Biodiversity & Sustainability
Explore how biodiversity shapes our health, economies, and ecosystems, and why it matters for better business and policy decisions.
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Course Description
Course Format: 7 Modules | Total Estimated Effort: 1.5 Hours
Biodiversity supports the food we grow, the medicines we depend on, the water our industries use, and the ecosystem services that support our economies. Yet biodiversity loss is often treated primarily as an environmental concern, making its importance to business strategy, supply chains, financial stability, and long-term value easy to overlook.
Biodiversity & Sustainability examines biodiversity from both a scientific and practical perspective. You will explore biodiversity across genetic, species, and ecosystem levels, examine the major drivers of biodiversity loss, and understand how ecosystem functions become the services and natural capital that support economic activity and human well-being.
Through current research, real-world cases, and practical frameworks, you will examine how organizations depend on and affect biodiversity. The course also explores biodiversity's role across pharmaceutical discovery, food production, soil health, freshwater supply, forests, wetlands, carbon storage, and climate regulation.
This course is ideal for:
- Sustainability, ESG, and risk professionals
- Corporate strategy, operations, procurement, and supply-chain leaders
- Investors and analysts assessing nature-related exposure and disclosure
- Policy and regulatory professionals
- Professionals preparing for emerging nature-related reporting requirements
- Anyone seeking a rigorous foundation in biodiversity, with no prior scientific training required
By the end of the course, you will have the scientific grounding and practical perspective to recognize where organizations depend on and affect biodiversity, translate those dependencies into risks, and evaluate nature-positive and nature-based approaches that can reduce risk while creating value.
Course Prerequisites
No prior scientific training or biodiversity experience is required.
This course provides learners with a rigorous foundation in biodiversity and its connections to business, policy, and decision-making.
What You Get
1-year access to your course
Revisit content anytime for 1 year from the date you enroll.
Earn a certificate
Earn a Columbia+ certificate upon completion.
Global network of peers
Connect with like-minded learners from around the world.
Expert-led instruction
Learn from Columbia faculty and industry practitioners.
What You Will Learn
This course provides a foundation in biodiversity across genetic, species, and ecosystem levels, including the major drivers of its decline.
You will examine how biodiversity supports ecosystem services, natural capital, economic activity, financial stability, and human well-being. You will also learn to assess nature-related impacts, dependencies, risks, and opportunities and evaluate nature-positive and nature-based solutions as business and policy options.
By the end of the course, you will be able to:
- Define biodiversity across genetic, species, and ecosystem levels, identify the five major drivers of biodiversity loss, and explain why diverse systems are more resilient.
- Explain how ecosystem functions become ecosystem services and natural capital that underpin economic activity, financial stability, and human well-being.
- Apply the framework of impacts, dependencies, risks, and opportunities to assess an organization's or industry's relationship with nature.
- Distinguish physical from transition risk in a biodiversity context and connect both to regulatory, market, litigation, and reputational exposure.
- Analyze biodiversity's role across medicine, food, soil, water, and carbon systems, and evaluate nature-positive and nature-based solutions as business and policy options.
- Module 1: What Is Biodiversity?
Build a foundation in biodiversity and examine the forces contributing to its decline.
- Genetic diversity, species richness, and ecosystem diversity
- Examples of genetic diversity and crop domestication
- Global biodiversity decline and major threats to biodiversity
- The relationship between biodiversity and climate action
- Module 2: Why Should We Care?
Explore the relationship between biodiversity, economic activity, financial stability, and organizational risk and opportunity.
- Biodiversity's contribution to the economy and business dependence on ecosystem services
- Biodiversity as a global risk
- Impacts, dependencies, risks, and opportunities
- Nature dependency across industries, including an automotive industry case study
- Biodiversity investment opportunities
- Module 3: Why Should We Care? Pharmaceuticals
Examine the relationship between biodiversity, ecosystem services, and pharmaceutical discovery.
- Medicines as ecosystem services
- Biodiversity and cancer treatment
- Medicines derived from nature
- Ozempic and biodiversity
- Deep-sea biodiversity and drug discovery
- Module 4: Why Should We Care? Food
Explore how ecological interactions and marine ecosystems contribute to food production.
- Ecosystem services for food production
- Bats and Pollination
- Ecological interactions and human nutrient intake
- Ocean warming, plankton decline, and marine ecosystems
- Coral bleaching, coral reef recovery, and marine protected areas
- Module 5: Why Should We Care? Soil
Examine the role biodiversity plays in soil systems, nutrient cycling, and carbon storage.
- Soil composition and soil biodiversity
- Biodiversity and soil carbon
- Mycorrhizal fungi
- Biodiversity and nutrient cycling
- Module 6: Why Should We Care? Water (and Carbon)
Explore connections among biodiversity, water use, forests, and carbon systems.
- Water-intensive industries, including food, clothing, and data centers
- Mining, cement production, and water use
- Vegetation and water regulation
- Amazon forest and watershed dynamics
- Deforestation, rainfall, and climate thresholds
- Forest carbon cycles and carbon sequestration
- Module 7: Why Should We Care? Wetlands
Examine wetland ecosystems and the services they provide.
- Ecosystem services of wetlands
- Wetland carbon storage
- The role of wetlands in reducing flood damage
- Species interactions and ecosystem services
Instructors
Dr. Jenna Lawrence is a biodiversity specialist. Her education and research experience have included work in the Peruvian Amazon, the Dominican Republic, Venice, Jordan, South Africa, Kenya, and Vietnam.
As a Columbia Climate School Lecturer, she is a faculty member in the Sustainable Development Undergraduate Program and the M.S. Program in Sustainability Management. She also co-directs the Nature-based Solutions Earth Network and holds an appointment at the American Museum of Natural History.
Dr. Lawrence previously served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Barnard College, New York University, City University of New York, and Sarah Lawrence College. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology at Columbia University and the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology.