Links
Initiatives linking ecosystem services and investment value
Amigos da Terra
http://ef.amazonia.org.br/
Eco-Finanças (Eco-Finance) is a pioneer initiative and internationally recognized as one of the most innovative environmental finance programs. Developed since March 2000, it aims to assure that financial institutions minimize their adverse impacts on natural resources, stimulate sustainable development and take into consideration the communities affected by the activities they finance.
The Business and Biodiversity Offset Programme
http://www.forest-trends.org
The programme aims to show through a portfolio of pilot projects in a range of industry sectors, that biodiversity offsets can help achieve significantly more, better and more cost-effective conservation outcomes than normally occurs in infrastructure development. The BBOP partners also believe that demonstrating no net loss of biodiversity can help companies secure their license to operate and manage their costs and liabilities.
The Ecosecurisation R&D Programme
http://www.ecosecuritisation.com
Eco-Securitisation is an innovative approach to the financing of ‘natural infrastructure’ projects such as forestry, fisheries and water supply that links the long-term outlook associated with sustainable management of natural resources with the funding capacity and requirements of asset backed securitisation. The IFC, DFID, Enviromarkets and UK based NGO Forum for the Future are investigating the potential for such mechanisms.
Ecosystem Market place
http://ecosystemmarketplace.com
The Ecosystem Marketplace seeks to become the world's leading source of information on markets and payment schemes for ecosystem services; services such as water quality, carbon sequestration and biodiversity. It contains a range of valuable examples on the emerging markets for ecosystem services.
The Equator Principles
http://www.equator-principles.com/
Equator adopters undertake to apply the International Financial Corporation’s Performance Standards to certain types of project financing. These Standards require sponsors to “protect and conserve biodiversity and promote the sustainable management and use of natural resources through the adoption of practices that integrate conservation needs and development priorities” since 2003. The EPs provide a voluntary framework for addressing biodiversity and ecosystem services in project financing and advisory services and require project sponsors to assess a project’s impacts on biodiversity (including specifically, impacts to ecosystem services and natural habitats, the introduction of invasive alien species, sustainable use, and social impacts).
Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade
http://www.fastinternational.org/
An alliance of NGOs and investors which aims to promote the growth of long-term looking (sustainable) markets by addressing one of the key barriers to growth: finance. The initiative aims to overcome barriers between producers and finance.
The Global Reporting Initiative – food
processing sector supplement
http://www.globalreporting.org
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) aims to encourage consistency and quality of corporate environmental and social reporting through the production of stakeholder supported corporate reporting guidelines. The GRI is developing a Food Processing Sector Supplement. This will cover reporting indicators common to the general food processing sector including supply chain management of different types of products like agricultural crops, seafood, meat, poultry, beverages and ingredients, while similarly addressing more specific indicators by type of food.
United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative Workstream
on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
http://www.unepfi.org
The development of UNEP FI's work on biodiversity and ecosystem services comes in response to a request from the UNEP FI membership, and to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) CoP 8 decisions on private sector engagement which state that parties: "Invites businesses and relevant organizations and partnerships, such as the Finance Initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme, to develop and promote the business case for biodiversity……." The aim of the workstream is to “assist the financial services sector in addressing the challenges arising from the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services.”
World Resources Institute Corporate Ecosystem Services Review
http://www.wri.org
This aims to stimulate and support business action to reverse ecosystem degradation through the development and adoption of a corporate “ecosystem services review” methodology—an enterprise-level decision-support tool that can help corporate managers proactively identify specific business risks and opportunities arising from their company’s dependence and impact on ecosystems.
Investors working on biodiversity and ecosystem services
ANZ makes a specific policy commitment on biodiversity.
F&C Investments Biodiversity Programme
http://www.fandc.com
F&C aims to encourage all companies where biodiversity is a material risk to adopt a biodiversity policy and define and implement a process for managing biodiversity impacts. They have a specific focus on sustainable forestry and palm oil.
HSBC
http://www.hsbc.com
HSBC makes specific policy commitments on biodiversity within a forestry sector policy.
Goldman Sachs
http://www2.goldmansachs.com
Established and funded a Center for Environmental Markets to undertake independent research with partners in the academic and NGO community to explore/develop public policy options for establishing effective markets around climate change, biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services. Includes a three-year project to examine how to value forest ecosystems and analyze economic alternatives to cutting valuable rainforests.
Insight Investment Ecosystem Management
http://www.insightinvestment.com
Insight launched its ecosystem management programme in March 2003. Their focus has been on those companies with large direct biodiversity impacts. Their objective is to encourage those companies to manage and report their biodiversity risks and impacts according to a set of agreed best practice standards. To achieve this, they have:
- Developed, in consultation with companies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), a set of best-practice principles and standards for biodiversity management.
- Benchmarked companies’ performance and reporting against those standards.
- Published research on how companies might manage their biodiversity impacts through establishing offsets.
If you wish to submit details of your own initiative here, please email us at info@naturalvalueinitiative.org
