Growing momentum: tackling invasive alien species together

The threat from invasive alien species (IAS) is not in the distant future. It is a material, escalating business risk today. The IAS Collaborative Initiative was established to transform the shared risk of IAS into a shared opportunity. During the Initiative’s first phase, nearly 200 organisations have engaged in sector workshops and the State of Business Knowledge and Action on IAS survey.

This report brings together insights from this engagement into one of the clearest pictures to date of how businesses are encountering IAS, the actions they are taking, and what support is needed to accelerate progress.

Five key insights have emerged:

• IAS are recognised as a material risk, but company‑level ownership and assessment are lagging. 81% of companies think that IAS pose a critical or moderate material risk to businesses in general, but only 57% think it is a critical or moderate material issue for their own organisation.
• Most companies are taking action on IAS, but the type and scale of action vary widely across sectors. 86% of companies surveyed report taking at least one action to address IAS.
• Businesses are motivated to act. Companies reported risk management as the top motivator (66%), followed by biodiversity and net‑gain commitments (60%), and regulatory compliance and reputation motivations each chosen by 50% of those surveyed.
• The barriers are real but solvable. The biggest barriers to companies taking action on IAS are lack of data (53%), lack of awareness or understanding (50%), and cost constraints (41%).
• Collaboration is the key. While nearly half of companies already collaborate today (47%) on IAS, an overwhelming majority (89%) say they want to collaborate with others in future.