In the second half of 2010, the ‘Biodiversity in Good Company’ Initiative organised workshops in Germany, Japan and Brazil.  The meetings offered an excellent platform for the participants to openly exchange information about their experiences with biodiversity management. Not only were companies able to consolidate their support for biodiversity, but they also gained new insight for their continued work.

On July 7 – 8, <link internal-link internal link in current>Weleda hosted the Initiative’s sixth Workshop for the German member companies at its headquarters in Schwäbisch Gmünd. The focus of the meeting covered the Initiative’s contextual work and future networking options.

On the Japanese province of Hokkaido in Sapporo, the Initiative’s Japanese member companies met at <link internal-link internal link in current>Aleph’s headquarters on September 1, 2010.  Similarly, the Brazilian members held a workshop on September 14 in Sao Paulo at the <link http: www.cni.org.br external-link-new-window external link in new> National Confederation of Industry (CNI), with whom the Initiative has a close working relationship.

The workshops were used to plan various activities to do together at the coming tenth meeting of the <link http: www.cbd.int cop10 _blank external-link-new-window external link in new>Conference of the Parties (COP 10) in Nagoya this October. The ‘Biodiversity in Good Company’ Initiative will be onsite during the entire conference and will even be hosting its own Side-Events at which the latest Initiative activities and pursuits will be introduced. Along with the <link http: www.bmu.de english nature downloads doc _blank external-link-new-window external link in new>‘Corporate Biodiversity Management Handbook’  there will be an extra Side-Event to present our newest fact sheets book, published especially for the COP 10. Initiative member companies have contributed by providing individual fact sheets about their corporate activities in Biodiversity Management.  This material have been bound together in book form to give an overview about what the businesses together with the Initiative have achieved in the last few years.

The member companies have expressed very much interest and are motivated to see the Initiative continue in the coming years even after the CoP 10. The Brazilian as well as the Japanese companies are pushing for continued cooperation in the future within the framework of the ‘Biodiversity in Good Company’ Initiative.

The next German workshop will be taking place at the beginning of October at the <link internal-link internal link in current>Otto Group in Hamburg.