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Unlocking trillions for nature: how private investment can drive a greener, prosperous future

In June, BBVA Colombia, the International Finance Corporation, and BID Invest launched the world’s first biodiversity bond securing $70 million for conservation and economic development. It is an initiative that could inspire similar instruments elsewhere that also attract investors seeking both environmental and financial gain. And governments, companies, and financial institutions gathering at the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Conference of the Parties (COP16) in Cali, Colombia, should strongly encourage this trend.

Impact in Action: Saving Lives in Remote Communities

As a young child, I went to a Montessori school where children engage in free play and choose how to spend their time. One of my earliest memories from there is of one day playing with a group of girls, and for whatever reason, deciding to exclude another girl from our play circle. I can still remember the look on her face. I didn’t realize the significance of that moment at the time, but so much of my motivation today comes from the belief that people should not be left out, especially when it comes to matters as critical as health and well-being.

How Global Exchanges Can Accelerate Company and Investor Action on Nature Risks and Opportunities

We live in a global economy that relies on nature. Whether or not we prosper in one depends on tackling the climate crisis and financing a global economy that works with nature rather than against it. Global exchanges have a critical role to play - by securing robust taxonomies, nature-related disclosures and transition plans that drive sustainable finance and the integration of nature in investor decision-making.

Invest in nature to build trust and unlock prosperity

As global leaders gather for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos under a rallying cry of ‘Rebuilding Trust’, David Bloch, WWF’s Director of Global Corporate Engagement, argues that delivering on global climate and nature goals is a business opportunity too important to ignore. In many countries, economic uncertainty, inequality, and anxiety about climate change, conflict and shortages have brought trust in government to an all-time low. For business, for now, reserves of this most precious of currencies appear to be robust - but they cannot be taken for granted. With trust comes expectation and responsibility, which makes doing nothing unwise, especially in the face of growing societal polarisation and division.

How to supercharge a net zero, nature-positive transition

We cannot limit global heating to 1.5°C nor protect people and communities vulnerable to climate impacts without investment in nature-based solutions. And with current global efforts to tackle climate change woefully inadequate, and COP28 our last chance to secure a 1.5°C future, governments and development banks must ignite private sector investment in nature. There are compelling reasons why they should do this through rapidly scaling blended finance - the strategic use of public finance to mobilize additional private investment.

Investment in nature must guide our work for a fairer, safer world

Realizing the promise of the SDGs — prosperity for all on a healthy planet — relies on sustaining healthy ecosystems and their services, and resourcing and empowering the people and communities best-placed to safeguard them. Earth Day is a moment to celebrate life in all its breathtaking diversity. It’s also a painful reminder that we are failing in our collective responsibility to live in harmony with nature.

Unlocking finance for nature must guide MDB reform

Eighteen months ago at COP26 in Glasgow, in the thick of the pandemic, ten leading multilateral development banks (MDBs) made a significant joint statement on nature, people and planet. Now is the time to deliver on these commitments — and to go further, by making unlocking and scaling finance for nature the raison d’être of long overdue MDB reforms. While there is broad consensus on the need for reform, shareholders at this week’s World Bank / IMF Spring Meetings have a clear opportunity to set its direction.

Four ways financial institutions can shape a nature-positive global economy

With a new landmark global agreement on nature directing governments to eliminate harmful subsidies, align financial flows with a nature-positive future, and require the private sector to disclose nature-related risks and opportunities, the smart money is on implementation and investment in nature. It may not be perfect but the long-anticipated Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) agreed last month finally recognises the urgent need to address the neglected side of the dual climate and nature crisis. As António Guterres put it recently in Davos, we must “stop our self-defeating war on nature”. The GBF’s goal of halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030 finally provides the world with a lodestar for action on nature akin to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target for limiting global warming. And its implementation at national and sectoral level will require companies, financial institutions, and investors to act.

Business Action for a Nature-Positive World: Welcome to the Future

Nature is the next big sustainability frontier for business and finance. Almost every sector is exposed to nature-related risks in some way – either through suffering disruption to supply chains, markets, and society caused by environmental degradation, or through causing nature loss directly and losing finance and customers as a consequence. Worldwide, the potential collapse of ecosystem services such as pollination and timber threatens an annual decline in global GDP by 2030. This makes protecting and investing in nature an economic as well as a moral imperative.

Why business and finance should prioritise a nature-positive Amazon

A living Amazon is vital for global stability, not least because of its role in storing carbon and regulating global climate. It is also an ecosystem in grave peril. If there’s one place on the planet where we should prioritise the pursuit of equitable, net-zero, nature-positive business, revive cooperation in a fragmented world, and deliver on global climate and nature goals, it’s the Amazon.

To deliver the global economy we need, we must invest in nature

As the world gathers in Sharm El-Sheikh to focus on implementing the Paris Agreement, and soon after in Montreal to agree a new Global Biodiversity Framework, world leaders must scale investment in nature-based solutions and forge a new narrative of hope. Make no mistake, nature is unraveling, and climate and ecosystem breakdown are upon us. WWF’s Living Planet Report 2022 sets out the science. Global wildlife populations have plummeted by 69% on average since 1970, and unless we limit global heating to 1.5°C, climate change is likely to become the dominant cause of nature loss.

Opinion: The right to a healthy environment for everyone, everywhere

In the midst of compound environmental, socioeconomic, and security crises, the United Nations General Assembly has the chance this month to make history — by recognizing the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. This would not only fill a longstanding gap in the international human rights framework but, around the world, trigger greater pursuit of environmental action that delivers real benefits for people and the planet, and lays the foundations for lasting peace and prosperity.

How rattan farmers in Borneo are saving the forest and orangutans

Today, only around half of Borneo’s original rainforest cover remains. Indigenous Dayak communities could hold the key to its survival, with traditional rattan production a lifeline for local people, the forest and wildlife. In Katingan District in Central Kalimantan, WWF and IKEA are working with them for people and planet. Into the wild - Reaching the Kamipang water catchments area is a proper jungle journey into the heart of the peat swamp forest. Its final leg relies on narrow two-person canoes whose small smoky motors fizz and pop, protesting their load as they grind through shallow peaty canals at midnight. Headtorch beams penetrate the black, startling frogs and water skaters, and then surrender to flickering low voltage light, smiling faces and a broad dry deck. “We chose this place because it’s some of the last remaining peat swamp forest in Central Kalimantan,” says Ibu Rosenda Chandra Kasih, WWF Programme Manager in Central Kalimantan. “It’s prime habitat for orangutans and a lot of other endangered wildlife.” Starting off as a field and community officer, Sendy, as she’s known to her team, is an indigenous Dayak and has worked with WWF in Central Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo for twenty years. The place is half a million hectares, recovering from historic illegal loggingv but its also home to around 6.000 orangutans.
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