Bees are vital to a healthy economy

Businesses are urged to better understand the massive impact that bees have on the economy.   

The role bees, and other pollinators, play in the food chain is so important that, in the UK alone, their services are worth around £691 million a year in terms of the value of the crops they pollinate. It would cost the UK at least £1.8 billion a year to employ people to do the work of these pollinators.

Bees do it for free.*

Bee decline is a financial risk for business and, as outlined in The National Pollinator Strategy, their rapidly reducing population will seriously damage the £100 billion food industry making foods, from almonds and vanilla and apples to squashes, more difficult and expensive to grow.

The role pollinators play is not well understood and is often taken for granted.

Climate North East Action Managing Director, Sharon Lashley, said: “Environmental impact, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability are important issues for everyone but especially for business. More than ever before, we need to recognise the importance of bees to our economy and to our lives. And we need to turn that into action to ensure they don’t just survive but thrive.

James Fearnley, of The BeeArc Project an exhibition and research centre that explore ways in which the honeybee can inspire the economic, social and cultural life, said: “The economic exploitation of the honeybees has brought them to the brink of destruction despite the fact that they support not just our economic life, but our social and cultural and spiritual lives. It is time to wake up to the wonder that is the honeybee.”

Sharon concluded: “We need to use knowledge, connections and collaboration to discover positive and proactive ways that businesses can improve the situation – to the benefit of their own commercial objectives and the economy as a whole.”

* https://friendsoftheearth.uk/bees/why-do-we-need-bees

The time for talking is over. Today we need to act.