Geneva, 13 June 2006 - China’s dazzling industrial growth has transformed a poverty-stricken country into one of the world’s top five economies in the past three decades, but alongside that has come increasingly serious environmental degradation.

The country has one of the richest biological diversities on earth due to its vast territory of complex climates and a diverse geography that includes mountain ranges, steppes, forests, a large river network and a long coastline. But China’s biodiversity has been seriously degraded and is still threatened. The Chinese government is striving to change this trend, taking environmental protection more into consideration as the economy develops.

“Environmental pollution has become a major problem in China’s current development and it has not been addressed well,” said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at a press conference earlier this year. China should not follow the old path of pollution first and then treatment, the premier said. “We should leave green mountains and clear water to our offspring.”

Not only is the ecological value of a clean environment and a rich, varied biodiversity unquestioned, its economic value is tremendous.

A study by the State Environmental Protection Administration of China estimated the economic value of the country’s biodiversity to be equivalent to US$ 5,000 billion.

On a global level, the World Bank estimated that in 2003 environmental pollution and ecological damage reduced the world’s total GDP by 15%. Sustaining ecosystems is therefore fundamental to sustaining economic growth.

By 2010, declining ecosystems could mean increased costs for companies who rely directly and indirectly on these natural resources, warned the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) Business and Industry Synthesis report, issued in July 2005.

“Business cannot function if ecosystems and the services they deliver - like water, biodiversity, fiber, food and climate - are degraded or out of balance,” says the WBCSD’s James Griffiths. The council has actively supported the MA process and facilitates the industry response to the report, explained Griffiths at the meeting of the council’s Sustaining Ecosystems Initiative in Beijing. One of the possible follow-ups under discussion is the Ecosystems Service Audit concept as a standardized measurement and assessment of services that ecosystems provide to business activities.

The WBCSD has also strengthened its cooperation with leading NGOs that influence policy frameworks and societal expectations, including the IUCN, WWF International, Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and the World Resources Institute. In 2005 a Memorandum of Understanding between the WBCSD and IUCN, the world’s largest conservation organization, was signed to intensify collaboration between business and NGOs on the conservation, sustainable management and use of ecosystems and ecosystem services.

“If properly addressed, business will be able to translate the challenges into opportunities,” concluded Griffiths.