🌱 This week in NatureTech #8

[4-minute read]

Author

NatureTech Memos
July 02, 2024

Happy Tuesday!

In today’s edition:

🌊 Wave of Investors spotlight on Nature

🌳 Funding to collect more deforestation data

💼 A whole new suite of NatureTech jobs

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🐘 Long Read (1-Min Read)

Investors with over $15 trillion in AUM action on nature risk

What happened: A group of more than 200 investors ($15 trillion assets under management) backed a plan to start talks with 60 companies over biodiversity, focusing on those active in countries with ecosystems at risk of forest loss and land degradation.

Driving the news:

  • The Initiative was launched by Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) - PRI is a UN-supported network with over 5,000 signatories representing over $121 trillion in assets under management as of 2023.

  • All of the companies are major players in the food and agriculture, mineral mining, automotive, chemicals or banking sectors, and either have a large exposure to nature loss or an influential role in engaging policymakers.

Who is involved:

  • The first 20 companies chosen for the investors’ attention are an eclectic bunch, including Toyota and other major carmakers; several Brazilian banks and two of the country’s biggest beef companies; Chinese cleantech businesses BYD and CATL; and consumer goods companies L’Oréal and Reckitt Benckiser.

  • The investors who have volunteered for leading roles are a mixed group, too. European investors such as Storebrand and Scottish Widows feature, as does Federated Hermes of the US and Japanese names like Sumitomo Mitsui and Nomura. Several Brazilian asset managers, including JGP and Neo Investimentos, are also playing leading roles — a key development given that country’s centrality to the deforestation challenge.

Why it matters for NatureTech:

  • Good for start-ups serving financial institutions to help manage the biodiversity risk of their portfolios (E.g Iceberg data labs)

This should turn up the heat on corporates to report and act on their nature related risks and dependencies (E.g. Natcap, Nala, Kuyua, Leeana) (Full story here)

💬 Snippets for your lift conversations

  • Finance: The Indigenous-led Great Bear Sea PFP initiative will bring $335 million to support indigenous-led marine conservation in the Northern Shelf Bioregion

  • Big business: An additional 96 organisations have pledged to adopt recommendations on nature-related financial disclosures within the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) framework, bringing the total to 416 adopters with over $6 trillion in market capitalisation.

  • Big business: Lidl has announced a five-year strategic partnership with WWF that will improve conservation and biodiversity across 31 countries, as part of a commitment to halve the environmental impact of its food products.

  • Big business: In the UK, The Homes for Nature commitment will see a bird-nesting brick or box installed for every new home built, as well as hedgehog highways created as standard on every new development taken through planning from September 2024. Twenty house builders, who build more than 90,000 homes a year, have signed up to the voluntary commitment.

  • Big business: The Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) has been called on by 69 organisations, who represent the Global South, to allow the use of carbon offsets, alleging that their view is being ignored "by the decision makers" in the Global North.

  • Policy: European Union lawmakers are split over whether to delay the bloc's upcoming ban on imports of goods linked to deforestation (Dec 30th) , adding pressure on Ursula von der Leyen as she seeks their backing for a second term as the European Commission's president.

  • Policy: Natural capital investor Gresham House has urged EU countries to use England's Biodiversity Net Gain legislation as a blueprint for implementing its recently approved Nature Restoration Law.

  • Amazing Nature: An extensive aerial survey in South Sudan has revealed an enormous migration of 6 million antelope – the largest migration of land mammals anywhere on Earth. It is more than double the size of the celebrated annual “great migration” between Tanzania and Kenya, which involves about 2 million wildebeest, zebra and gazelle.

  • Research: Protecting just 1.2% of the Earth’s surface for nature would be enough to prevent the extinction of the world’s most threatened species, according to a new study.

  • Research: England's statutory biodiversity metric enhances plant, but not bird nor butterfly, biodiversity according to new study

  • Celebs x Nature: David Beckham joins King Charles' Foundation as an ambassador for nature

  • Sport x Nature: Water pollution levels in Paris' River Seine remain much higher than allowed for bathing, data showed on Friday, one month before the Olympics in which the capital's landmark waterway is meant to be one of the swimming venues.

 🎣 Deals

  • German climate risk startup LiveEO closed a €25 million Series B round to expand sales internationally of its software that can assess companies' deforestation and climate infrastructure risks.

  • Two start-ups in our network our raising. Get in touch to hear more.

💭 Little Bytes

📊 Stat: The claws of a mantis shrimp can accelerate as quickly as a .22-caliber bullet. Scientists must keep them in thick plastic tanks because their punches can break glass.

📺️ Watch: Hi-Tech Nature: Nature-based solutions | Jim van Belzen | TEDxDenHelder

💼 Jobs

📩 Feel free to send us deals, announcements, or anything else at [email protected] . Have a great week ahead! 

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