"Truly sustainable economic growth and development means recognizing that our long-term prosperity relies on rebalancing our demand of nature's goods and services with its capacity to supply them."

That was the conclusion of Partha Dasgupta in his report The Economics of Biodiversity, just released. The key findings are that the value of nature and the environment should be measured as a national asset, while the current focus on gross domestic product (GDP) as a measure of growth is damaging to resources and communities.

As if on cue, two of Europe's biggest energy companies, BP and Siemens, have announced losses and job cuts. Both firms are seeking to steer their long-term futures away from fossil fuels and towards greener alternatives, as demand falls and consumer habits change in the post-pandemic world.

One business that has boomed in lockdown, which may be with us for the longer term, is home food deliveries. Uber certainly hopes so, just having splashed out $1.1 billion on the alcohol on-demand app Drizly. 

Meanwhile, the frenzied share dealing by day traders on sites such as Robinhood seems to have cooled after a week of roller-coaster activity. Silver and hot favorite stocks including GameStop have slid in value on Tuesday.

And tweeting about the merits of Bitcoin may not be enough to take Elon Musk's mind off bigger problems at Tesla. The electric car giant is to recall almost 135,000 of its older Model S and Model X cars due to safety concerns, after a long-running investigation by U.S. regulators.

Read on for more of the day's business news.

Louise Greenwood

Digital business correspondent 

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A long-awaited UK report into sustainable growth has called for new ways to account for the needs of the natural world in economics and decision-making. 

The Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity recommends measures to improve food and energy sustainability, investing in biodiversity and ensuring natural capital is incorporated into budgetary and accounting systems. The 600-page review by the University of Cambridge is considered to be a first-of-its-kind assessment of the relationship between biodiversity and economics. 

It concludes that livelihoods and communities are being put at risk by the environmental impact of present tax and spending policies. The findings of Partha Dasgupta have received a cautious welcome from policymakers. 

Energy giant BP made an underlying loss of $5.7 billion last year after the COVID-19 pandemic led to a global collapse in oil and gas demand. That compares with a net profit of almost $10 billion for the previous year. BP was also forced into an asset writedown of $6.5 billion as the industry cuts back on oil price estimations over the longer term. The company last year cut its shareholder dividend for the first time since the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010.

Germany-based energy giant Siemens is shaving around a sixth of workers from its gas and power division. The company says 7,800 jobs will go by the end of 2025 as it refocuses away from fossil fuels towards green energy development. CEO Christian Bruch described the energy market as "significantly changing … which presents us with great challenges."

Uber is to buy the on-demand alcohol app Drizly for $1.1 billion, in a bet that demand for home food and drinks deliveries will continue post COVID-19. The purchase is Uber's biggest since July, when it bought the food delivery app Postmates in an all-stock $2.65 billion deal. Uber shares shot up by around 7 percent in the first minutes of market trading on Tuesday.

The price of bitcoin has surged again after billionaire Elon Musk said he was supporter of the cryptocurrency. Speaking on the exclusive social media platform Clubhouse, Musk commented that Bitcoin was "a good thing," sending its value back above $38,000. The Tesla boss also changed his biography on the Twitter social network to simply "#bitcoin". 

Meanwhile, Tesla is to recall about 135,000 of its flagship Model S and X vehicles in the U.S. after a long-running investigation into the safety of their touchscreens by regulators. A recall report has raised concerns that processors used in the screens may wear out ahead of time, leading to loss of vision in rear-view camera displays. Earlier this month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration informed Tesla that the failures constituted a design defect, which the firm is contesting.

The Google Android operating system will be installed in most Ford cars within two years under a new deal between its parent firm Alphabet and the U.S. car maker. Google will also work with Ford on projects to modernize its manufacturing processes and develop new platforms for car purchases. Last month, Google's main rival Apple was revealed to be in talks with Republic of Korea's car maker Hyundai on a possible partnership. 

Ford is also to invest $1.05 billion in its South African operations, expanding manufacturing capacity for its new Ranger pick-up truck. The finance deal, which is Ford's biggest investment so far in Africa, aims to increase capacity at the plant in Pretoria from 168,000 vehicles a year to more than 200,000. 

Google is to spend $3.8 million to settle allegations that it underpaid female staff and unfairly passed over women and Asian employees for recruitment and promotion, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The allegations date from a routine compliance audit required from Google's status as a tech supplier to the federal government. The penalty also includes a provision for $2.6 million in unpaid back pay.

Meanwhile, results for Google's cloud computing service Google Cloud will be revealed for the first time later on Tuesday, when parent Alphabet unveils its fourth-quarter figures. The service is expected to have benefited from surging lockdown demand from both corporate and consumer clients. 

Shares in GameStop have run out of steam in U.S. and European trading. Stock in the video gaming retailer, which has been at the forefront of an organized buying spree by activist investors, fell 30 percent on the Frankfurt exchange by Tuesday morning, after losing 23 percent in pre-market U.S. trade. 

The price of silver has also eased, down 4.5 percent in London by midday to $27.67 an ounce, after jumping 12 percent the previous day amid a frenzy of day trader backing.    

Robinhood, the trading app favored by some of the biggest online activist groups, has raised another $2.4 billion from backers, just days after a $1 billion funding injection. It comes amid concerns about the platform's ability to meet liquidity obligations to both customers and regulators as trading volumes reach unusually high levels. Last week, Robinhood temporarily limited activity on its site after U.S. regulator the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation increased its collateral requirements. 

Beer sales in Germany were down 5.5 percent last year, as lengthy closures of bars and restaurants dragged on sales. Overall, 8.7 billion liters was sold by brewers and distributors last year, according to the Federal Statistical Office. German beer sales have been in steady decline for years and are down more than a fifth since 1993. However, analysts say last year's drop, with sales down 17.3 percent in April alone, point to the COVID-19 impact. 

The Scotch whisky industry says a loss of exports to the U.S. has cost $683 million in sales, after the imposition of a 25 percent tariff last October. Scotch whisky was one of a range of EU exports targeted by the Trump administration in response to the bloc's subsidies of plane maker Airbus. Figures just out show exports of single malt Scotch to the U.S. have fallen by more than a third since the end of last year. 

The main landlord of London's Covent Garden cut its value by $547 million in the second half of last year, as lockdown conditions took their toll on retail and restaurants. Capital & Counties Properties says the capitalization of its estate, mostly in London's pricey West End, fell 13 percent overall to $2.4 billion in the six months to December.

Billionaire Richard Branson has added a further $1.8 billion to his wealth in the past two weeks as shares in his Virgin Galactic Holdings surged. An announcement on Monday that the venture would resume test flights of its rocket-powered spaceplane has boosted the first stock, which has already more than doubled this year.

WATCH: Have you ever seen the Sistine Chapel ceiling or Michelangelo's Last Judgment? The Vatican Museums have reopened after 88 days, the longest closure since World War II. 

China's first country-wide carbon emission trading scheme began this week after a decade of pilot projects. CGTN Europe spoke to Michael Mealing, the deputy director for the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, to discuss how global carbon trading has performed so far.  

There have been instances where carbon trading has allowed for some activities, especially in the early years that we'd rather forget and not think about any more, but I think those were a minority and, by and large, experience with 'cap and trade', even with carbon offsetting has showed that it does work and I think it's an important tool because businesses like it, they understand it and they can work with it. 

How significant is China's new carbon trading scheme?

Well, in one fell swoop, you could say it's creating the largest cap and trade system ever in existence, simply because the Chinese market is so large and even though it's limited to one sector, that alone makes it larger than the European Union's emissions trading system, which has been in place for 15 years and was previously the largest one. So that, I think, tells you a lot already on the scope and importance of this step. 

How does China's carbon emissions trading scheme differ? 

One big difference is that it's not the traditional cap and trade system with an absolute limit, but it's an intensity-based limit simply because China is growing faster. So it allows more breathing room for power generation... Essentially it's only limited to the power sector, [and] the EU's trading system is wider. It does include a lot of different industries in aviation that will probably follow in China over time.

China's timeline is 2060 for hitting net zero carbon emissions. What impact will this announcement have in reaching that goal? 

I think that the cap and trade or the emissions trading system will be a huge, huge pillar in the toolset that China has to achieve its 2060 targets, especially once it starts expanding beyond the power sector. 

And finally the impact of COVID-19 on household budgets across the EU during the slight easing of lockdown conditions at the end of last year has been revealed. Consumption was down 3.6 percent across member states as a whole, while savings rates were actually 4.5 percent higher on the year. But the figures also reveal big regional swings between the better and worst affected nations.