As the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, focus shifts to the negative impact our activities have on the environment and the growing threat that impact poses. How can financial investors generate biodiversity-positive economic activities? Two ICF experts in this area explore the challenge in their new white paper, Biodiversity and finance: The future of green capital in four trends. Yann Verstraeten is a senior consultant in our sustainable finance practice. He is an expert in economics and environmental science and management, and regularly helps both public and private organizations with low-carbon and biodiverse transitions. Jerome Kisielewicz is a managing consultant in sustainable finance and an ICF Climate Center senior fellow. He leads work in the field of European sustainable and positive impact finance, combining expertise in climate, renewable energy, and biodiversity finance.
Understand our impact and dependency on biodiversity
In the paper, Yann and Jerome argue that biodiversity is the key to the processes that govern the ecosystems that represent our capital goods. As such, humanity depends on the integrity of these processes.
In this context, we need to ensure that biodiversity is considered in our decision making. In order to make a positive impact, we need to better understand and measure our current impact and dependencies on biodiversity.
Yann and Jerome’s paper comes at a crucial moment. The planet is rapidly approaching a tipping point, and many experts argue that we have less than a decade to make the changes necessary. Pressure is growing from investors; many are increasingly aware of the challenges the planet faces and the role they can play through their investment choices.
All of this adds to the growing momentum around the importance of biodiversity. There is a huge opportunity, but what will it take for the financial sector to become more resilient and for biodiversity loss to be reversed?
Four emerging green capital trends
Yann and Jerome explain that four important trends will need to be adopted at scale:
Trend 1: Setting targets and commitments.
Trend 2: Measuring impacts.
Trend 3: Measuring dependencies and reporting risks.
Trend 4: Making pro-biodiversity investments.
These green capital trends focus respectively on the need for a global diversity framework, a standardized impact measurement, an improved understanding of risks and dependencies, and a positive investment in pro-biodiversity.
Yann and Jerome are confident that both public and private actors—supported by science—can help each other become nature positive by 2030. To do that, the financial sector must now adopt the key elements of these four trends quickly. Read more about the practical steps we need to take to achieve a nature-positive future by accessing the full white paper here,
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