Welcome to the International Year of Biodiversity. Biodiversity has been a Cinderella among environmental issues, with most business leaders assuming that the protection of species and genetic diversity is a matter for governments. But as evidence of biodiversity loss mounts and the sense of executive failure rises, the risk grows that business will be called to account.

Signals suggest that biodiversity is declining dramatically—average hard-coral cover in the Caribbean fell from 50 per cent to 10 per cent within the past three decades, and the spread of mangroves by 35 per cent over the last two. A survey of 3,000 wild species from 1970 to 2000 showed a fall of 40 per cent in average-species abundance, with 50 per cent reductions in inland water species and a 30 per cent decline for inland and marine species combined.

These figures mean that we humans are reducing biodiversity—and related forms of natural capital—at a speed 1,000 times greater than the background rates typical of the planet's past.

A poll of nearly 1,700 biodiversity experts by SustainAbility and GlobeScan showed 82 per cent agreeing that conservation was a top priority. But business on the whole does not appear to rank the issue as a key concern.

Of 50 leading organisations that reported on sustainability in 2006, we found only three mentioned biodiversity as a financially important topic. Johnson & Johnson is a notable exception, having committed to enhancing conservation across all of its facilities by 2010. The company has also worked with Harvard University to make the case for human health's dependence on the protection of species.

Meanwhile, an emerging breed of scientists, innovators, entrepreneurs and investors will drive new technologies, fresh business models and, most fundamentally, the latest market framework. Consider Craig Venter's trawling of the oceans to find new genes to create applications for hydrogen production and synthetic biology, which has already triggered a $600m (£369m) deal with ExxonMobil on algae biofuels. Anyone who thinks of biodiversity as a case of men in shorts with butterfly nets should think again.

John Elkington is co-founder of SustainAbility and Volans (www.volans.com)