In focus

Public Development Banks and Biodiversity

Public Development Banks have a unique opportunity to increase direct investments in nature and align with the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework by proactively mainstreaming biodiversity at strategic and political levels.

The Financial sector, including development finance, has a crucial role to play in supporting ambitions for the Post-2020 Framework – reducing harm to biodiversity through upstream planning and safeguards (‘greening finance’) and scaling up nature-positive investments (‘financing green’), especially through nature-based solutions.

This new report published by WWF-France summarises a TBC-led study that looked at how PDBs could support greening finance and financing green. It outlines five key actions PBDs can take to shift finance from potentially harmful activities to those which offer nature-positive outcomes – as well as outlining the policy, organisational and technical recommendations to make those actions a success.

Interviews with PDBs and subject experts formed a key part of the study and TBC thanks all those who made time to provide their insights and views.

Climate-resilient and Nature Positive:

Renewable energy is key for the transition to a low-carbon future, but even clean energy sources can have significant unintended impacts on the environment if not managed and mitigated appropriately.

The Biodiversity Consultancy has been working with IUCN to create a ready-made set of guidelines to help the renewables sector mitigate potential biodiversity impacts associated with solar and wind energy and lead the way to a climate-resilient and nature-positive world.

Launched today, these guidelines bring together leading practice and the latest case-studies from the industry and are the result of huge international collaborative effort with partners from the energy sector and leading conservation NGOs.

This is essential reading for developers and planners when considering renewable energy projects – https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/49283

Nature Positive

Those in the business and biodiversity world will not have failed to notice a new phrase appear on the scene in recent months. A phrase that seems to signal a shift in nature’s place on the business sustainability agenda — broadening the ‘E’ in ESG.

Nature Positive has made its mark on conversations, but how can we make sure this new mindset turns from thought to action and drives the meaningful, transformative change we need?

The ongoing nature crisis and a global pandemic with strong links to the destruction of habitats have put nature firmly in focus. This has come with the realisation for many that we need to go beyond the more traditional view of simply doing less harm to our natural environment, and look at how business and the private sector can make positive contributions to restoration and regeneration.

Although many companies are already making strides towards net gain and net positive outcomes for nature, here we lay out what Nature Positive means for businesses.

Biodiversity is a central pillar of business sustainability
To help businesses understand where biodiversity risks and opportunities are found, we’ve designed our online training modules to provide the essential guidance, knowledge and tools to identify impacts at a project-level or across value chains and to build corporate strategies that enable good biodiversity management practice.