BEKESSY We have spoken today about the tension between monitoring and spending on action. This is the kind of question we can help solve.

For example, are entities best off using a budget to monitor or to act – and when does the balance shift? How do they deal with complexity versus the need to have measures in place? How do they deal with uncertainty? These are all questions where science and academia have a critical role.

Measures are critical and complex, but it is no excuse not to jump in – and the best actors are already doing so. The motivations and risks won’t disappear. In fact, they are likely to grow in importance as time goes on.

Collaboration is important, too. In this room are nongovernment organisations, universities, the business sector, First Nations groups and consultants. We can all work together in this space to drive approaches that meet the balance between reality and complexity in natural systems.

I’d love to hear the ambition we have heard today expressed wholeheartedly at the summit. The government needs to know that we are ready to act in this space.

GRAHAM My dream is that [minister for the environment and water] Tanya Plibersek announces that she has made a deal and is able to proceed with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act reform rapidly.

This would create important baseline regulation, providing clear national environmental standards and enabling nature-related disclosures, taxonomies and nature repair market activities to build on.

A comprehensive policy and regulatory enabling environment will stimulate and catalyse business and financial institutions to integrate nature-related risk into financial decision-making, and channel investment toward positive nature outcomes.

My expectation for the summit, is a lot of energy and action on cross-sectional partnerships for nature-positive outcomes that include organisations beyond the usual suspects and demonstrate strong support from business and finance for greater action on nature conservation and restoration. This would create a platform for much more ambitious action over the next few years, in Australia and globally.

GUNN A challenge to the group is that everyone here is in a leadership position with a huge opportunity to influence not just our own industries but society as a whole.

At the moment, many people don’t understand that we have a biodiversity crisis. Nor do they understand the impact this will have on their health and wellbeing, livelihoods, business systems, finance structures and, ultimately, our economy. Each of us has a responsibility through our networks to think about how we can influence understanding that will shift a whole-of-society relationship with and understanding of nature.

I’m excited about next week. What we will be trying to drive across the week is shifting the ‘nature next’ dialogue into a ‘nature now’ dialogue and showcasing how this can occur. Amplifying understanding of how nature underpins all these things will be really important in the first part of the week. In the second part of the week, we will try to show how it can be done.

LIDDINGTON Moving to outcomes from COP16, 22 countries have national biodiversity actions plans out of 180 countries that ratified the Global Biodiversity Framework. There are five years until 2030. We need to put our money where our mouth is and get action in place. Let’s not let perfect be the enemy of progress. Let’s get something tangible and scaleable out of it.

WILLIAMS It’s important to think about who has control of the ability to go fast and the urgency of the issue, and also to cautiously pull back sometimes and be a little respectful. We are not going to be able to solve this any time soon – one doesn’t ‘solve’ nature. The idea that we need to rush toward an end point or a goal can be a bit worrying.

One concern I have is, looking through programmes of speakers at upcoming conferences, it is the usual suspects. A whole range of organisations and businesses is still not prioritising biodiversity. Tapping into these audiences will be complicated, but it’s urgent.

MURPHY All the financial mechanisms we are talking about are untested, but we have a crisis on our hands. We can’t be completely focused on these mechanisms at this stage. We can’t let governments off the hook on funding, and we can’t turn our backs on traditional methods of funding conservation, like philanthropy.

We also need to look carefully at what is happening in the carbon sector and learn from its mistakes. Within the carbon sector, we saw the emergence of middle men in the form of profit-making companies taking away financial opportunities for communities and nature in regions. We must avoid this in emerging natural capital markets.

MAJOR As we go through this journey together, we need to move fast to have conversations but we don’t need to move fast to achieve results. We need to understand that the more we separate ourselves from nature, the more we can commodify this conversation.

In our space, starting projects and not letting perfect get in the way is key. Then we can create examples that other people will see and trust.

The perfect example is what is happening with Kilara Energy and the Nari Nari people with their renewable energy project. People thought this could never happen. But they just had to see one example in order to have a go.

PAVLOVIC In the corporate sustainability space, we can get so overloaded with data recording and disclosure requirements. Let’s learn from our carbon requirements, leverage off those and try and try to strive for nature guidance that is efficient and effective.

It’s important not to overthink the potential liabilities for businesses. We need to be brave about our journey and we also need to do more, rather than focus on perfection. This is where the real benefits, connections and value can come.