Episode 2
Business and Biodiversity with Ximena Rueda
No business operates independently of nature. This interconnectedness is too often overlooked in business and business education, but understanding it can open up powerful new opportunities.
Our guest on this episode of The Global Exchange is Ximena Rueda, Dean of the School of Management at Universidad de los Andes and visiting professor at Stanford's Center for Food Security and the Environment. Ximena shares insights from her three years as co-chair of the IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment, a landmark report that offers a framework for how companies can measure and manage their impact on the natural world.
The conversation covers the economics of ecosystem services, why biodiversity is far more complex to measure than carbon emissions, and how businesses should approach community engagement. From rethinking value chains and supplier relationships to unlocking new business models rooted in sustainability, Ximena walks through the actions available to businesses today and reflects on the importance of recovering a sense of societal purpose for the next generation of business leaders.
