The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to not be a health crisis alone but significantly has disrupted our food security, economic resilience and governance efficacy. Two things have become absolutely clear. First, business-as-usual on how we treat our planet and less-privileged sections of society is no longer viable. Second, humanity is capable of change fast, dramatic, unprecedented change.

We dont yet know how this crisis will end. The World Health Organization warns that worse is yet to come and the impact on the global economy is already unprecedented. IMF projects a contraction of the global economy by 4.9 percent in 2020. Big businesses are cutting millions of jobs, while thousands of small businesses are vanishing. In India, the lockdown led to 27 million young people losing their jobs, while 14 million U.S. citizens filed for unemployment between February and May.

The disproportionate impact of the pandemic on the marginalized, who have been harder hit both from a health and economic perspective, further has fueled the mass protests against racial and class-based injustice.

We need a structural change to recalibrate economic and societal values and provide a more sustainable underpinning for the future.

Underpinning all of this is the urgent need to stop the collapse of Earth systems. We need a structural change to recalibrate economic and societal values and provide a more sustainable underpinning for the future.

Responding to these multiple crises is a huge opportunity to transform the way we live, eat, grow, build and power our societies to launch what the World Economic Forum is calling the Great Reset. Businesses have a role to play in the transition towards a nature-positive-economy and there are wins for early movers.

Businesses have shown their willingness to uphold values of stakeholder capitalism in times of imminent hardship. While an IKEA kit helped hospitals in affected areas, LVMH refurbished its perfume factories to produce hand sanitizer. Surely, the breakdown of the natural systems vital for our survival qualifies for such swift and innovative collaboration. And we have seen in the past year that ESG and low-carbon fundssignificantly outperform general indices and the arrival of multiple zero-carbon and nature-positive unicorns.

The World Economic Forums new report on the Future of Nature and Business provides a blueprint for businesses to play a leadership role in shifting our economic model so that it is compatible with planetary boundaries. The report identified 15 priority transitions with the potential to generate $10.1 trillion in additional business value and create 395 million jobs in 10 years, allowing us to shift away from a resource-extractive model alone.

Specifically, the report identifies three socioeconomic systems that have the highest impact on nature loss and, therefore, also the ones with the largest opportunity to change: food, land and ocean use; infrastructure and the built environment; and extractives and energy. Together, these three systems represent over a third of the global economy and provide up to two-thirds of all jobs.

However, activities in these systems endanger almost 80 percent of the threatened and near-threatened species on the IUCN Red List. It is more urgent than ever to transition these systems are both sustainable and resilient for future.

The report offers a pragmatic action agenda for all businesses who want to build a nature-positive future, while offering significant opportunities for cross-sectoral collaboration and innovation.

Food, land and ocean use. Transforming this system to nature-positive could lead to almost $3.6 trillion of revenues and savings in the next 10 years, while creating 191 million new jobs.

What does this look like in the real world? One new model that incorporates several transitions is regenerative ocean farming. For example, GreenWaves vertical polyculture system which grows a mix of seaweeds and shellfish that produce higher yields, sequester carbon and rebuild reef ecosystems. Practicing this kind of farming across 5 percent of U.S. waters could absorb 135 million tonnes of carbon with no freshwater or other inputs. If expanded to just 1 percent of the global ocean, it could create 50 million jobs.

Infrastructure and the built environment. Transitioning this system towards being people- and nature-positive could generate $3 trillion and 117 million jobs by 2030. The changes needed include switching to a strategically compact built environment that would make our cities more efficient, less polluted and cheaper to build and operate, while allowing more land to be wild. For instance, in Europe, office-sharing could reduce urban sprawl by up to 74 million acres an area the size of Belgium while reducing investment costs and offering flexible working models in times of need.

Greener cities use nature-based solutions to their urban challenges. For instance, one of the Cape Town's main initiatives to avoid future water crises after 2018 is to restore its watersheds, which are severely affected by alien plant invasions. Protecting and restoring its watersheds not only would allow the city to generate enough water to meet a sixth of the citys current annual needs within six years but also do so at one-tenth the cost of other options.

Extractives and energy. Emerging business opportunities that improve efficiencies in how we extract and consumer resources while shifting to more renewable energy could create over $3.5 trillion worth of annual value and almost 87 million jobs by 2030.

Examples include embracing a nature-positive energy transition, that would enable to simultaneously meet climate and biodiversity targets. For instance, Elion, the first Chinese company to commit to 100 percent renewables, developed a comprehensive ecological restoration-based economic model. The model combines one of Chinas largest photovoltaic power stations with animal husbandry, ecotourism and medicinal plants that generate complementary revenue streams while restoring degraded soils. This package successfully has restored nearly 1.6 million acres in the Kubuqi Desert of Inner Mongolia, while obtaining good economic and social value.

Business must lead the way. The speed of change required, government budget constraints in the wake of COVID-19 and current failures in international cooperation mean business is best placed to drive the nature-positive transitions the world needs. To launch the transformation, business leaders should identify the transitions most relevant to their business and the mix of enablers including innovative financial investment models and smart technologies needed to unlock success. They also have a critical role to play in supporting governments to adopt the right policies that will unleash change at scale and facilitate these transitions.

We are at a critical juncture. Businesses have the unique capacity to spearhead our transformation to a more nature- and people-positive future. It is a chance to be at the vanguard of a new era of unlimited promise.

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The future of nature and business: A blueprint for action | Greenbiz - GreenBiz