For every £1 protecting nature, £30 is spent degrading it

One figure this week has stayed with us. A recent UN report found that for every pound spent globally on protecting nature, around £30 is spent on activities that damage it, an imbalance of 30 to 1. It would be easy to meet a figure like that with despair, but as one of the report's authors pointed out, the money to protect nature exists; the question is where it is being invested. That makes it a problem we can do something about.

For us, that figure is not an abstract statistic. It is the reason we do what we do, and it is why we have just published our own impact report, an honest account of our footprint and of the difference our work makes on the ground. If the problem is where money goes, then the answer begins with each of us looking honestly at our own, and choosing to move a little more of it to the side that helps nature recover. This is our attempt to do exactly that, and to show how your business can too.

Why measuring your business carbon footprint comes first

For a business, one of the most useful places to start is with something very straightforward: understanding your current impact.

This month we published our own impact report, including our carbon footprint across the standard Scope 1, 2 and 3 categories.

We have included the whole picture, rather than just the parts that are easiest to report. That means being honest about where our emissions come from, as well as recognising where we still have work to do.

We believe measuring your impact is an important first step because you need to know where you are starting from before you can decide what to change.

It doesn't need to be complicated. Our free business carbon calculator provides a simple way to get an initial estimate of your business carbon footprint. It asks for relatively little information and gives you a useful starting point.

Your first calculation may not be perfect, and you may not have all the information you need straight away. That's OK. The important thing is to start, identify the areas that have the greatest impact and then look at where you can make the most difference.

From footprint to action: reduce, then restore

Measuring your carbon footprint is only useful if it leads to action.

The first priority should be to reduce emissions wherever you can. Once you understand where your emissions come from, you can identify the areas where changes to your business practices could have the greatest effect.

There will inevitably be some emissions you cannot yet eliminate. Once you have reduced what you practically can, the next step is to offset what remains and contribute positively to the planet.

This is our primary work. We help businesses offset the carbon they cannot cut by funding new woodland on our nature reserves, whether as a measured tonnage on a subscription basis or one off, or through tree planting linked to your purchases and transactions.

We think there is particular value in making these commitments tangible. You can know where your investment is going, visit the land and, over the years, see the trees grow and the wider ecosystem develop.

For us, that connection is important. Supporting nature shouldn't just be an abstract figure in an annual report. It should be something you can understand, contribute to and, where possible, experience for yourself.

How your business can start

There isn't one single way for every business to support nature. The best starting point will depend on your business, what you are already doing and the resources you have available.

Here are some practical places to begin:

•     Understand your impact: read our impact report and use our free carbon calculator to establish your starting point.

•     Reduce what you can: use your carbon footprint to identify where your biggest opportunities for reducing emissions lie.

•     Restore and protect nature: explore corporate tree planting and other ways your business can support habitat restoration.

•     Support and offset somewhere you can visit: if you'd like to support a nature reserve near you, we can help you find the reserve nearest you.

You don't need to have everything worked out before you begin. Start by understanding your impact, take the practical steps you can, and then look at where you can do more. We are always happy to help businesses make sense of the options.

None of us can change a global 30 to 1 imbalance on our own, but businesses collectively have enormous influence over where money is invested and what kind of world that investment helps to create. Every pound we spend is a vote for the future we want, and businesses cast more of those votes than anyone. The opportunity is to move more of that money towards protecting and restoring nature, and to keep moving it in that direction.