Q & A with Stephanie Paquin-Jaloux #theABSweALLneed

Can you describe the mission and vision of Firmenich?

Firmenich is one of the top four companies in the global flavours and fragrance industry with its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. We've been working on sustainable development since 1991, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals are today embedded across our business.

Our Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) strategy follows a “business for good” philosophy and encompasses three main pillars: acting on climate, embracing nature, and caring for people. We seek to minimize negative impacts and to generate positive impacts -- for example, by delivering products that support wellness or wellbeing. Through the Taste & Beyond division of our business, we want to promote diet transformation aimed at increasing alternative plant-based protein consumption and better nutrition as well as reducing our carbon footprint. On the perfumery side we aim to contribute to our consumers well-being and wellness by creating positive emotional and sensory experiences. We also aim to become the global leader in renewable ingredients with 70% of our overall perfumery portfolio made from renewable or upcycled content

See here access to our ESG annual reports in which we share our progress: https://www.firmenich.com/company/about-us/policies-position-statements

How did you first hear about the Nagoya Protocol? How did Firmenich become aware of the of the Protocol?

I was aware of ABS and the Nagoya Protocol before it had been adopted, through my previous work with UEBT prior to 2010. UEBT was very engaged in the negotiation process to develop a framework capable of delivering the third objective of the Convention and building on the Bonn Guidelines. Through UEBT, I was already aware of the Protocol’s potential to contribute to all the objectives of the CBD, as well as understand some of the opportunities and challenges that its implementation would bring.

At Firmenich, we started to engage on the Protocol in 2014 through our research and development (R&D) and innovation teams and our company's due diligence process. At first, we were monitoring the impact in the EU and Switzerland but, since 2017, we have monitored and tracked the Nagoya Protocol's progress and implementation closely, to ensure that all our businesses in the different regions of the world are aware of the ABS regulations and frameworks in the countries where we access genetic resources..

Please find here our Public Statement on Biodiversity, where we detail how we embed Biodiversity into our Business and R&D processes.

How and why did Firmenich integrate access and benefit sharing (ABS) into its business model?

Well, our innovation pipeline has been inspired by nature since the very beginning and therefore biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of natural resources are very important for us.

Across the board, as part of our ESG strategy, we have been integrating regulatory requirements in our operations, value chains and/or biodiversity-based innovations. This includes compliance with the Nagoya Protocol and with national ABS regulations, when applicable.

In order to implement this internally we established a Biodiversity Steering Committee in 2017 and took the following actions:

• Implement a system of due diligence that systematically monitors and ensures our activities comply with applicable ABS requirements.
• Take measures to secure ABS permits and negotiate the fair and equitable sharing of benefits with communities for relevant projects.
• Contribute to developing and executing best practices on ABS

Doing this has allowed us to be the first company in the world to have achieved third-party verification of our ABS due diligence system.

How would you describe the impact of Firmenich’s ABS related policies?

For example, one of the major changes we made was to ensure our onboarding process includes ABS awareness and capacity-building, and provides a strong understanding of ABS concepts, policies, and procedure for all our colleagues in the R&D and innovation teams. We ensure our teams have tools to get answers quickly related to legal certainty and their work on a specific natural resource and, if applicable, how to properly go about obtaining it. This approach has had a positive impact on the fluidity of the processes, it really helps when everyone has the same level of understanding.

How do you see the impact of the policies changing over time

Since we have started implementing our ABS policies, we have continued to see a high vitality of our innovation pipeline around natural resources. Our strong ABS due diligence system offers enough flexibility to help guarantee what will come out of years of research. Often our projects can take several years of research, so it will take time to fully evaluate the impact of these policies. However, we do release, on a yearly basis, the number of permits we are granted

In your experience, what have been some of the key challenges related to the implementation of the Protocol?

The Protocol is not perfect. Some people might find it too broad, and others might find it’s not ambitious enough, and so on, but one thing we have found is that the Protocol itself is very useful as a set of guiding principles. Understanding the Protocol helps us to manage our expectations. By understanding national obligations, we can anticipate many of the key elements that may be requested of us. Even when a country's national implementation varies, at least we have a general understanding of the potential scope and processes to obtain prior informed consent process (PIC) and negotiate mutually agreed terms (MAT), and what may be recognized as monetary and non-monetary benefits.

Our main challenge regarding implementation at the national level has been that many regulations are not easy to navigate. I think a key message for provider countries is that businesses want to play the rules of the game. Rules are not a problem when they are clear and easy to apply. We are not necessarily looking to have the same rules in every country, because we understand that the local contexts vary and there is a need for specific regulations. But, whatever the case, these regulations need to be easily applicable. If not, they risk undermining social and economic development. For example, value chains can be created or be further developed but with cumbersome rules they may disappear entirely.

National ABS rules and processes also need to be consistently applied. It can be challenging when interpretation of a regulation depends too much on the personal views of the national authority, or when there is too much back-and-forth discussion for every single step of the process. To create value out of research it's important that regulations and processes are efficient and replicable, and come at a low cost. Some standardization and greater consistency may help users and providers avoid re-investing in new negotiations every time, which may be costly, unproductive, and unnecessary.

Another related challenge we are experiencing is, although we are a global organization, we don't necessarily have affiliates in each country where we request ABS permits. And in some countries the rules and processes related to access are very specific to the local context and may complicate effective or swift engagement and compliance by a foreign company. Compliance processes may need to consider more how foreign companies operate, in order to avoid ending up with requests from the local authority that are not manageable or acceptable for us and many other foreign companies.

I think a lot of these challenges can be addressed by tweaking and streamlining ABS rules and processes where appropriate. As well as greater capacity building to understand foreign companies, and a clearer vision of what may constitute fair & equitable benefit sharing.

We have also seen from the recent OEWG 3 discussions in Geneva under the ABS component of DSI that countries with biodiversity hotspots rightly want to ensure that they get benefits out of the valorization of DSI. But, in my opinion, if a country places too much bureaucracy, too many constraints, and sets excessively high ambition in terms of the valorization and benefit sharing, then users will just avoid dealing with that country. It’s very important to find the right balance because we have the Protocol, which aims at financing the CBD's objectives. ABS needs to work for everyone or else it will be a loss for everyone.

What effect did the COVID-19 pandemic have on Firmenich?

I would say that in some instances the pandemic facilitated access and in others made it more challenging. Some countries were able to acknowledge the unprecedented challenges brought on by the pandemic and be more flexible, engaging in online meetings and dialogue via email, which often worked out well.

On the other hand, for other countries where it may have been more difficult to adapt to working only online, that ended up causing delays and limiting us to in-person meetings. That then brought up the financial and logistical challenges related to travel during a pandemic.

We did find that creating strong “human” relationships online can be more difficult than with in-person meetings. For example, we recently developed a partnership with Mercantour National Park in France, and we really wanted to have more physical interaction. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic everything had to be online, and we could not welcome the National Park team at our location in southeastern France. Eventually we had the great opportunity to meet the team in our manufacturing site, to present them our processing facilities and show them how plants are extracted. This was very helpful to develop our on-going partnership with the Mercantour National Park.

Can you tell us more about the partnership with Mercantour National Park in France?

Yes, the partnership started when we ran some screening activities on plant species from the park. This work fell under the scope of the French biodiversity regulations and followed a two-step process. The first step is the declaration of research on a wild species. Completion of this step was very fast thanks to the French system being fully digitized and we also had some constructive support from the local authority.

In the second step, after obtaining the research permit, we then needed to inform the Competent National Authority (CNA) within six months of any updates, and we informed them on our progress and potential for commercialization. The CNA then contacted the Park to inform them about our work and soon after we started discussion with the Park on a potential collaboration. We then met regularly to agree on the benefit sharing agreements in terms of activities to finance, by how much, and the different roles and responsibilities of each party involved. Throughout this this process the CNA was present as an observer to help ensure that the process and agreement would be fair and equitable for the National Park.

It took us about six months to define all the different elements of our agreement and to get the approval, signature and then the validation of the signed document by the CNA. In the end it was still a lengthy process, but it went smoothly and our partnership became official in 2021.

What have been some of the benefits generated for both Firmenich and the Park?

Our agreement is based on the confirmed commercial opportunity of reconstituted scents, which triggers a defined envelope to support the activities of the Park. Thanks to the payment envelope we agreed for the first cycle of the contract, the park will get an investment and funds to run activities that they would not have been able to finance otherwise. The National Park is dependent on funds that they receive from donations or from regional firms, and this payment gives them more freedom to run activities. The agreement also helped the National Park conclude a mapping of the habitats. These habitats are described in the annex 1 of the Directive for “Habitats; Fauna; Flora” due to their importance at the European level and their vulnerability.

On our side, we managed to finalize our screening, which allowed us to reconstitute scents from volatiles captured in the wild around the living plants, without collecting the plant from its habitat. However, I think the real success of this project was the creation of the partnership. Not every business can partner with a National Park. It’s a very concrete project. This is an ongoing partnership, it’s only the start, and we hope that it will continue.

Do you have any interesting ABS experiences to share? If YES, please drop us line here: absch@cbd.int