Work Streams

News

• Natural Capital Declaration open to signatures
  The Natural Capital Declaration is open for endorsement by CEOs of financial institutions - banks, institutional investors, asset managers and (re)insurers. Other parties, including governments, corporations, NGOs, and other civil society members, are can 'support' this declaration.
• New Report: UNEP FI and partners raise bar for biodiversity integration in financial products and services
  In a new push for the valuation of biodiversity into finance, UNEP FI and partners German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation and the Association for Environmental Management and Sustainability in Financial Institutions (VfU) launched a one-of-a-kind set of guiding principles in November.

Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services

Biodiversity - the wealth of genes, species, ecosystems and landscapes on Earth. Biodiversity provides businesses with a range of goods and services collectively termed ecosystem services – the common services delivered by healthy ecosystems which all sectors ultimately rely on - the provision of clean water, the maintenance of fertile soils, and the regulation of climate.

But our way of life is impacting dramatically on ecosystem services, recent evidence reveals the rapid loss of our natural assets and the degradation of the services they provide. For the private sector, these changes signal complex new challenges and opportunities. Operational, regulatory, and public risks will be matched by opportunities emerging from the development of new technologies, markets, and business models.

Under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, governments worldwide have recently stepped up their commitment to involve the private sector in developing appropriate regulatory frameworks to harness the power of markets to create innovative solutions to tackle biodiversity loss.

Our Work

UNEP FI's commitment to biodiversity and ecosystem services emerged partly as a response to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity 2006 (CBD) CoP 8’s decisions on private sector engagement which stated that parties "invite 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, to develop and promote the wider use of good practice guidelines, benchmarks, certification schemes and reporting guidelines and standards, in particular performance standards in line with the 2010 indicators, to share information on biodiversity status and trends, and to prepare and communicate to the Conference of the Parties any voluntary commitments that will contribute to the 2010 target."

Aim

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

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

• Environmental Risk in Sovereign Credit assessment: E-RISC
  This project aims to assess the financial materiality of ecological risks in the context of sovereign fixed income investments, and to develop a methodology to enable asset owners, investment managers, information providers and credit rating agencies to include these factors in their sovereign credit risk models.
• Natural Capital Declaration
  The giant steps achieved in science, technology and economy characterized the 20th century. While these achievements are celebrated as transformational for the capacity of mankind, the vital and significant contribution of our natural habitat as a key component in producing these successes and triumphs has so far not been widely recognized and duly valued. Yet, ecosystem services from our natural capital are the bases from which almost all economic activity flows. Our global economy and billions of livelihoods depend on various utilities such as climate balance, provision of water, food and energy and health security.
  However, in recent years there is greater recognition that our natural environment and the services it renders freely to the survival of mankind and the global economy, is not limitless. In fact its unabated depletion has severe negative consequences. The Natural Capital Declaration is a response from Financial Institutions to this realization. The initiative aims to explore ways to account for natural capital by appropriately valuing and integrating it into financial products and services as part of a roadmap towards a green global economy.
• Bloom or Bust Report & CEO Briefing
  This report and primer provide direction for financial institutions that wish to manage biodiversity and ecosystem service risks more effectively. They also illustrate how opportunities and tools for financial products and services can be developed.
• The Natural Value Initiative
  A toolkit enabling investors to evaluate biodiversity impacts and ecosystem services dependency within the food, beverage and tobacco (FBT) sectors. UNEP Finance Initiative, international environmental NGO Fauna & Flora International, and the Brazilian business school FGV collaborated on this initiative which aims to raise awareness of the links between biodiversity, investment value and the finance sector.
• Environmental & Social Responsibility Observatory
  An online database of real-world stories about how UNEP FI Signatories and other financial institutions are:
  • dealing with environmental and social risk in their lending and investment operations;
  • successfully managing to align financial and sustainability performance by channeling funds into activities that have a net positive impact on the environment, society and their own bottom line.
• The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity -- TEEB
  The TEEB study, the biodiversity equivalent of the 'Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change' will explore the economic significance of the global loss of biological diversity. In May 2008, an interim report of the study was presented at the 9th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn, Germany. The second phase, TEEB II has commenced and will continue until 2010.
• Forest Footprint Disclosure project
  The Forest Footprint Disclosure Project (FFD Project) is a new UK government-supported initiative, created to help investors identify how an organisation’s activities and supply chains contribute to tropical deforestation, and link this 'forest footprint' to their value.
• Biodiversity offsets, the mitigation hierarchy and conditions for credit: a review of the business case, loan conditions and current practice in financial institutions
  Many development and commercial banks have adopted performance standards or requirements which oblige clients to seek to avoid and minimise harm caused to biodiversity by development projects, and finally to compensate for residual impacts. UNEP Finance Initiative and the Business and Biodiversity Offsets Programme (BBOP) are undertaking a study to more systematically analyse current practice in the financial sector with respect to the mitigation hierarchy and biodiversity offsets.

Members

Associate Members

Chair

Richard Burrett, Earth Capital Partners

Contact

Ivo Mulder
biodiversity [at] unepfi.org