Supply Chain

Submerged Risks:
How Business Can Address Deeper Impacts on Nature

It makes sense that companies focus on the issues most material to them. But simple, collective action can address universal issues such as biodiversity loss.

Brand Provided | By Rebecca Tucker | Published 3 months ago | About a 7 minute read

Image: naiklon1

In an atypical move, my kids recently demanded we watch a story about the endangered Florida panther for a second time. Path of the Panther reveals how road construction and development have fragmented and shrunk the large cat’s habitat, leading to high rates of panther fatalities when attempting to cross roads. Their future now clings to a few remaining wildlife corridors leading to a northern range — veritable lifelines through increasingly fragmented landscapes. While wildlife photographer Carlton Ward Jr. deploys camera traps to tell the panthers’ story, you can’t help but feel the weight of his soggy, painfully slow progress as our planet ticks off milestone after milestone in the Anthropocene extinction crisis.

Biodiversity loss from habitat destruction is at an inflection point. Over just the last 50 years, we’ve witnessed a 73 percent decline in average size of monitored wildlife populations, and species are going extinct at a rate that’s roughly 100 times higher than normal.

It makes absolute sense that companies are (well-)advised to focus on the key issues that are most material to them, and where they can find effective strategies and avoid just making noise. But multiple things can be true at the same time. We also don’t have time to look the other way when simple, collective action can make a dent in universally pressing problems such as biodiversity loss.

We’ve all experienced the threat human development poses to wildlife in terms of the most obvious impact: Roadkill. Because of this, many of us might find ways to push back against rampant deforestation; and support wildlife crossings, conservation easements for working lands, or adding traffic warnings and slow speed zones. What is less recognized by companies and consumers is that the same issue occurs in our oceans, because of our need to move materials and cargo around the world. There are no roads physically fragmenting the ocean, but heavily trafficked international shipping lanes move 80 percent of all goods. And just like on land, this traffic has an impact on the natural world.

One of the primary sources of mortality to endangered whales around the world is collisions with these large vessels. The dramatic increase in commercial shipping — in terms of both the size and number of ships — in our lifetime poses a threat that, as with panthers and cars, whales have not evolved to avoid. New research has shown that shipping occurs across 92 percent of whale habitat; already endangered whales must now attempt to feed, communicate and migrate amid some of the world's busiest shipping routes. Off the West Coast of the US alone, it's estimated that over 80 endangered whales are fatally struck each year. This is too high a number — especially when you consider compounding threats from climate change, pollution, and entanglements in debris and fishing gear on populations that are nowhere close to recovering from the commercial whaling era.

Why companies should care

Ever since the COP15 Biodiversity Summit in 2022, we’ve seen a growing awareness of the connection between healthy biodiversity, a livable climate and a healthy world — and therefore, healthy businesses. More and more business leaders are coming to understand nature’s critical role in both the global economy (more than half of global GDP is moderately to highly dependent on nature) and in their companies’ long-term success — and the importance of understanding not only their impacts on the natural world but the risks to their business of not protecting critical biodiversity. A recent study finds that a collapse in key ecosystem services such as marine fisheries could result in annual economic losses of $2.7 trillion (2.3 percent of global GDP) by 2030.

As a keystone species in marine ecosystems, whales’ presence and activities have a disproportionately large impact on the health and functioning of the oceans — influencing everything from nutrient cycling to climate regulation. Failing to account for nature degradation exposes business interests to escalating material risks and jeopardizes future growth and revenue, regardless of industry.

The bottom line: Biodiversity risks are business risks.

Space-sharing solutions

The good news is that — as with easements, traffic signs, and wildlife passes — there are viable solutions reducing the threats large ships pose to whales: Vessel Speed Reduction (VSR), Areas to be Avoided (ATBAs) and **rerouting shipping lanes** have been implemented all over the world and are increasingly being introduced within critical ocean habitats to significantly reduce fatal strike risk, as well as underwater radiated noise (whales rely on sound to feed and communicate; in many areas of the ocean, human-induced noise can overwhelm their capacity to do so).

Moreover, many of the world’s largest shipping companies are already engaged in programs designed to reduce fatal ship strike risk as well as ocean-radiated noise and air pollutants.

Several efforts exist to reduce shipping impacts on endangered whales around the world. US-related initiatives include:

Pacific Northwest: Quiet Sound encourages reduced speeds to protect the critically endangered Southern Resident Killer Whale in the Salish Sea from noise pollution.
East Coast: Mandatory speed-restriction measures exist off the East Coast in Seasonal Management Areas to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.
California: Blue Whales and Blue Skies (my team!) incentivizes shipping lines to cooperate with voluntary speed-reduction requests off the coast of California to help protect endangered fin, humpback, and blue whales; and each season awards participating shipping lines recognition based upon the percent of total distance traveled by all of their vessels through the VSR Zones at (whale safer) 10 knots or less.

Each of these programs demonstrate that it’s possible for shipping lines to prioritize operational efforts centered on protecting biodiversity in critical habitats. These programs also bring opportunities for brand leaders to grow awareness and demand for increased shipping line participation in whale-protection measures for even greater impact. Companies that rely on ocean freight for any part of their supply chain can prioritize working with shipping lines that have proven they are willing to be part of the solution — start by just asking shipping partners to relay information about their voluntary and mandatory compliance with applicable whale-protection measures for their transits.

It’s no surprise that a story of a broad group of concerned experts coming together to track and protect an endangered panther is so captivating that even young kids beg for a second viewing. Who wouldn’t want to join in helping create opportunities for critical wildlife to safely coexist with the vessels that keep our economy moving — on land and at sea?

Rebecca Tucker

Director of Corporate Engagement

Rebecca Tucker is Director of Corporate Engagement for the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation's Protecting Blue Whales and Blue Skies Program - engaging brands, logistics and freight forwarders, ports, tech and product companies that rely on maritime trade to advance supply chain practices that help protect marine biodiversity and air quality.

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Transportation