Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 24 October 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Citizens Assembly Report on Biodiversity Loss: Discussion (Resumed)

Dr. Martha O'Hagan-Luff:

It is excusing businesses to continue business as usual and we do not want business as usual. Businesses need to completely change their business models. One of the suggestions is they need help to do that. Under the corporate sustainability reporting directive, they will have to report their impact and dependence on biodiversity but centrally they really need to change what they are doing. That is what we need to happen. It is two separate things. We need restoration and private sector funding for that and that is not to excuse whereby they can say “Grand, we can continue doing business as usual” because we absolutely cannot. We need reporting on those impacts and then to fundamentally change how a business operates in its own operations and its supply chain and that needs a lot of support.