The headlines have moved on since we heard nature depletion would cause population displacement, global instability, supply chain collapse, nuclear tension and domestic terrorism threats. One expert in socio-ecological conditions and economic impact has more to say.
The language of intelligence assessments is deliberately measured. Terms like ‘highly likely’ and ‘realistic possibility’ carry specific weight in the UK government’s Joint Intelligence Committee lexicon.
So when a recent national security assessment states that ecosystem collapse poses ‘highly likely’ threats to UK prosperity and security, we should pay attention.
For the first time, the UK government has formally classified biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse as threats to national security. This is not another NGO white paper, but an assessment from the Joint Intelligence Committee, the body overseeing MI5 and MI6.
The Government initially blocked the report’s publication last autumn for being ‘too negative’, releasing only an abridged version following a freedom of information request. The full internal assessment warns of mass migration to Europe, nuclear tensions in Asia, and polarised politics straining UK infrastructure, scenarios the government deemed too alarming to share openly.
The implications of these findings for business are profound and immediate.
Every Critical Ecosystem Is on a Path to Collapse
The assessment’s most sobering finding is unequivocal. Every critical ecosystem globally is on a pathway to collapse. The government defines this as “an irreversible loss of function beyond repair”.
Wildlife populations have declined 73% since 1970. Freshwater species populations have plummeted 84% in the same period. The rate of extinction now runs tens to hundreds of times higher than the baseline average over the past 10 million years, suggesting a sixth mass extinction may be underway.
It is the ecosystems that underpin major food production and which regulate global climate, water, and weather patterns that matter most for UK security.
The Amazon rainforest, Congo rainforest, boreal forests, the Himalayas, and South East Asia’s coral reefs and mangroves are particularly significant.
Severe degradation or collapse of these ecosystems would lead to water insecurity, drastic reductions in crop yields, fisheries collapse, altered weather patterns, massive carbon release, the emergence of novel zoonotic diseases, and the loss of pharmaceutical resources.
The timelines are uncomfortably close. There is a realistic possibility that some ecosystems, such as coral reefs and boreal forests, will begin to collapse in less than five years.
What This Means For Business
For business, this crystallises into supply chain vulnerability. The UK currently cannot produce enough food to feed its population based on current diets and relies on imports for a substantial proportion of both food and fertiliser.
Without significant increases in supply chain resilience, the assessment warns it is unlikely the UK could maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food.
This creates immediate strategic imperatives. Companies that are dependent on agricultural commodities, forestry products, marine resources, or stable weather patterns for operations face material risks.
Firms with supply chains traversing vulnerable regions such as Southeast Asia, the Amazon basin, boreal zones, and the Himalayas need to map exposure urgently. Those relying on just-in-time logistics or single-source suppliers in high-risk geographies face acute vulnerability.
Business can play a huge role in protecting national food security and derisking supply chains against ecosystem collapse. This translates into three immediate actions.
First, understand your exposure. Conduct rigorous supply chain mapping against the critical ecosystems identified in the assessment. Quantify dependencies on natural resources, agricultural inputs, and ecosystem services. Model scenarios for supply disruption across different collapse pathways and timelines.
Second, invest in resilience. Nature risk shows up as a procurement issue first. Mitigating it requires capital-intensive changes upstream: irrigation systems, soil restoration, grazing infrastructure, nutrient management, and landscape resilience.
These investments don’t happen on short contracts with thin margins. Businesses need to be serious about moving toward asset-based capital investment, to ensure longer, bankable offtake contracts, price and volume certainty, co-investment and risk-sharing, and procurement structures that allow suppliers to borrow and build.
Third, engage with the Government to strengthen national resilience. This means lobbying for stronger ecosystem protection policies, supporting international conservation financing, and collaborating on food security planning. Individual corporate action alone cannot address systemic collapse. Coordinated public-private response is essential.
For years, nature conservation has been framed as a trade-off against economic growth. This report dismantles that framing entirely. It validates that ecosystem collapse threatens the foundational systems upon which all economic activity depends. This may sound alarmist, but the assessment is unequivocal in its conclusions.
The business case for action is existential. No company can succeed when global food systems fail, when supply chains fracture under resource competition, when extreme weather becomes the norm, or when geopolitical instability erupts over water and agricultural land. When our intelligence services warn of threats to national prosperity and security, business leaders would be wise to respond with urgency.
The question now is whether we’ll act quickly enough. With some ecosystems potentially beginning to collapse within four years, the window for building resilience is closing. The companies that monitor this from the sidelines will watch their supply chains collapse in real time. Those taking action today are putting in place the protections and resilience needed to survive the coming decades, while strengthening global supply chain stability as these risks intensify.
Dr Michael Burgass is the Co-Founder and Director of Biodiversify, a consultancy using cutting edge science to understand complex social and ecological systems.
Top image: Julian Schneiderath / Unsplash
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