Finance for Biodiversity Foundation

The Finance for Biodiversity Foundation aims to increase action in the finance sector to reduce biodiversity impacts. As part of this it hosts a pledge of 140 finance sector organisations that are calling for and commit to take ambitious action on biodiversity.

The current pledge signatories altogether influence EUR 19.7 trillion assets under management in 23 countries, and the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation is bringing them together to raise ambition on reducing impacts on biodiversity and actively works to expand the number of signatories.

Pledge signatories call on global leaders and commit to protecting and restoring biodiversity through their finance activities and investments by collaborating and sharing knowledge; engaging with companies; assessing impact; setting targets and reporting publicly on these before 2025.

The foundation runs several working groups to stimulate knowledge and collaborative action on biodiversity between financial institutions and has been an observer of the UN Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) since 2021.

Image: Freddie Marriage

Following the CBD’s Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in December 2022, the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation published a report with three other partners recommending three broad actions that investors can take to address risks and opportunities associated with the biodiversity crisis. These were to integrate biodiversity into investment decision-making; invest in innovative financial solutions to help mobilise the USD200bn/year needed to meet the GBF’s objectives; and disclose nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities, engaging with voluntary initiatives such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures.

The Synchronicity Portfolio is supporting Nature 100, a new initiative that the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation is hosting. This is in response to widespread support in the finance sector to produce a list of companies that have high impacts on biodiversity in key risk sectors, to enable finance sector organisations to engage with these companies to reduce impacts.

A pilot analysis published by the foundation showed the 10 sectors with the greatest biodiversity impacts. This found that the food, beverage, and tobacco sector has the highest potential impact on biodiversity of all identified sectors, followed by the materials sector and then energy.