This overview was developed by international organisations including the European Commission, Business @ Biodiversity, United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI), and UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). It aims to accelerate the momentum for biodiversity finance by creating a comprehensive summary of current biodiversity-related initiatives that financial institutions can collaborate with or integrate into their own organisation. The initiatives featured in the overview apply to governments, businesses, public and private finance, and civil society to guide and support financial activities relating to biodiversity.

The seventeen initiatives can be categorised into five headings which appropriately outline their main purposes.

Collaboration and knowledge sharing

The overview’s main purpose is to share methodologies, metrics, data, and targets to build a reserve of knowledge for financial institutions to successfully capture positive-impact investment opportunities. In addition, learning from the drawbacks of certain methods or negative-impact activities strengthen the understanding of what is most effective or can be changed. The initiatives in this overview who focus on collaboration and sharing knowledge include:

• World Economic Forum: Biodiversity Finance Learning Coalition
• Business for Positive Biodiversity Club (B4B+ Club)
• Conservation Finance Alliance (CFA)
• Coalition for Private Investment in Conservation (CPIC)
• EU Finance@Biodiversity Community
• Finance for Biodiversity Initiative (F4B)
• Finance for Biodiversity Pledge (FfB)
• Partnership for Biodiversity Accounting Financials (PBAF)
• PRI

Corporate engagement

The overview is clear in highlighting the effectiveness of corporate engagement by promoting positive-impact activities and eliminating negative-impact activities in partnership with corporate bodies and financial institutions. The following initiatives are currently engaging with financial institutions to develop collaborative agendas to address biodiversity issues and strengthen industry participation in transitioning into nature-positive financial activities.

• University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL)
• Principles for Responsible Banking, Principles for Sustainable Insurance & Investment Leadership Platform (PRB, PSI & ILP)

Impact assessment

The overview recognises that assessing biodiversity-related impacts help financial institutions comprehend the significance of their actions on biodiversity and manage the impacts they inflict. The following tools are accessible to financial institutions to assess their impacts and dependencies:

• Aligning accounting approaches for nature (Align)
• Consortium for Biodiversity Footprint (CBF)
• ENCORE

Target setting

The overview features initiatives aiming to develop evidence-based target setting tools and plans based on scientific data. Using science as a guide to create targets reinforces its accuracy and effectiveness in addressing biodiversity-related issues. These initiatives are helpful for institutions seeking guides to assist them in allocating resources, managing their biodiversity-related risks, and defining effective targets. They include:

• UNDP Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN)
• Science Based Targets Network (SBTN)

Transparent reporting

The overview emphasises reporting and disclosing biodiversity-related risks with complete transparency regarding all positive and negative impacting activities. Global initiatives and organisations working to form new global standards in risk management and disclosure reporting for all financial institutions include:

• Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD)

Each initiative featured in this overview is accompanied by recent reports and publications to provide more information about the initiative. These resources can assist financial professionals in developing a case for promoting or understanding the nature of sustainable finance.

1. As this is a quarterly updated document, the information provided in this publication and summary may differ from the information provided by the most current publication. The overview was initially released on the 1st of April 2021. Updates can be found at: https://www.financeforbiodiversity.org/publications/
2. The initiatives featured in this overview address sustainable finance and biodiversity risk by showing the global collaborations working to incorporate biodiversity conservation into financial decisions. Overall, these initiatives represent a growing movement led by investors, financial institutions, and international organisations acting against biodiversity risks threatening the stability financial industry and nations around the world. This movement adds to the importance of sustainable finance and the biodiversity-related considerations it seeks to promote in financial decisions.
3. The overview features twelve global initiatives and three biodiversity-related tools in development across the global financial system in all levels of government, industry, and community divisions. All collaborations working to create frameworks, standards, and tools are unified by a single ambition to address and alleviate biodiversity risks and loss. Initiatives like the PRI represents 3000 institutional investors committed to responsible investment and biodiversity conservation. Overall, there is a growing theme among the initiatives calling for institutional participation and collaboration in biodiversity-related initiatives.
4. Many of the initiatives featured in the overview focus on collaboration and knowledge sharing. Clearly, disseminating knowledge and experience is vital for greater involvement and collaboration from other financial institutions. Initiatives such as the EU Finance@Biodiversity Community host platforms purely for these interactions and discussions. The CPIC collaboration of stakeholders performs a similar task by creating opportunities in sustainable activities that support investment return and biodiversity conservation. The CFA similarly represents an alliance of financial professionals promoting conservation finance by creating guides, best practices manuals, and hosting informative webinars. As a result, information and knowledge sharing is currently a major strategy among multiple international initiatives in promoting biodiversity conservation in finance.
5. Through this overview, effective communication liaises strategies and revisions of standards between financial institutions and the organisations who develop them. This is vital in assessing which strategies are practically effective, sharing new ESG information, tracking knowledge and engagement, and updating ESG database.
6. Each initiative is summarised according to their key activities, deliverables in 2021 to 2022, publications, and actions to date. To assist in this summary, the overview includes icons to denote six core topics in biodiversity finance. Using these indicators, the overview outlines the core topics each initiative addresses, and their activities and level of involvement in these topics. These include:
   • ESG engagement
   • Measurement and data
   • Target setting
   • Reporting and disclosure
   • Positive impact
   • Public policy advocacy
7. For further information regarding key topics, the featured initiatives, and other notable publications that support the contents of this overview, see the relating Guidance document. This document provides information regarding the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge and its five main commitments which include significant references to the contents of this overview and its twelve initiatives.
   
   https://www.financeforbiodiversity.org/publications/guidance-to-the-pledge/