The Natural Value Initiative
A key barrier to minimizing private sector impacts on the environment is the failure of the financial markets to adequately value the environmental and social impacts of goods and services.
Despite a rapid growth in socially responsible investment in financial markets, environmental risk awareness within mainstream investment practices is lacking.
Fauna & Flora International and the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative are working with financial institutions, and business schools to raise awareness of the links between biodiversity, investment value and the finance sector.
The Natural Value Initiative aims to offer private sector companies ways to evaluate risks to biodiversity that are generated through their operations and support them as they strive to control those risks.
Food and beverage companies are especially dependent on the services provided by biodiversity. Their markets are closely linked to patterns of consumption - patterns that have shifted rapidly as a result of an increasingly informed and concerned public. A primary objective of the initiative will be to develop a tool for the finance sector that can be used to evaluate biodiversity and ecosystem services risks within food and beverage company investments.
The initiative reflects Fauna & Flora International’s approach to working with the private sector that aims to ensure that business activities are not undertaken at the expense of biodiversity.
Key outcomes include:
- Greater awareness within the finance sector of the business case for managing impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services.
- Greater awareness within the finance sector of the risks associated with mismanagement of resources.
- Understanding of best practice.
- Dissemination of case studies of best practice identifying emerging issues and outlining best practice approaches to addressing them.
- Improvement in performance of food and beverage companies through on-going engagement.
Fauna & Flora International recognizes that the finance industry is pivotal to the private sector's impact on biodiversity,” said Mark Rose, CEO of Fauna & Flora International. “Our experience with other industries has shown us the necessity for developing frameworks that enable industry to make decisions and reinforce the business case for biodiversity."
The Natural Value Initiative, which is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Environment, is currently focusing on companies with operations in the U.K. and in Brazil. As the initiative gathers momentum it will encompass companies that have their headquarters in China, South Africa and the U.S.
The initiative builds on methodology developed by Fauna & Flora International and the asset management company, Insight Investment that was used to assess the effectiveness of biodiversity risk management practices among extractive industry companies. The benchmark was carried out by Fauna & Flora International and Insight Investment who later used the findings to inform their investment decisions. Lessons from the benchmarking process also guided the development of the Natural Value Initiative.
Download further information about the Natural Value Initiative
To find out more about this initiative, please contact Annelisa Grigg at annelisa.grigg@fauna-flora.org or call +44 (0)1223 579732.
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