climate resilience, preserving resources, and fostering inclusiveness. 

How is pillar two connected to pillars one and three? 

All three pillars are intrinsically linked to each other. Building climate resilience will depend on our ability to preserve resources (the focus of pillar two) and will contribute to fostering inclusiveness within our supply chains and beyond. 

Loss of biodiversity and conversion of ecosystems contribute to climate change. Climate change worsens biodiversity loss and affects numerous human rights topics and quality of life. People, especially communities dedicated to resource extraction (mining and agriculture), are heavily affected by extreme events brought about by climate change. 

This is why WJI 2030 also works to link the three pillars and ensure collaboration and co-benefits in all three areas. 

What are WJI 2030’s next steps in this area? 

We have just released our Nature Roadmap, a comprehensive document developed in collaboration with experts in the nature-business space. It will serve WJI 2030 members and anyone in our industry, and is open to other industries as well. It’s aimed at all those who want to understand the business case for nature. This is a living document that summarizes what, why and how to start the nature journey of any company.  

We hope it will be a first step for many of our members, friends and partners on their nature journey. However, we are done with it. Beyond regular updates to this document, first after the public consultations we will have after the publication of the document, we will continue developing specific tools and support for our members. The main focus is compiling and creating resources that companies need along their journey. This will be done while closely following our members to understand what hurdles they may find on their way, and fine-tuning our work to address those. With time, we aim to have a group of companies that support each other and work together to shape the nature-positive future.  

We recognize that each company has its journey to take, and we are here to provide the support for it. But we also need to remember that a true transformation of the sector and our society will only come through collaborative action. And WJI 2030 is here to provide a safe space to develop and coordinate collaboration within our watch and jewelry industry. The time is now for our industry to move forward. 

Image: Iris Van Der Veken. (WJI 2030)