Work Streams

Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services

Biodiversity, defined as the wealth of genes, species, ecosystems and landscapes on Earth, provides businesses with a range of goods and services collectively termed ecosystem services. All sectors ultimately rely on common services such as the provision of clean water, the maintenance of fertile soils, and the regulation of climate, all of which are delivered by healthy ecosystems. Yet businesses contribute to ecosystem change.

Recent evidence reveals the dramatic loss of our natural assets and the degradation of the services they provide. For the private sector, these changes implicate complex new challenges. Operational, regulatory, and public risks are matched by opportunities emerging from the development of new technologies, new markets, and new business models.

Under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, governments worldwide have recently stepped up their commitment to involve the private sector in the development of the appropriate enabling regulatory framework to harness the power of markets in designing and implementing innovative solutions to the issue of the loss of biodiversity. The recognition that human, economic and natural well-being are inextricably linked aligns the objectives of financial institutions and their stakeholders and provides a constructive framework for action.

UNEP FI's Work

Aim

To assist the financial services sector in addressing the challenges arising from the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services.

The development of UNEP FI's work on biodiversity and ecosystem services comes partly as a response to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) CoP 8 decisions on private sector engagement which states that parties: "Invites businesses and relevant organizations and partnerships, such as the Finance Initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme, to develop and promote the business case for biodiversity……."

Objectives

Driven by a range of financial institutions and other key partners, including international environmental NGO Fauna & Flora International, the Workstream objectives are the following:

• Raise awareness on the business implications of loss or degradation of ecosystems and the services they provide
• Strengthen the business case for action and provide the financial sector with information and analysis tools for adequate management of ecosystem services
• Open dialogue between financial institutions (both public and private) and policy makers for identifying and acting on areas where the framework conditions under which business operates can be better aligned with ecosystems stewardship

Projects

• NEW! – Bloom or Bust Report & CEO Briefing Bloom or Bust, a financial sector briefing on biodiversity & ecosystem services, analyses a wide array of financial linkages between banks and investors and various industry sectors by exploring the risks faced by financial institutions that as well as opportunities for financial products and services that support sustainable use of biodiversity & ecosystem services.
  • View the CEO Briefing
  • View the complete report
• The Natural Value Initiative
• Environmental & Social Responsibility Observatory (Coming Soon!)

Members

Associate Members

Chair

ABN AMRO

Events

• Second Workshop on the Natural Value Initiative, 3 September, 2007, Sao Paulo, Brazil
• First Workshop on the Natural Value Initiative, 8 August 2007, London
• First Workshop of Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services Work Stream, 5 April 2007, London
• Working session with a group of financial institutions co-convened with the World Resources Institute (WRI). 28 April 2006, New York, USA. Agenda - Background document - Presentation by Craig Hanson, WRI, on the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment
• UNEP FI recognized in the Convention on Biological Diversity decision on private sector engagement. CBD COP-8, March 2006, Curitiba, Brazil.
• Presentation at the seminar on private sector participation in the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity organized by the Brazilian Foundation for Sustainable Development (FBDS), 24 March 2006, Curitiba, Brazil.
• Panel event on finance and biodiversity "Protecting Shareholder and Natural Value", 21 March 2006, Curitiba, Brazil.

Contact

Susan Steinhagen
biodiversity@unepfi.org