The Aligning Biodiversity Measures for Business collaboration has recently published a review paper on the drivers and current practice around business measurement, reporting and disclosure and the role of these approaches in future business disclosure for informing global policy targets.
Thirty years ago, UNDP created a new way to conceive and measure progress. Instead of using growth in GDP as the sole measure of development, we ranked the world’s countries by their human development: by whether people in each country have the freedom and opportunity to live the lives they value. The 2020 Human Development Report (HDR) doubles down on the belief that people’s agency and empowerment can bring about the action we need if we are to live in balance with the planet in a fairer world. It shows that we are at an unprecedented moment in history, in which human activity has become a dominant force shaping the planet. These impacts interact with existing inequalities, threatening significant development reversals. Nothing short of a great transformation – in how we live, work and cooperate – is needed to change the path we are on. The Report explores how to jumpstart that transformation.
The report “Birds and Biodiversity Targets” uses BirdLife’s extensive worldwide research to provide a road map to ensure the 2020s are not just another “lost decade for nature”. As well as outlining the shortfalls of each of the targets, this publication also brings a message of hope to the world, using bird conservation successes to show that solutions exist for the problems facing the biosphere, and that nature can recover swiftly when these are enacted.
Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are booming, synthetic ETFs are re-surfacing and semi-transparent ETFs have recently emerged – but their structures hide entrenched deforestation risk from investors. Planet Tracker identifies the key decision makers for each instrument in the growing ETF universe and calls for specific actions from index providers, ETF sponsors and investors to eliminate hidden deforestation risk in their holdings or indices. Conclusions shown in the report are based on the analysis carried out to 26 public companies involved in the production, processing and trade of soybeans and with links to deforestation. This report identifies USD 9.3 billion held by equity- based ETFs in these companies. The top 10 asset managers with underlying funds identified as investors in these ETFs include Bank of Montreal, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, UBS, Envestnet and Northwestern Mutual.
Financing Nature. Closing the Global Financing Gap of Biodiversity, report by Paulson Institute, The Nature Conservancy and Conrnell Atkinson Center on Sustainability, estimated financial flows into global biodiversity conservation in 2019 as between US$ 124 and US$ 143 billion. This represents a near-tripling in funding since 2012 but, to put it in context, spending on agricultural, forestry, and fisheries subsidies that degrade nature is at least two to four times greater. And that does not include subsidies for fossil fuels.
Strengthening synergies: How action to achieve post-2020 global biodiversity conservation targets can contribute to mitigating climate change The report, Strengthening synergies: How action to achieve post-2020 global biodiversity conservation targets can contribute to mitigating climate change, by UNEP-WCMC finds that conserving 30% of land in
The report, “Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: A business case for re/insurance”, by Switzerland reinsurance company Swiss Re reveals that over half (55%) of global GDP is dependent on biodiversity and ecosystem services. It also shows that in a fifth of all countries, ecosystems are in a fragile state for more than 30% of the entire country area.
This paper introduces a spectrum of business applications for biodiversity indicators. The process introduced is designed to help businesses seeking to integrate biodiversity into their business know where to start, by asking the right questions upfront and to seek out existing indicators that could help measure and track their biodiversity performance.
