EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE
SEMINAR SERIES

May 28, 2026
12:00 - 1:00 PM
Y2E2, Room 299

Benis Egoh, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
University of California, Irvine

“IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment: Gaps, actions and the role of the scientific community”

Abstract
The loss of biodiversity is one of the most serious threats to business and society. Yet many current economic systems are unsustainable and drive nature’s decline. Each year, up to $7.3 trillion in global financial flows support activities that drive biodiversity loss, while only $220 billion is spent on activities for nature restoration, conservation and sustainable use. The IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment (BBA) was commissioned as a methodological assessment to assess understanding of business’s dependency and impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. The report is out after approval by 150 governments in a recent plenary in Manchester UK. In this presentation, we will discuss the process of conducting the assessment, the key messages from the report and the gaps in methods and knowledge. Finally, we will show how the work carried out at Egoh’s Ecosystem Services Lab at UCI and Stanford’s Natural Capital Alliance is filling this gaps and what role the scientific community has to support businesses.

Biography
Dr Benis Egoh is an Associate Professor at the Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine (UCI). She holds a Master’s in Conservation Biology from the University of Cape Town and a PhD in Zoology from Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Before joining UCI, she worked for the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa as Principal Scientist and for the European Commission as Scientific Officer. Benis’ research is focused on assessing biodiversity and ecosystem services relevant for policy implementation. These include understanding the benefits of restoration and making explicit monetary value, working with smallholder farmers in Cameroon to make the oil palm sector sustainable, and using new tools (e.g. Big data and Machine Learning) in mapping and modeling ecosystem services. She is coordinating lead author (CLA) for IPBES’ Business and Biodiversity Assessment and was lead author for IPBES African Assessment. She is a member of the IUCN Task Force for Oils and Ecosystem Services Partnership. She was on Society for Conservation Board for 10years and on the exco for Ecosystem Services Partnership for 4 years. She was also on the board of the National Academies’ BEST. 

https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/egohlab/