Halting and reversing the ongoing loss and degradation of nature and its biodiversity are amongst the greatest challenges of our time. The current state of play is deeply worrying. The drivers of habitat destruction and biodiversity loss continue and we are not yet able to deploy capital into nature recovery at the scale or pace required, whether at global, national or subnational levels. Nor are we able to properly measure and manage nature-related risks in economic and financial decision-making. This needs to change incredibly quickly.

This session, organised in partnership with the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery at Oxford, focused on what we should be testing and scaling to shift capital flows. Speakers explored what needs to happen to create a global financial architecture able to fund and finance nature recovery, how financial regulation and supervision could drive transformations in financial practice, and innovations in measuring nature-related financial risks.

In this insightful panel moderated by Dr Ben Caldecott, Director, Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme, Lombard Odier Associate Professor, University of Oxford, you will hear from Nikki Mardas, Executive Director, Global Canopy, Dr Saskia de Vries, Head of Financial Stability, DNB, Zaneta Sedilekova, Biodiversity Risk Consultant, CCLI and Professor Nathalie Seddon, Professor of Biodiversity and Director, Nature-based Solutions Initiative, University of Oxford.

Our biodiversity risk consultant, Zaneta Sedilekova, addresses many aspects of biodiversity litigation, including the concept of biodiversity liability risk as a material financial risk, the main differences and similarities between climate and biodiversity litigation, and the impacts that biodiversity liability risk may have on the interpretation of directors’ duties and investors’ fiduciary duties.