There are two COPs in town at the moment.

We’ve already looked at the prospect of COP29 in Baku being somewhat lacklustre, given the high hopes of it being the summit at which finance would start to be committed to wide scale pro-climate initiatives.

But then there’s COP16, too. Hold on a minute, you might say – wasn’t that about 13 COP’s ago? Technically, yes, sort of. But this COP16 is the biodiversity summit that has been held this week in Cali, Colombia.

It has seen biodiversity topics covered widely across the media, with the pinnacle perhaps being this Financial Times piece on whether becoming “nature-positive” is the new corporate green goal.

That’s not to do any disservice to the long-term decarbonisation commitments that many firms have set out as a central environmental goal over recent years.

Halting and reversing biodiversity loss over the next five years is the main ambition for big business that have made such a pledge. The FT reads: “Their expanding presence points to nature’s rise up the corporate agenda. From agribusinesses to asset managers, companies around the world are increasingly touting their ambitions to be “nature positive” alongside their net zero targets.”

But it also cautions that claims linked to positive progress on biodiversity are even tougher to back up than those around reduced climate impact.

This long read piece in Forbes covers the ground of COP16 well, noting that 90% of countries had to submit biodiversity strategies ahead of the summit, and that nature loss comes with enormous economic risk – approaching $45 trillion, according to one report.

Alternatively, try this one in Vox on “the most important event you’ve never heard of, explained”.

Despite the lingering questions over the merits of these global summits, the momentum seems to be with nature positivity, or biodiversity enhancement or preservation, being the rising star of corporate sustainability programmes. Not just for the positive change it can enable but in light of the increased understanding of the long-term risk factors. GreenBiz wrote earlier this year that this is because regulation such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive has forced disclosure of progress on reducing environmental impacts, which in turn is bringing biodiversity more into the corporate spotlight.

The business imperative has become clearer and more companies are making commitments. The question now is whether, post COP16, national governments will step up to the plate too.

And as business momentum continues, the achievements in pursuit of corporate ambitions will rightly be under the microscope. Ahead of the talks this week, there was already a call from some companies and NGOs for global standards to be agreed to prevent greenwashing around biodiversity, similar to the measures that have been introduced to counter greenwashing of carbon reduction.

The UK Government this week appointed its first nature envoy, not always the most teethy of roles. But as nature-positive goals become more prominent, expect more public scrutiny and potentially specific regulation to ensure that all is as-reported and as-communicated.