Natural Capital Investments Conference

What are your plans for the 4th of March? Mark your agenda because Environmental Finance will hold its second annual Natural Capital Investment virtual conference. With growing environmental impacts, natural capital investments are becoming an essential matter in a context of increasing awareness among citizens and the finance sector, more investment opportunities and challenges.

During this conference, you will have the chance to network in groups, conext with industry leaders, and take part of different discussion on different subjects such as governance and legislative agenda, impact measurements, resilience of supply chains and much more!

MORE INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION

What will be discussed:

UNDERSTANDING NATURAL CAPITAL INVESTMENT

PANEL: Financial institutions’ exposure to nature-related risks

• What do investors look for when asset screening and assessing climate risk?
• What the challenges in risk integration with natural capital investments?
• How are risk assessments best undertaken?
• How are investors embedding natural capital and biodiversity into ESG assessments?
• Connecting finance and business to deliver shared objectives and reduce risk

Panellists: Richard Burrett, Chief Sustainability Officer, Earth Capital
Dawn Slevin, Managing Director, Environmental Liability Solutions Europe, Co-Chair, EFRAG Project Task Force on reporting of non-financial risks and opportunities and linkage to the business model
Katie Leach, Senior Programme Officer, Business and Biodiversity, UNEP-WCMC

PANEL: Scaling natural capital investments and building a market

• Examples of nature-based solutions and ecosystem services where investors see potential
• Establishing value in ecosystem services
• What can we learn from the success of other green investment opportunities when scaling natural capital investment?

Moderator: Alejandro Litovsky, Founder & CEO, Earth Security

Panellist: Matthew McLuckie, Managing Partner, Posaidon
Darius Sarshar, Investment Director, SLM Partners
Katherine Birnie, Managing Director, Ecosystem Investment

INVESTMENT STRATEGIES AND IMPACT MEASUREMENTS

INVESTOR PANEL: Unpicking metrics and materiality

• Valuing an asset and structuring returns
• Where are the opportunities for standardisation in approaches and metrics?
• Integrating natural capital accounting
• How are rating agencies incorporating natural capital risks into their ESG ratings?

Pannelist: Jim Totty, Managing Director, Viridis Capital
Aaron Pinnock, Impact Investment Analyst, Investment Division, Church Commissioners for England (subject to final confirmation)

PRESENTATION: Data deficiencies

• What information is needed to align portfolios with nature-based solutions or biodiversity targets?
• Where and how are investors sourcing data in this space?
• What investment tools support a natural capital investment strategy?

PANEL: Investing for impact

• Understanding natural capital impacts alongside social impacts and other forms of capital
• What impact strategies maximise environmental and biodiversity gains?
• How should projects measure and report impact in a way that is useful for investors?
• How can TCFD/TNFD disclosures be utilised when making decisions around impact?
• Natural capital accounting as an impact measurement approach

Panellist: Ece Özdemiroğlu, Founding Director, eftec
Wijnand Broer, Partner, CREM/Partnership Biodiversity Accounting Financials (PBAF)

FIRESIDE CHAT: Steve Waygood, Chief Responsible Investment Officer, Aviva Investors

POLICY MAKING AND THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENTS

PANEL: Blended finance

• Government incentives to enhance returns and reduce risk
• Case studies: did it work and what further questions were raised?
• What can be done to get such projects to scale?
• Are pooled funds and aggregating capital preferred to blended finance?

Pannelists: Ivo Mulder, Head, Climate Finance Unit, United Nations Environment Programme
Johnny Brom, Chief Investment Officer, Sail Ventures, Investment Advisor, &Green Fund
Bianca Nijhof, Managing Director, Netherlands Water Partnership
Fiona Stewart, Lead Financial Sector Specialist, The World Bank

AFTERNOON KEYNOTE: Task Force for Nature-related Financial Disclosures

Nicky Chambers, Programme and Impact Director, Global Canopy

PANEL: The global governance and legislative agenda

• What can governments do to collectively to protect nature within financial systems?
• Natural Capital considerations for the EU legislative agenda
• How might asset owners and investment managers be expected to report on biodiversity impacts?
• What can be expected to come out of the UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP 15) in Kunming in May 2021?
• How are central banks approaching the theme of biodiversity loss?

Panellists: Emma Howard Boyd, Chair, Environment Agency
Senior representative, Defra
Joris van Toor, Policy Advisor, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB)