Mutually reinforcing crises
“The scale and rate of biodiversity and nature losses are significant threats to humanity as we depend on functioning ecosystems for food, clean water and air, sources for medicines, renewable raw materials and protection against natural disasters”, says Anna-Karin Modin-Edman, senior biodiversity specialist in Group Sustainability who represents Nordea in the working group. She adds:
“The two crises of biodiversity loss and climate change are closely intertwined and mutually reinforcing. The urgency in halting biodiversity losses requires collaboration within and across sectors, and financial institutions are identified as key in addressing the challenges. I’m excited to join forces with peers to develop guidance and fill the gap of actionable nature targets for banks.”
Guidance to be ready in the autumn
Similar to the development of joint standards for reducing greenhouse gases, sector level standards for biodiversity and nature have already started to take shape. Besides aligning with the objectives of the GBF, the working group will be building on existing UNEP FI PRB nature and biodiversity work, while also ensuring alignment with initiatives such as the Task Force on Nature related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), Science Based Targets for Nature (SBTN), Finance for Biodiversity Pledge (FBP) and other relevant frameworks.
The plan is to publish a guidance in October 2023, which will allow PRB banks that are interested in tackling the loss of biodiversity and nature to apply a holistic and systematic target setting. Nordea intends to further establish our strategic approach to biodiversity and nature-related impacts at group level during 2023. A biodiversity position statement including our ambitions going forward will be published in relation to that.