The Assessment’s launch comes at a critical juncture, underscoring the urgent need to reshape how businesses engage with biodiversity from both an ecological and gender justice perspective. The intersection of biodiversity and gender equality is not merely a side issue—it is central to ensuring that efforts to protect ecosystems do not reproduce or exacerbate existing inequalities. Transformative action is essential to dismantle systems of power that continue to exploit both nature and marginalized communities, particularly women. 

Furthermore, transformative action is an opportunity for women’s economic leadership and recognition of the essential role of women entrepreneurs at every level in protecting biodiversity. Women can and are leaders in the world of business establishment, growth and success, and this is a key opportunity for supporting them in their endeavours. 

One of the most pressing priorities is the integration of gender into business disclosure frameworks. Currently, corporate reporting often overlooks the gendered dimensions of environmental impacts, leaving women—who are disproportionately dependent on and responsible for natural resources—excluded from decision-making processes and impact measurements. By embedding gender-responsive indicators in corporate accountability structures, businesses can begin to recognise and address the unique risks to and contributions from women. This requires not just technical adjustments but a paradigm shift in how value is defined and measured, moving beyond profit-driven metrics to prioritize equity, sustainability, and visibilise fields dominated by women, such as care.

Equally important is ensuring that biodiversity finance does not shift risks onto communities, particularly those already vulnerable to displacement, land grabs, and exploitation. Market-based solutions such as carbon offsets or biodiversity credits often fail to account for the lived realities of Indigenous Peoples and rural women, who are often the (unrecognized) stewards of biodiversity and intergenerational knowledge. A gender-responsive approach demands that safeguards for land and resource rights be radically strengthened, centering the voices of those most affected by business operations. Without this, biodiversity finance risks reproducing colonial patterns of extraction and exclusion. Furthermore, women who are in business as small scale farmers need access to micro-finance and other business tools as well as support for decision making that enables local level implementation of the GBF.

The Assessment’s findings must also be a catalyst for rethinking corporate accountability. As governments and businesses work toward KM-GBF Target 15 implementation, they must integrate the IPBES insights into broader conversations about corporate responsibility. This includes aligning business policies with the Gender Plan of Action (GPA) under the CBD and ensuring that women’s organizations, grassroots movements and women business owners and entrepreneurs at all levels are fully included when shaping business policy and corporate accountability reforms. Dimensions such as the importance of participatory and community-driven approaches, recognizing that local knowledge, small women-owned businesses and care work are essential to sustainable biodiversity management, should be at the forefront of those processes.

Finally, the CBD Women’s Caucus, expresses a clear call to action for governments, businesses, and civil society to use the IPBES findings, inclusive of both the Summary for Policymakers and the assessment chapters, in the development and implementation of National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs). This is an opportunity to align biodiversity and business policies with transformative gender-responsiveness, ensuring that women’s rights and leadership are at the center of resource mobilization and private sector engagement. The path forward is not without challenges, but it is clear that the integration of gender justice into biodiversity policy and business practices is not optional—it is a necessity.