Why Is Wall Street So Hot for Biodiversity Right Now?
Finance is taking sudden interest in halting and reversing nature loss, moving to bring data and disclosures developed for climate into a murkier area.
A UN convention on biodiversity is looking to establish protection of 30% of the Earth’s land and ocean by 2030.
Photographer: Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images
As climate change moved higher on the Wall Street agenda, there had been fewer indications that financial giants took similar interest in the biodiversity crisis. Carbon dioxide is something that can be priced and traded. But how does finance value an insect?
That appears to be changing. Among the nearly 17,000 diplomats and environmental activists who registered for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity conference in Montreal this week, there are at least several hundred representatives from private-sector financial institutions and companies, including Bank of America, Citi, Aviva, BNP Paribas, Unilever and L’Occitane.