Online conference to seek early input into the scoping process of the business and biodiversity assessment

Welcome to this IPBES online conference!

Purpose and outcome

This online conference is held at the very initial phase in the production of an IPBES assessment. It is intended to seek broad input, including from scientists and other knowledge holders, representatives of Governments, and from institutions and organisations, to help identify the key questions and themes that the assessment should address. At this early stage, the purpose is neither to define the structure of the assessment nor the set of chapters, but to focus on the elements that stakeholders would like to see addressed by the assessment, and thus to make the assessment as policy-relevant as possible.

The report on the online conference will be presented to the group of scoping experts at their meeting in April 2021 as one input to the drafting of the scoping report.

Process

At IPBES 7, in May 2019 in Paris, the Plenary adopted the rolling work programme for IPBES up to 2030, which followed the first IPBES work programme 2014-2018 that culminated in the approval of the IPBES Global Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
This new work programme includes, among other assessments, a methodological assessment of the impact and dependence of business on biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people (business and biodiversity assessment).

The first step in the production of this assessment, as for all IPBES assessments, consists in defining the scope of the assessment, including the overall framework, number and titles of chapters and brief description of their content, as well as a timeline and budget for the production of the assessment. This will be done at a “scoping meeting”, which is planned for 26-30 April 2021, by a team of experts, selected by the IPBES Multidisciplinary Expert Panel following a call for nominations that closed on 25 January 2021 (please see call for nominations). The “scoping report” produced at that meeting will be considered by the Plenary at IPBES 9 (tentatively planned for March 2022). The Plenary will also decide on the start of the assessment, which could begin immediately after IPBES 9, with a call for experts to produce that assessment.

This pre-scoping online conference forms part of the scoping process and contributes to the scoping report. 

Agenda

This online conference is taking place over 2 days, on Thursday, 25 March (Day 1) and Friday, 26 March 2021 (Day 2).

Each part will begin with an introductory talk, followed by a moderated oral exchange, ending with a period of about 24 hours for written contributions.

All times are Central European Time (CET)

How can you participate in the online conference?

To register for the online conference, please click here. It is possible to fill in the registration before the webinar starts. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. (Registration is now closed!)

To participate in the online forums, please click on the links in the table below. Please note that you need to be logged-in on the IPBES website in order to contribute to the forum. If you do not have an IPBES account yet, please register here. (The online forum is now closed!)

The introductory talks of the presentations are available below.

If you experience any technical difficulties, please contact the IPBES secretariat at [email protected].