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Biodiversity Risks and Opportunities in the Apparel Sector
This report aims at providing a better understanding of the relationship between the apparel sector value chains and biodiversity, and in particular of the dependencies and impacts of the apparel sector on biodiversity. It proposes a risk assessment framework based on the sector’s dependencies and impacts, and it makes suggestions for realizing opportunities to address negative impacts on biodiversity.
There is an increasing recognition among businesses that depend on natural resources for their raw materials that the risks associated with their operations and their dependency on biodiversity and ecosystem services can have major implications both for their financial and operational performance. Negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services from unsustainable business operations pose a number of risks to corporate performance. Some of these risks include for example the following areas:
- Operational: increased scarcity and cost of raw materials such as freshwater; disruptions to business operations caused by natural hazards; and higher insurance costs for natural disasters.
- Market: customers switching to more sustainably sourced or certified products; and governments implementing new sustainable procurement policies.
- Regulatory: emergence of new government policies such as taxes and moratoria on extractive activities.
- Reputational: damage to corporate reputation from media and NGO campaigns; shareholder resolutions; and changing consumer preferences.
- Access to capital: restricted access as the financial community adopts more rigorous investment and lending policies.
In this context, in 2015, Hugo Boss and IUCN agreed to collaborate to gain a better understanding of the dependence and impacts of the company’s main product value chains (apparel and accessories) on biodiversity and ecosystem services; and to identify potential opportunities for mitigating negative impacts to biodiversity and ecosystem services across the value chains.
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