Ecosystem Service Research Application in Corporate Action

JNCC and ESP jointly organized a meeting especially designed for business delegates aimed at Ecosystem Service Research Application in Corporate Action: Increasing Impact, Unlocking Opportunity and Driving Innovation: Increasing Impact, Unlocking Opportunity and Driving Innovation.

The goal of the business track was to encourage collaboration between business representatives and researchers to apply the  ecosystem services concept in corporate decision making and action. This session served as a vehicle for practitioners to meet and build on previous experience.

At the MENA conference, this session was regarded as a pilot session to test how ESP can facilitate this type of cross-sectoral engagement. It aimed to be a learning experience for all involved parties, and an ESP Service to be embedded in and further developed at future ESP conferences.

The objective of this session(s) was:

1. Showcase several regional business cases which relate to natural capital and ecosystem services, and understand encountered hurdles within these cases in implementing ecosystem services concept (to be presented by business representatives);
2. Showcase of projects of how some researchers have been partnering with the private sector;
3. Provide solutions which solve challenges businesses addressed within their presentation based on natural capital and ecosystem services research;
4. and come up with ideas how to scale up science-business collaboration by identifying concrete projects, unlock opportunities and drive innovation.