26 June 2024: The Nature Positive Hub comes to London
Briefing Room 09.06.24
The Little (Urban) Owl, Richmond Park (UK). Copyright © Louis Guillot/TNC Photo Contest 2021
WRAPPING-UP:
+ Nature4Climate will be hosting the Nature Positive Hub at London Climate Action Week on 26 June. Business leaders, sustainability managers, asset owners, institutional investors, and nature tech or nature-based solution project developers will join.
+ The event will focus on discussing how deforestation-free finance, ‘nature tech’, carbon markets and investment in nature-based solutions need to come together to reconfigure the private sector’s relationship with our natural world.
+ The one-day immersion will feature panels of expert speakers, empowering roundtable discussions, and insightful keynotes from entities such as the TNFD, UNPRI, and Global Canopy, Federated Hermes, Generation Investment Management, AXA, Schroders , Aviva and many more.
It’s a well-established fact that the global economy depends on nature. Every business – to one degree or another – relies on nature to supply it with goods and services. This might be directly – such as soil and water for agriculture, or indirectly, as with asset managers that invest in banks lending to mining or construction companies.
We also know it’s impossible to tackle climate change without addressing nature loss. Just as climate change alters habitats and ecosystems, the destruction of nature – for example through deforestation and land degradation – contributes to climate change and intensifies its effects.
The bottom line is that no business can meet its net-zero targets, or even guarantee its medium- to long-term survival if it fails to address its impacts and dependencies on nature. Not acting on nature also means failing to benefit from revenue streams and investment opportunities associated with the transition to sustainable supply chains and nature-based solutions (NbS).
Yet, on balance, the relationship between business and nature is not a healthy one. Private finance flows that have a direct negative impact on nature stand at US$5 trillion, more than Germany’s GDP. This is 140 times greater than private investments into NbS that protect, manage, or restore natural ecosystems and address challenges like climate change, and food security.
With tropical primary forest loss running at almost 10 football fields per minute, it’s critical for those in the private sector to do what they can to ensure there is more nature in the world in 2030 than in 2020.
This means setting goals for reducing and eliminating nature risks and impacts and working toward a ‘nature-positive’ business model, one that enhances the nature on which we all depend.
But where to start with such a complex and multifaceted issue such as nature loss and recovery? Where should the private sector focus efforts to accelerate progress towards a net-zero, nature positive future? What are the most compelling business cases for nature? What key barriers stand in its way and how can these be overcome?
These are some of the key questions we will be addressing at the Nature Positive Hub at London Climate Action Week on 26 June, where we will focus on how the crucial ingredients of deforestation-free finance, ‘nature tech’, carbon markets and investment in nature-based solutions need to come together in order for business to reconfigure its relationship with our natural world.
Why these four focal areas?
First, we need finance to flow in the right direction. Without redirecting capital so it stops financing deforestation and nature destruction, and instead supports and benefits from the transition to a sustainable, nature positive economy, nothing in the real economy will shift at scale. At London Climate Action Week, we will bring together leaders from across the finance sector to share their success stories, learning points and address the challenges associated with engaging with supply chains to end deforestation.
Secondly, we need technology to help us measure, monitor and scale nature recovery. June 26th will see individuals from large corporates and their nature tech companies discuss and demonstrate how they are using nature tech to scale large ecosystem restoration, invest in quality nature-based carbon credits and ensure pre-regulatory environments such as the TNFD are a success.
Thirdly, we need financing for NbS to almost triple, increasing from US$200 billion to US$542 billion by 2030. With unprecedented client demand for investing in natural capital, and the sector fast becoming its own asset class, the event on 26th June will bring together a panel of speakers to discuss how they have successfully navigated internal hesitation to invest in NbS.
Fourthly, we are going to need carbon markets. They are not a silver bullet, nor are they without their challenges, but they have the potential to deliver a significant portion of the climate mitigation needed up to 2030, are available today, and have the potential to be rapidly scaled immediately. We need carbon markets to be as transparent, robust and reliable as possible, and the event on 26th will focus on how to overcome hesitation about investing in nature-based carbon credits.
These four focal points are set to play a key role as businesses and financial institutions begin to assess their nature-related impacts, dependencies and risks, shift business strategies, avoid and reduce nature-negative impacts, and restore and regenerate nature.
The Nature Positive Hub on 26th June will dive as wide and deep as is possible in a single day into these four themes, with panels of expert speakers, empowering table discussions and insightful keynotes from the likes of the TNFD, UNPRI, Global Canopy, Federated Hermes, Generation Investment Management, AXA, Schroders and Aviva.
The day will be informative, practical, and engaging, with emphasis on overcoming challenges, sharing solutions and demonstrating benefits.
If you are a corporate business leader, sustainability manager, asset owner, institutional investor, or a nature tech or nature-based solution project developer please find The Nature Positive Hub at London Climate Action Week online and register your interest in attending one or more of the discussions being hosted.
With tropical primary forest loss running at almost 10 football fields per minute, it’s critical for those in the private sector to do what they can to ensure there is more nature in the world in 2030 than in 2020.