Each year FORENV – the EU Foresight System for Emerging Environmental Issues – identifies and characterises ten priority emerging issues on a specific theme of potential importance to the European environment and European policy makers.
As part of this process, our report for the European Commission, Directorate-General Environment explored risks and opportunities for biodiversity protection and ecosystem services, placing them within an economic and societal context. Conducted in partnership with Milieu Consulting and Cranfield University, the study highlights six clusters of potentially disruptive changes and associated challenges linked to the ten priority emerging issues:
- Double-edged innovative technologies transforming biodiversity: New technologies promise solutions to environmental problems, from AI-driven tools and digital twins to smart sensors that enhance real-time monitoring. Yet they also pose risks, such as biased datasets marginalising species or increased resource extraction from expanding digital and renewable infrastructures.
- Harnessing systems change for a nature-positive future: Systemic changes in food production, urban planning, and ecosystem management could reduce pressures on nature and support biodiversity recovery. Examples include aquaculture using novel protein sources, agroecological and agroforestry practices, and cities designed as hybrid ecosystems that nurture nature.
- Advancing corporate biodiversity responsibility and accountability: Emerging business models are embedding biodiversity into decision-making through quantifiable targets and circular, nature-based principles. However, risks remain of superficial action or corporate resistance to biodiversity-focused policy.
- Power asymmetries and social justice in biodiversity conservation: Inequalities shape access to nature and participation in conservation. Expanding citizen science and community-led initiatives offer opportunities for more inclusive, culturally sensitive approaches, but power imbalances persist, from unequal access to green spaces to the marginalisation of local and Indigenous knowledge.
- Biodiversity-related conflicts and existential threats: Biodiversity and geopolitics are increasingly intersecting, creating new vulnerabilities and competition for natural resources. Genetic engineering and geoengineering advances could both aid and threaten ecosystems, while North–South tensions and divergent environmental values risk undermining global cooperation.
- Valuing and regulating nature: an uncertain pathway: As Europe explores new ways to value and regulate nature, mechanisms such as biodiversity credits are emerging. Yet translating ecosystems into tradable units risks oversimplifying complex relationships and weakening rights-based protections. Balancing economic valuation with genuine stewardship will be critical as renewable energy and mineral extraction intensify pressures on biodiversity.
This is the final report for the sixth cycle (2023–2024) of the EU Foresight System for the Systematic Identification of Emerging Environmental Issues (FORENV).
