Mobilising private finance for biodiversity

The world's major investors, banks and other financial institutions are taking note of the upcoming 26^th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to be held in November 2021, and they are committing to take actions in line with the Paris Agreement on Net Zero. At the same time, there is a growing concern among investors and financial institutions on emerging risks in their portfolios related to biodiversity. This may be because investors and financial institutions are becoming more aware of the important links, synergies and trade-offs between climate change and biodiversity; and the fact that human impacts on ecosystems, including the destruction of biodiversity, may play a role in the spillover of infectious disease like COVID-19. This issue brief discusses actions which governments and investors could take to encourage companies to increase the allocation of funds to biodiversity conservation.