21 October 2011, 13.30 – 17.30 | Washington, D.C.
UNEP FI in collaboration with the WWF, the Equator Principles and BBOP (the Business and Biodiversity Offset Programme) are hosting a half-day training workshop on biodiversity and ecosystem service (BES) risks for lenders and investors – directly after the UNEP FI Global Roundtable. The workshop aims to raise awareness and build capacity at banks to identify and manage BES risks in project finance, corporate loans and investments.
Registration
Background
Over the past 20 years there has been a notable shift by bankers and investors to not only assess the pure financial aspects of loans and investments, but to increasingly account for environmental and social issues that are financially material as well. Looking at three defining environmental issues in the 21st century – global climate change, biodiversity loss, and water scarcity and availability – banks and investors need to be aware to addressing these different environmental issues requires specialized knowledge on each of these in terms of risks, available tools and impact. Biodiversity (in contrast to climate change) is relatively unexplored in terms of risk management. However, a number of drivers have started to emerge, such as increased pressure and activism by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), increased regulatory and liability regimes by governments willing to protect their ecosystems, increased scrutiny of supply chains for ecosystem-dependent sectors such as forestry and agriculture, that tend to interact and amplify each other leading to a greater relevance of biodiversity for the private sector. Financial institutions that are unaware of this issue may face unexpected risks in terms of reputation, credit risk or reduced shareholder value (see appendix on “Incentives for banks” for further details). In that sense biodiversity loss can be regarded, as the next challenge financial institutions have to deal with. To support financial institutions – UNEP FI Signatories in particular – to better understand if and how BES is material for their business operations, we organise this training workshop that has been developed by WWF, BBOP and the Equator Principles.
Target Audience
Banking & Investment:
- Credit analysts
- Risk managers
- Portfolio managers
- ESG experts
Contact
Ivo Mulder
biodiversity [at] unepfi.org