Denmark’s AkademikerPension and a Dutch rail and public transport pension fund have signed up to the Finance for Biodiversity (FfB) Pledge, which now counts 153 signatories with combined assets of €21.4bn.
Deutsche Kreditbank, SEB Investment Management and Yapı ve Kredi Bankası are among the other new signatories, bringing banks to the initiative for the first time.
Pensioenfonds Rail & Openbaar Vervoer also became a member of the FfB Foundation. The Dutch pension fund’s move comes after it worked with the NGO WWF to investigate how it can contribute to combatting biodiversity loss and deal with the risks of biodiversity loss.
At AkademikerPension, investment director Anders Schelde, investment director, previously said that by signing the FfB Pledge, “we want to send a signal to global leaders to protect and restore biodiversity”.
The Danish pension fund has also joined Nature Action 100, an initiative that kicked off recently with 190 investors writing to companies to tell them to improve the management of biodiversity and natural resources.
Safeguarding biodiversity has become a growing concern in the investment industry over the past few years. In addition to Nature Action 100, there is also the Spring initiative from the Principles for Responsible Investment, a new collaborative stewardship initiative aiming to have investors contribute to the goal of halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030.
Meanwhile, the Taskforce on Nature Related Financial Disclosures last month launched its final recommendations for biodiversity-focussed disclosures.
The Finance for Biodiversity Pledge is a commitment of financial institutions to protect and restore biodiversity through their finance activities and investments. The pledge consists of five steps financial institutions commit to take:
- collaborating and sharing knowledge;
- engaging with companies;
- assessing impact;
- setting targets;
- reporting publicly on the above before 2025
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