The calls on IUCN to engage Business date back to the creation of the Union in 1948. IUCN members passed nearly 200 Resolutions relating to the private sector throughout the history of IUCN – on agriculture, tourism, mining, finance, among others. As a response:
- The Economics Unit was created within the Secretariat in 1997
- The Business & Biodiversity Initiative was created in 2000
- The Business & Biodiversity Programme was established in 2003
- IUCN's Strategy for Private Sector Engagement was issued in 2004
- IUCN's Operational Guidelines for Private Sector Engagement were produced in 2005
The priority is to engage business sectors in which change is most important and urgent, due to the scale of their negative impacts on the environment and social equity. These businesses are likely to fall in one of the following broad categories:
- Large 'footprint' industries (mining, oil and gas, construction, automotive and energy suppliers)
- Biodiversity dependent industries (hunting, wildlife trade, fishing, agriculture and forestry)
- Financial services (banking, insurance investment and other financial intermediaries)
- `Green' enterprises (organic farming, low-impact logging, renewable energy, nature-based tourism, ethical traders)
