FfB Foundation launches guide on engagement with companies during webinar

Members of the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation, together with the Finance@Biodiversity Community, have launched a guide on corporate engagement on biodiversity-related topics. The guide provides information and support for financial institutions on how to engage with companies on biodiversity topics. The ‘Finance for Biodiversity – Guide on engagement with companies’ was launched in a webinar on April 12 that was co-organised with the Finance@Biodiversity Community, UNEP FI and the PRI.

The Why, What and How of biodiversity engagement

On behalf of all six authors, Katarina Heissenberger (Swedbank Robur) and Claire Ahlborn (Robeco) presented the guide that offers guidance, information, and references related to several dimensions of biodiversity engagement. The guide covers questions such as: ‘How should one scope an engagement on biodiversity?’; ‘What sectors, value chains, or companies should one engage with?’; ‘What objectives and targets should be set?’; and ‘What topics have and have not been covered by collaborative engagements so far?’. It is written based on practitioner experience and enriched with case studies from financial institutions.

Overview of collaborative engagements on biodiversity

Annex 3 to the guide, the Collaborative Engagements Overview, provides a comprehensive overview of ongoing and past biodiversity-related collaborative engagements, including both collective engagements and joint investor letters. This overview points financial institutions to ongoing engagements that they can join, as well as directs them to information generated by past collaborative engagements. By providing quarterly updates, the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation wants to help financial institutions to navigate the ever-changing landscape of collaborative biodiversity engagements.

Engagement with companies as part of the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge

Financial institutions have an impact on global biodiversity levels largely through the companies they finance or invest in. Engaging with these companies is an important strategy to reverse biodiversity loss. This is why ‘engaging with companies’ is one of the five commitments outlined in the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge. This new guide serves as an annex to the ‘Engaging with companies’ section of the Pledge’s main Guidance Document. It was co-authored by six active members of the FfB Foundation and F@B Community that is part of the EU Business@Biodiversity Platform.

Nature Benchmark

During the second part of the webinar, Research Lead Timothée Pasqualini from the World Benchmarking Alliance provided an update on the Nature Benchmark. WBA is working on a methodology for benchmark assessments that will measure and track corporate performance towards a nature-positive future by measuring how companies are reducing their impact and even regenerating ecosystems. The indicators that will be used for this will cover governance and strategy, ecosystems and biodiversity (both pressures and state), and social aspects.

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