Nature & Environment

Our fourth meeting for 2022 included presentations by Ben Jobson, Programme Officer at Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT), and Dr Amanda Irwin, Head of ESG Research, and Kate Bromley, Executive Director of Sustainable Finance, of FairSupply, on impact management and measurement within the supply chain, with particular focus on biodiversity and ESGs, and the role of investors.

Our third meeting for 2022 included a special presentation by Dr. Terri Janke, the first Indigenous co-chief author of Australia’s State of Environment Report 2021, and a presentation on “nature positive” in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, with Dr. Robin Mitchell, CEO and Co-Founder of Nature Positive.

Increasingly, and rapidly, financial institutions will need to respond to nature-related financial risks and opportunities; akin to the precedent set by climate change. Kilter Rural was established in 2004 to deliver profit with impact: investing at scale in natural capital assets of farmland, water, and ecosystems. Kilter Rural operates natural capital positive funds across water, farmlands, and ecosystem funds and has $310 million in funds under management. RIAA spoke to Kilter Rural’s CEO, Cullen Gunn about making nature-positive investments.

Today’s dire State of the Environment report should raise alarm bells to the Australian business and finance sectors, as the nation moves into further debt to nature, with deteriorating indicators across most measures. The health of Australia’s natural environment is becoming a material financial risk and proxy for the state of our economy, given the significant interdependencies between the two: from agricultural industries to resources, from tourism to property, right through to financing and insurance. The 2021 State of the Environment report shows the past five years have seen an alarming rise in threatened species, land clearing, extreme weather events, and destruction of Indigenous heritage, and that environmental decline is damaging human health and wellbeing. “For too long, nature has been relegated and seen as something out there beyond our cities, a place we visit only on holidays, or space that is preserved in our national parks,” said Estelle Parker, Executive Manager of Programs at the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA).

The Responsible Investment Association Australasia in partnership with the Guardians of the New Zealand Superfund was pleased to host a workshop on nature-related investment in Aotearoa.

The workshops covered: introduce the LEAP process, and provide a deep-dive into each element of the LEAP process (Locate, Evaluate, Assess, Prepare);

The workshops covered: dive deep into the impact of climate change on nature and look at nature’s capacity to deliver ecosystem services that mitigate climate change;

Our second meeting for 2022 included a presentation By Romy Zyngier, Senior Research Manger at ClimateWorks, on their research on the roles of Planetary Boundaries in Australia, plus an update on the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), a briefing from Aotearoa-based Nature Working Group members and updates from all of our subgroups.

The Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA) will convene the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures’ (TNFD) official Consultation Group for Australia and New Zealand, bringing together business, finance, public sector and civil society organisations to drive engagement in nature-related business and finance issues and the future adoption of the global TNFD framework. The TNFD was established in 2020 to develop and deliver an integrated risk management and disclosure framework for organisations to report and act on evolving nature-related risks, with the ultimate aim to support a shift in global financial flows away from nature-negative outcomes and toward nature-positive outcomes. Final recommendations from the Taskforce are due in September 2023. RIAA’s role will be to provide a central point to drive the consideration, input and uptake of TNFD in our markets, working with institutional members of the TNFD Forum. This will leverage the existing work RIAA is leading including through its very active Nature Working Group, and partnerships with the Australian Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment.

The workshops covered: definitions within the Framework; The climate and nature-nexus (including touching on the work of the Taskforce for Climate Related Financial Disclosures – TCFD);