HSBC Commercial Banking’s Post

The climate crisis is inseparable from the nature crisis. The upcoming IFRS’s International #Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) will release a global baseline for sustainability reporting in 2024. This is expected to include standards for #biodiversity and water. Demand for better business practices is coming from investors and the public, not just regulators. Businesses stand to gain real benefits from addressing their impacts and risks on nature loss that extend far beyond compliance. World Economic Forum has estimated that transforming food & agriculture, sustainable infrastructure and energy & extractives could deliver $10trn in global GDP and up to 395 million jobs by 2030. This article by EY's Alison Midgley, Khadija Ali, Alenka Turnsek and Douglas Johnston outlines 4 things businesses can do now to act on biodiversity. https://lnkd.in/eRJCGJtX

🍃 Nature: The 'silent stakeholder' in every business 🏢 But it won't be silent forever... 🏙 A lack of connection with nature is something you can forgive the general public for. In a place like the UK where we have seen huge decreases in biodiversity over generations, shifting baseline syndrome is real, and the dependency on 'nature' to get food in the fridge or water out the tap can seem distant. 🕴 But when that disconnect finds its way into huge global businesses whose continued existence is literally dependent on fully functioning ecosystems, the concern levels rise slightly further. 🌾 Even for those sectors where the connection seems obvious (agriculture for example), those dependencies seem to have been vastly underestimated. For many others, it is still barely on the radar. 📈 More than half (55%) of the world's gross domestic product (GDP) – equivalent to an estimated US $58 trillion – is moderately or highly dependent on nature...but the other 45% is also dependent on it too. 📊 For those more 'obvious' industries we are starting to see some scary stats and financial figures coming out which show the time to start acting was yesterday: ☕ "In the coffee sector alone, worth nearly $100bn, more than 60% of varieties are at risk of extinction due to deforestation, disease and climate change." 🤨 To anyone working in the nature sector, it might seem slightly crazy that we have to break these links down and we have to put financial figures against everything, but that is what is finally changing the narrative and why we are finally seeing nature on the business agenda. 😕 Impacts, risks, and dependencies on nature are really hard to quantify, but there are ways of doing it now (TNFD etc). But the first step is acknowledging that whatever the business, whatever the industry, there will be a link. 💬 Let's keep communicating these risks and dependencies loud and clear, in ways businesses can clearly understand. Putting an adequate price against not just the ecosystem services provided by nature, but on the cost it takes for local communities to protect and restore it too. Nature has been a 'silent stakeholder' in all businesses since they came into existence, but that silence won't last forever.

Investors are intensifying their focus on biodiversity, expecting issuers to clearly define its material impact on their specific business models. Although climate change remains the top ESG issue among Canadian investors, biodiversity now comes in second being cited by 47% of respondents as top 3 ESG issue. Investors are in the learning stage on this topic, and by the responses received, many are trying to understand materiality related to issuers exposure and desire issuers help through disclosures. One thing is clear: 78% of investors have started or are learning how to integrate nature-related considerations into their investment decision-making processes and they need issuers to determine the materiality of biodiversity and nature-related issues specific to their business. Read the latest findings from 32 institutional investors here: https://lnkd.in/guPedFp  #ESG #Investing #Sustainability #Biodiversity

This is a fabulous article that speaks to the fundamentals of sustainability; Reversing harm to the world's environment, people and global economies, and the business case for change.

Corporate pledges to protect #nature are increasing, but they remain rare. Research by S&P Global Sustainable1 has found wide variations in commitments to protecting #biodiversity and ecosystem services. According to the S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA), no assessed industry has a majority of companies making nature-related commitments. #Benchmark your company's #sustainability performance. Learn how your company can participate in the CSA 2023: http://ow.ly/GBRJ50OEk4m Read the article: http://ow.ly/Gv4950OEk4l #ESG

Although they make up just 5% of the global population, Indigenous Peoples safeguard around 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity, as they reside in some of the most biodiversity-dense biomes in the world, such as the Amazon rainforest. A report published by the London School of Economics Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment (GRI LSE) noted 91% of the land managed by IPLCs is in ‘good’ or ‘fair’ ecological condition.  “It is increasingly being acknowledged [by investors] that the recognition and protection of Indigenous Peoples’ rights is one of the most effective ways of protecting nature,” says Kamil Zabielski. Experts also agree that investors and companies have much to learn from IPLCs on sustainable practices that can be adopted across a variety of sectors, including food and agriculture.  Read the full article by Emmy Hawker at ESG Investor https://lnkd.in/dyM6hC7q Storebrand Storebrand Asset Management Sverige Storebrand Fonder SPP Emine Isciel Tulia Machado-Helland Vemund Olsen