“Becoming Nature Positive” is a documentary about the great choice of our time

“Ahead of a screening at LSE Marco Lambertini , executive director of the film and Convener of the Nature Positive Initiative, explains the critical choice humanity must make. Everyone has a role to play in becoming nature positive. But because so much environmental harm is embedded in how we produce and invest, businesses and investors hold particular responsibility and power. Our film Becoming Nature Positive , based on the book of the same name , will be shown at LSE on 6 May. The idea of “becoming nature positive” indicates a forward momentum; progress from a negative context towards a state of being that is increasingly sustainable, equitable, cleaner, fairer – and more positive. A future where our interaction with the natural world is one of prosperous symbiosis. For most of human history, survival was a gamble. Half of all children never reached puberty. Life expectancy hovered around 40. Poverty was the norm. Then, in the blink of an evolutionary eye, everything changed Over the past two centuries – and especially in the 70 years since the end of the second world war – humanity has engineered an extraordinary ascent. Child mortality has plunged from 40 per cent in 1900 to just 5 per cent today. Life expectancy has stretched to 70 years. The global population has tripled. Despite stubborn and unacceptable inequality, most people on Earth live better lives than their grandparents could have imagined. We can confidently say that there’s never been a better time for humans. This was the “great rise of humanity” fuelled by astonishing technological advances that improved the lives of many. But it came with a hidden cost – one we ignored, downplayed or conveniently overlooked: the “great decline of nature.” The same forces that drove humans’ great rise and the explosion of the neoliberal economic model – demographic growth, technological acceleration and surging consumption – also unleashed an unprecedented assault on the natural world. Since 1950 global GDP has grown from $9 trillion to over $100 trillion. In parallel, annual human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide have quadrupled , atmospheric concentrations have surged to levels unseen in more than ten million years. And global temperatures have climbed beyond 1.2°C above pre-industrial levels, frequently breaching the 1.5°C threshold or “danger zone”. Ocean acidity , global warming’s “evil twin,” has risen by 30 per cent. Meat production has increased nearly 700 per cent . Plastic production has soared from two million to 400 million tonnes a year. Our “great acceleration” of production and consumption has altered the planet We have cut and burned half the world’s trees , drained 80 per cent of wetlands and bleached half of all coral reefs . In just 50 years, wildlife populations have fallen by two-thirds. The most sobering statistic of all: humans and the livestock we raise for food now account for 95 per cent of the planet’s mammal biomass . Wild mammals – from elephants and deer to mice and rats, make up the remaining mere 5 per cent. A reverse picture of what must have been the ratio just a century or two ago. In half a century – a heartbeat in planetary time – we have altered more than two-thirds of Earth’s ecosystems and destabilised the global climate system itself. And yet, our dependence on nature has never changed. Nature underpins our food systems, our economies, our health and our survival. Still, we have treated her as an infinite, free input – resilient beyond limits, immune to collapse, absent from our balance sheets. We are now consuming resources faster than the planet can regenerate them, while simultaneously destroying the ecosystems that do the regenerating. The result is a world that is hotter, more polluted and increasingly empty of life. This is the defining paradox of our time. The “development paradox” is an economic model that generates prosperity by eroding its own foundations, the natural systems. A model that, sooner rather than later, is destined to fail. Yet, in all this there is a positive side. For the first time, we know what is happening. We are the most environmentally aware generation in history. Climate change and nature loss are no longer fringe concerns; they are recognised by an increasing number of people as economic, security and development risks. This growing awareness marks a “great awakening” – and within it lies the seed of transformation. That great transition has a name: a “nature positive” future But how do we get there – how to we “become” nature positive? “Nature positive” is not a slogan. It is both a vision – of a future with more nature, not less – and a measurable global goal: to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, a commitment adopted by nearly 200 nations in 2022. At its heart is a radical proposition and a deep cultural and systemic shift: human development does not have to depend on the destruction of nature. The path forward is clear. To stabilise and regenerate natural systems and derisk our future, we must protect what remains of the natural world and restore what we can of what we have damaged. Key economic sectors must shift from nature-negative to nature-positive practices. Above all, financial flows – public and private – must be redirected to support this transition. Everyone has a role to play: governments, cities, businesses and citizens alike. But because so much environmental harm is embedded in how we produce and invest, businesses and investors hold particular responsibility, and power. We are living in extraordinary times: times of paradox and peril, but also of choice and opportunity. And we have entered an era of consequences. The film Becoming Nature Positive , based on the book of the same name , published in 2025, is produced at a time when society is deeply confused and highly polarised, with resistance to change fuelled by powerful vested interest groups and their political executors. And a time when many people in the world are deeply concerned about the future. And rightly so. But the overall message of the film is one of action, possibility, change – and extraordinary opportunity. Our great chance to write the next page of humanity’s history. We are the generation holding the pen. The future can be bright. The choice is ours. The choice is clear. Join a screening of Becoming Nature Positive followed by panel discussion with Andrew Steer and Nicola Ranger of the London School of Economics and Marco Lambertini of Nature Positive Initiative, at the LSE Global School of Sustainability on Wednesday 6 May from 6pm – register here . This article gives the views of the author, not the position of LSE Business Review or the London School of Economics. You are agreeing with our comment policy when you leave a comment. The post “Becoming Nature Positive” is a documentary about the great choice of our time first appeared on LSE Business Review .

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