The importance of intact ecosystems, biodiversity and their services for society is highly topical. After around thirty years of work on the scientific side to bring the concept of ecosystem services onto the political and social decision-making agenda, a new dynamic has recently emerged in the political and institutional framework. This essentially boils down to the inclusion of biodiversity and ecosystem services in national and business-related reporting systems, such as the EU Biodiversity Strategies 2020 and 2030, the UN SEEA-Ecosytem Accounting and the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. It is now time to give the scientific findings added value for society in the form of improved decision-making in the public and private sectors.
On the initiative of the current SELINA, BioMoD and ValuGaps projects and the Innovation Network Ecosystem Services Germany ESP-DE, the first workshop on "Transformation through cooperation: What makes knowledge transfer from ecosystem services, natural capital and biodiversity research a success?" took place at Leibniz Universität Hannover from 30 January to 31 January 2024. Almost 30 participants from the science, policy, non-governmental organisations and business met to better coordinate their activities and create synergies between the various initiatives for the application of ecosystem services and biodiversity research outcomes in Germany. PhyGeo was represented by Benjamin Burkhard, Sabine Lange, Joana Seguin, Emily Bank, Nadja Kabisch and Angie Faust. Further regular meetings of the network are planned for the future.
