Our three organizations — Deutscher Naturschutzring (DNR, Germany), Quercus (Portugal) and Institute for Sustainable Development (Slovenia) — have started a project, funded by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, to provide input into the development of the European Business and Biodiversity initiative. The latter is being implemented during the three Presidencies of Germany, Portugal and Slovenia. Our project consists in organizing conferences and seminars to facilitate further discussion and collaboration between civil society, business and public authorities. The goal of the project is to develop NGO awareness on ‘business and biodiversity’, to prevent greenwashing and to build sustainable biodiversity partnerships. In September 2007, we organized a seminar on ‘Civil Society, Business and Biodiversity’ in Lisbon to discuss the prospects and limits of the Business and Biodiversity Initiative. Different approaches, from regulatory to more market based approaches — such as biodiversity labels — were discussed. We drafted the ‘Lisbon Declaration of ENGOs on the Business and Biodiversity Initiative’ (1) , which was distributed to participants of Business and Biodiversity High Level Conference, hosted by Portugal in mid November in Lisbon In the declaration, we state, in particular, the importance of developing guidelines as well as to set performance benchmarks for companies from relevant sectors. In February 2008, in Ljubljana, the conference ‘Forest and Wood — Green Business Opportunities’ analysed biodiversity challenges in the forestry sector. Besides the goal to initiate concrete partnerships between NGOs and the forestry sector, the basis of those partnerships was discussed. As part of the German contribution to the project, Business and Biodiversity Between Greenwashing and Authenticity was published in German in December(3). The results of the whole project will be presented at the COP-9 on 28 May 2008, during a panel discussion at the Forum of Diversity.

Bjela Vossen is Project Coordinator, Business and Biodiversity Trilateral Project, Deutscher Naturschutzring (confederation of German environmental NGOs), EU Policy Coordination Office; Paula Silva is Business and Biodiversity Project Coordinator, Quercus (Portugal); and Anamarija Slabe is Director, Institute for Sustainable Development (Slowenia).

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(1) http://www.business-biodiversity.eu/uploads/Xq/1E/ Xq1E1IxMeOF4_x4-xhP-7Q/LISBON_DECLARATION_OF_ ENGOS_ON_BB.pdf (2) http://www.countdown2010.org/business (3) http://www.eu-koordination.de/PDF/eur07-iii.pdf