bIodIversIty

Protecting and restoring biodiversity is essential for maintaining incomes, livelihoods and food security into the future. We promote nature positive practices in international value chains.

WHAT WE OFFER

ITC Trade and Environment promotes nature positive practices in value chains to protect and restore biodiversity, enabling businesses to:

  • Understand their dependencies and impact on nature, and how they can thrive in line with natural boundaries
  • Operate nature-positive business models
  • Innovate and grow new and existing businesses in biodiversity-based sectors and value chains.

BioTrade self-assessment tool

The BioTrade Self-Assessment Tool can be used for free by companies, producers, cooperatives and projects from various biodiversity-based value chains to benchmark their sustainability practices against the UNCTAD BioTrade Principles and Criteria in a transparent, neutral and independent manner.

The tool was developed by ITC and the UNCTAD BioTrade Initiative under the framework of the BioTrade Facilitation Programme “Linking trade, biodiversity and sustainable development” financed by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO.

Tailored coaching for small businesses

ITC’s biodiversity coaching programme supports small businesses in international value chains to increase their competitiveness through the adoption of nature positive practices of sustainable sourcing and management in biodiversity-based value chains.

Through this approach, we support businesses to assess their value chains in terms of hotspots of biodiversity use and environmental impacts linked to sourcing and management of biodiversity-based products and services; and implement a nature positive management plan to enhance their business resilience while restoring and conserving nature.

Our approach also aims at fostering an enabling environment for businesses to develop new ventures and trade internationally through tailored technical assistance to bio-entrepreneurs to develop their businesses and grow, and to mature businesses to overcome market barriers to do business in international markets of biodiversity-based products.