COP15 in Montreal: We call for ambitious international transparency standards to track biodiversity loss

Taking place on 7 to 19 December 2022 in Montreal, the UN Biodiversity Conference COP15 is a crucial moment for global decision-makers to ensure that governments, but in particular the financial sector and non-financial companies take responsibility in protecting and restoring nature.  

This is also the key message Climate & Company is taking to panel discussions and bilateral meetings at COP15: governments need to agree on ambitious international standards so that investments can be steered towards biodiversity conservation on a global scale. Using sustainable finance instruments such as mandatory disclosure will be key to protecting biodiversity and to halting deforestation. 

Climate & Company will call for the following deliverables at COP15: 

1 – We need to make disclosure on nature-related impacts along the entire value chain mandatory at the international level. Businesses contributing significantly to deforestation are a good place to start.

That is why Climate & Company calls on decision-makers at COP15 to adopt an ambitious “Target 15” that establishes a common international baseline for corporate transparency on biodiversity loss. Coherent disclosure rules that are aligned at the international level create a common language and a level playing field. They promote the transparency and comparability of corporate environmental performance needed to achieve the 2030 goals, while making it easier to conduct “sustainable business” and for financial institutions to invest across borders.  

In this endeavour, decision-makers at COP15 are able to draw on significant experience from Europe and are able to learn from its strengths and weaknesses, good and bad practice examples and insights from actual policy implementation on the ground.  Along with experience from other countries, frameworks such as sustainable finance taxonomies (such reference frameworks for sustainable investments are being developed around the world, and in the case of the EU Taxonomy Regulation explicitly includes biodiversity and ecosystems) or the Corporate Sustainable Reporting Directive (CSRD) and its draft biodiversity reporting standard, can serve as important benchmarks for the talks in Montreal.    

2 – We need to move from “recommendations” to “actions” when it comes to including biodiversity protection in national and regional taxonomies.

To achieve the global biodiversity targets, national and regional governments need to include “biodiversity protection” into their taxonomies, i.e. their regulatory classification systems to “measure” what economic activity is sustainable.  

Instead of creating new taxonomies, we call on decision-makers at COP15 to encourage countries to build on their existing taxonomies and to incorporate biodiversity protection in them, following the European Union, China, Colombia and Malaysia who have already successfully elaborated taxonomies that explicitly mention biodiversity protection, whereas others have taken steps forward to create norms and reporting obligations (such as Brazil, India, and Indonesia).  

3 – We cannot let a “lack of data” stop us from starting to disclose biodiversity loss.

We often hear the argument by regulators, companies and financial institutions that it is impossible to “measure” biodiversity in supply chains due to a lack of data. Our research shows that much progress has already been made to develop data tools that enable biodiversity disclosure. Even if knowledge gaps still need to be closed, the existing tools form a solid basis for companies and financial institutions to start establishing internal procedures to disclose biodiversity loss transparently.  

Regulators can support the process of data tool developments by making disclosure regulations mandatory. Therefore, governments should not only push for the adoption of “Target 15” at a global level, but for the urgent implementation of such target into national mandatory regulations. 

Climate & Company at COP15 in Montreal 

Climate & Company’s Managing Director and CEO Ingmar Juergens and International Policy Analyst Paula Pinto Zambrano can be reached for bilateral meetings and press enquiries at the following events at COP15 in Montreal: 

• Panel Debate “Walking the talk towards a Transformative GBF – Voices from civil society on issues at stake for a successful agreement”

with participation by Paula Pinto Zambrano, International Policy Analyst, Climate & Company
Wednesday 7 December 2022 at 6.15pm (Montreal time), Shilin Room (514B)
Watch the livestream here.
More information about the event here. 

• Panel Debate “When Finance Talks Nature – Creating synergies between nature-related taxonomies and scenario analysis for effective environmental policy-making” 

with participation by Ingmar Juergens, CEO and Co-founder of Climate & Company
Wednesday 14 December at 1.30pm (Montreal Time), Nature Conservancy Pavillion
Watch the livestream here.
Read the report “When Finance Talks Nature” by WWF France and Climate & Company here   

• Presentation “Mainstreaming Biodiversity Finance”

with participation by Paula Pinto Zambrano, International Policy Analyst, Climate & Company
Thursday 15 December 2022, 3.00pm (Montreal time), at UNCBD WC hub  

Press enquiries 

Ingmar Juergens, Managing Director and co-founder of Climate and Company, is available for on-record interviews and background briefings at COP15 in Montreal to interested, professional media outlets and journalists.  

Contact: Ingmar Juergens – Mobile: +49 175 2209356 – Email: ingmar[at]climateandcompany.org

Our latest publications 

A Next Step for Biodiversity Disclosure: Building on the GBF and Existing Tools and Measures (December 2022)  

Supply Chains in the Spotlight – The role of supply chain (disclosure) regulations (December 2022) 

Bridging sustainable finance and sustainable land use initiatives to reduce deforestation: An overview of EU and Brazilian legislation (November 2022) 

Background 

The sustainability transformation is not only about climate change, but also about biodiversity loss, land-use, forest and water protection, human rights and social justice. Climate & Company is Germany’s leading sustainable finance think tank who brings decision-makers together to make sustainable finance work for our planet and for our businesses. We provide evidence-based analysis and strategies on how to leverage sustainable finance to protect and restore biodiversity. Our work focuses on how to incorporate biodiversity risks and nature considerations into the heart of economic and financial decision-making.  

We work with researchers and data providers, financial institutions, non-financial businesses and policy-makers to facilitate the development of a common understanding about what is needed, what is already feasible now and which concrete steps can and shall be taken by everybody to create the best data and evidence based  sustainable finance and investment solutions. 

www.climateandcompany.org