The deterioration of nature, and society’s response to it, creates systemic and material risks for financial institutions – risks that are still largely not understood. Nature and the ecosystem services it provides are essential inputs to businesses across the economy. Policy and social norms are expected to increasingly penalise actions that harm nature. Yet at the same time, business activity and the financial services that support it continue to degrade nature at an unprecedented rate. In its 2020 Global Risks report, the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse as one of the top five risks facing the world in terms of both likelihood and impact over the coming decade.
This report aims to accelerate systemic change in the financial sector to address this issue. It has three objectives:
The COVID-19 pandemic is likely an example of how the disturbance of ecosystems can have systemic consequences.