Principles for Responsible Investment launches a review on the status of investor action on biodiversity - Global Balance

Globalbalance is delighted to have supported the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) to engage their signatories on the issue of biodiversity. The PRI’s discussion paper ‘Investor Action on Biodiversity’, looks at the business case for investor engagement on biodiversity, the current status of investor action on biodiversity and makes recommendations for scaling it up. It highlights physical, transition and systemic risks arising as a result of biodiversity loss that can significantly impact investors.

Although there is some action underway on biodiversity amongst the PRI’s membership, it is not widespread. Three key barriers to investor action were identified: lack of incentives, technical issues such as access to data and the lack of a broadly agreed metric on biodiversity and finally, the need to build capacity to understand and act on biodiversity risks and opportunities within the investment industry.

The report encourages investors to:

• allocate capital to sectors or business models which are avoiding and reducing biodiversity loss and increase opportunities for positive outcomes on the ground, including restoration
• engage investees on reducing negative biodiversity outcomes and design stewardship approaches to deliver positive biodiversity outcomes;
• engage policy makers on reforming incentives, including subsidies, to activities that drive biodiversity loss
• collaborate with peers and stakeholders to enhance nature-related financial disclosures

Building internal capacity and experimentation with new tools and measurement approaches to understand how investments shape biodiversity outcomes was also considered important. These actions are highlighted as fundamentally important to prevent further degradation to biodiversity and avoid mounting risks that this loss brings.

Download the full report