This week, at the World Economic
Forum
in Davos, WWF launched its Biodiversity Risk Filter (BRF) to
help companies and financial institutions start to understand and make good on
their commitments to support biodiversity.
Last month at COP15, the world's governments adopted a Global Biodiversity
Framework
— something of a ‘Paris Agreement for
nature’
in which they’ve committed to act collectively to immediately halt and reverse
biodiversity loss by 2030. Business and financial institutions have a critical
role to play in this, delivering the investment and business models needed to
achieve the goals of the agreement. But many companies and investors are still
struggling to
understand
the impacts and dependencies of their activities on nature and this tool aims to
bridge that gap.
The BRF is a first-of-its-kind, free, online tool — available on the WWF Risk
Filter Suite platform along with the Water Risk
Filter
tool
— to help companies and financial institutions identify and mitigate
biodiversity-related risks across their operations, value chains — and
investments. Produced in collaboration with Climate &
Company, important methodological
guidance
demonstrates to users of the tool, particularly financial institutions, how the
Biodiversity Risk Filter can be applied to a portfolio of companies. This is
also illustrated by a case study on a
representative investor portfolio.
Our global economy and financial system are deeply embedded in nature. With
nature in crisis, companies and investors from all sectors are exposed to
biodiversity-related risks. According to the World Economic Forum, more than 50
percent of global
GDP
— or US$44 trillion — is highly or moderately dependent on nature and its
services.
Consumers increasingly savvy about sustainability claims
Join us to hear insights from brands including Applegate on marketing lessons from consumer response to sustainability claims on CPG packaging, at SB'24 San Diego — October 14-17.
In December 2022, more than 330 business and financial institutions from 52
countries with combined revenues of more than $1.5 trillion urged world leaders
to adopt mandatory requirements for all large businesses and financial
institutions to assess and disclose their impacts and dependencies on
biodiversity by 2030 — and some have already begun to put their money where
their mouths
are.
However, understanding biodiversity-related risks and opportunities along the
value chain and across different locations — using a defensible, science-based
approach — remains one of the most challenging tasks for companies and financial
institutions striving to develop nature-positive business models.
New tools have emerged to address this need — such as NatureMetrics’ new
nature-performance monitoring
service
— but WWF’s Biodiversity Risk Filter is the first free offering.
“Increasingly, companies and financial institutions recognize the business case
for tackling biodiversity loss; but many simply do not know where to start.
Understanding biodiversity-related business risks is the first step towards
being able to tackle them and a prerequisite to setting relevant biodiversity
targets — something many companies are likely to look at during this year,
following the adoption of the Global Biodiversity Framework. This tool helps
them to map and assess biodiversity-related risks, enabling them to prioritize
investments in areas that will make the most impact in mitigating their risks,”
says Rebekah Church, WWF’s Global
Biodiversity Stewardship Lead.
A spatially explicit tool prioritizing issues and locations from a nature and
business perspective, the Biodiversity Risk Filter can assess
biodiversity-related risk for all industries and in all countries. It breaks
down complex biodiversity information and gives businesses practical,
decision-useful information in a visually comprehensible way. At the basis of
the BRF are over 50 biodiversity-relevant data layers that collectively provide
a global, holistic picture of nature-related risk. As such, it includes
information on species and ecosystems and protected areas; as well as the
biggest pressures on biodiversity such as
deforestation,
habitat destruction,
pollution,
land use
change
for agriculture etc. The data has been provided by WWF, IBAT, IUCN,
UNEP-WCMC, ENCORE, RepRisk, FAO, the World Bank and
NASA, among many others. It is the first-ever platform that brings together
such a diverse range of data specifically for the purpose of analyzing
biodiversity-related risks to corporates and financial institutions.
The tool builds on the success of the long-standing WWF Water Risk Filter, both
of which can be accessed on the WWF Risk Filter
Suite. Both Risk Filter tools help the private sector
to develop sustainable business operations and investments and support alignment
of companies’ and financial institutions’ sustainability commitments and
engagements to global frameworks including the Taskforce on Nature-related
Financial Disclosures (TNFD), Science-Based Targets Network (SBTN)
and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs).
Get the latest insights, trends, and innovations to help position yourself at the forefront of sustainable business leadership—delivered straight to your inbox.
Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Jan 20, 2023 1pm EST / 10am PST / 6pm GMT / 7pm CET