 Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. As a short introduction, I'm Jessica Chair, Managing Director of EcoBusiness, and I'm delighted to be your moderator. I'd like to first thank the World Economic Forum for the invitation to moderate this panel, which touches on an important topic that has been significantly undervalued. It's wonderful to see nature-based solutions being put on the agenda for one of the first sessions to kick off the Sustainable Development Impact Summit held alongside the United Nations General Assembly this week. This discussion today cannot be more timely. We are reaching irreversible tipping points for nature and the climate. The World Economic Forum report, Nature Risk Rising, found that over half of the global GDP, some 44 trillion US dollars, is threatened by nature loss as a result of the dependence on business on nature. And to quote one of my favorite documentaries, our planet, our business, there are no jobs on a dead planet. COVID-19 has exposed a critical link between human and planetary health. The exploitation of our natural world, including devastation, has created multiple significant challenges for society, not to mention the increasing frequency of pandemics as we have seen. But this global crisis now presents us with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reset the way we do things and to get it right. We need to integrate nature-based solutions into the recovery plans of governments and businesses worldwide. The safeguarding of natural ecosystems is crucial if we are to meet both biodiversity and climate goals and also to future-proof our businesses and our economies. So today we will speak to some of the leading voices from the public, private, and civil society from around the world that are using nature-based solutions to help pave the way to a nature-positive future, one that is also sustainable and resilient. And I'd now like to introduce our distinguished speakers. They are His Excellency, Mr. Malik Amin Aslam, Federal Minister for Climate Change and Advisor to the Prime Minister, Pakistan, Ms. Virginie Helies, Chief Sustainability Officer at PNG, Ms. Wanjuhi Gororje, Founder of People Planet Africa, Ms. Zoe Knight, Group Head HSBC Center of Sustainable Finance, Managing Director at HSBC Holdings, Ms. Steven Lloyd, Lead Sustainable Investment Advisory of Arab Group, and Minister Ricardo Lozano, Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development at Columbia. A huge welcome to you, speakers, and thank you for joining us today. Before we begin, just a few housekeeping guidelines. This session is being live-streamed on the World Economic Forum website. It will last for an hour, and we will start with the panel. Following that, audience members will have the opportunity to ask questions. Please use the hand-raise function if you'd like to ask a question. And we would also ask that you turn on your video when you ask the question and be sure to moot yourself when you're done speaking. We also kindly ask that you change your Zoom name to your full name and organisation so we can call on you to ask your questions. I'd also like to everyone to contribute to a lively discussion here today by engaging with the topic and sharing your thoughts in the chat box. Following the session, we will have a 15-minute optional networking where you can stay on to speak to other participants and also learn more about the various initiatives. So please stay on if you're interested in this rapid fire networking. We have a lot to get through, so I'm going to start with our first speaker today, Minister Amin. I would like to ask you, you know, how do nature-based solutions play a role in Pakistan's green stimulus plan and the government of Pakistan's efforts to conserve and restore the country's forests? And how can the international community and businesses support these efforts? Bismillah Rahman Raheem. Thank you very much, Jessica, and thanks for inviting me to this forum. As we all collectively go through this huge catastrophe that the world is facing, I think nature has taught us two very important lessons. One of them is the stark warning and the other one is an opportunity. The stark warning that nature has given to all of the world is that there are boundaries and nature works within certain limits and certain balances. And if we try to tilt that balance, nature will strike back. And we've seen what happens when nature strikes back because we're all in the middle of a zoonotic pandemic which happened when humans invaded the territory of animals. On the other hand, nature is also providing us with a window of opportunity. And the opportunity is that we don't have to come out of this pandemic on the same pathway that got us in there. We can have a different world and we've seen the different world during this pandemic also. We've seen when humans have retreated, what has happened? We've seen the blue skies, the clean air that we've all breathed. And we've seen when we try to rebalance this existence with nature, there is a positivity attached to it. You asked about Pakistan. Pakistan learned about this about four years back when we started our billion tree project in one of the small provinces of Pakistan. We learned that when you start investing in nature, nature always pays you back. During that four-year period, we planted more than a billion trees. But what we did not factor in were the half million jobs that were created, the youth, the rural women and the community that got engaged and created this new economy in that whole province which was based on the realization of saving trees and investing in nature. But based on that realization, we were already on a pathway which was looking at nature-based solutions. But what happened that during the COVID era, when we all took a step back from the rat races that we're all in, we realized that yes, there is a new pathway to be taken out for the development of the country also. And our Prime Minister Imran Khan, he asked me to work on what is called the green stimulus. And we then announced that green stimulus which was based on two main objectives. The first one was that we have to protect nature. So nature protection was the first part of that green stimulus. And the second part was creating green jobs. As you rightly said, there are no jobs on a dead planet. So we really looked into that issue and we thought that yes, and the pandemic was giving us this huge crisis of people moving away from cities to back to rural areas without jobs and employment. So all of this because of the lockdown. So we tried to bring the two together that if we could protect nature and if we could also create jobs, then that would create a real sustainable stimulus for us as a country. And so we thought about what we could do in that time. We had three main objectives that we clearly laid out. The first one was that, as I said, the Billion Tree Project, we were already working on that in the province, but now we're working on a 10 Billion Tree Project for the whole country, which included seven different plans for the seven different ecological areas of Pakistan. We gave it a trigger for jobs and we created 84,000 jobs during this pandemic period for people who were out in the open in rural areas. They could work in COVID-safe environments, have a mask, do social distancing, still plant trees, still plant the nurseries, still be out there in the forest, preventing the forest fires, and getting an employment also. So this was a really productive way that we could engage with the people and also protect nature. So the 10 Billion Tree tsunami was the first part. The other second part of this in Pakistan, we had about 30 parks, which were more or less, you know, notified parks, but they were really paper parks, because nothing happened in those, in terms of protection. But what we did was we, through this protected area initiative, which was announced during this period, we enhanced the number of parks by 25%. So we went from 30 to 40 national parks. These 10 new national parks, which is about, which got protected, was announced during the COVID either. We also announced, along with it, the Pakistan's first national park service to be put in place, which would employ 5000 youth to become the guardians of nature, to promote ecotourism. And still, so we are protecting nature, again, creating the jobs on the ground. This was also done in the COVID time period. And the third part of it was to look at urban areas and the solid waste management issues that we have over there, and what we call the Clean Green Initiative in 20 cities of Pakistan. So again, they were looking at the gaps in the solid and the liquid waste management systems to put those in place, and again, try to create the jobs that the young people could get employed in during this period. So all three of these elements were, as I said, protecting nature, but at the same time creating the jobs. And we found that, you know, this was a real remarkable thing that happened. I've read the reports, you know, the World Economic Forum saying that for every dollar that you invest in nature, you get $9 back. And I think during our experiences that that is absolutely true, if not conservative. The nature payback is much more than you can actually anticipate. And that was really remarkable. I just wanted to also mark out the area of financing that we took this initiative, where did the money come from? You know, on that issue, when we started working on it, we were not really thinking about the money. But we had a plan, and the plan was that we will tap three different resources. The first one was obviously our own funding, which was coming out of our budget, which was allocated, we increased that for this COVID period, because we had created a COVID fund also, which was looking at jobs. So we used that fund for these initiatives. And we continue to do that. But the second part was that we had created a platform called the Ecosystem Restoration Fund. That platform was created, it was announced in the Madrid COP meeting, and we had created it not knowing that COVID is coming, but we had created it with the idea that if we have a clear green plan for development, there will be partners who will want to come on board that plan. So they could take a part of that plan or, you know, part of these initiatives, and we could provide them with quantifiable progress on the ground. So that fund was already in place. And during the COVID era, we were very fortunate that we managed to get about $180 million of World Bank funding. This was the first World Bank, or probably the only World Bank funding in the world, which got repurposed for nature protection. And we managed to get that for this Ecosystem Restoration Fund. The third part of our plan, which we had laid out, and we didn't have an idea that this might also happen, was that we were looking at debt for nature swaps. So Pakistan is a country which is, you know, heavily indebted. And we have also called out for, you know, nations to ease that debt because of the COVID crisis. But what we were saying also was that if we could bring this debt down with certain partners, and at the same time provide them with, you know, clearly quantifiable biodiversity indicators that we've been meeting in Pakistan, they may be takers for that sort of an instrument. And luckily, you know, as we went through the COVID era, we now are being considered as a pilot country for what is called a nature bond, which is similar to a debt for nature swap. So it's basically looking at matching us up with debtor countries who would be interested in countries who can show quantifiable progress for biodiversity protection and nature protection. So we are already in that process. It's a very exciting process because it's a new instrument which is being developed. But I'm glad to say that we're in it. So what I really wanted to say was that if you are willing to put your trust in nature, if you have a plan on ground, the money always gets available. You know, it's not the main issue. So I think that that's what I wanted to share with the Economic Forum. And I think that our experience has been extremely positive. We are doing what is good for Pakistan, what is good for the world, and what is good for people and nature, all in one, it's a win-win strategy. Thank you. Thank you so much, Minister. I think it's super encouraging to see your efforts in that area and also the financing tools that are available to governments now, governments today. So I think we'll come back to some of those points. I would not like to go to Virginia from P&G. P&G recently may discover neutrality commitments. How are you using nature-based solutions to meet these commitments? And can you maybe share with us what are some of your top learnings and barriers that P&G has experienced in designing and implementing these solutions? So we have actually a two-pronged strategy to meet this commitment, to be carbon neutral for the decades. I mean, first, a science-based target of 50% absolute reduction in our scope one and two. And we will do that by increasing energy efficiency by purchasing 100% renewable electricity globally. And then balancing the emissions that we can not eliminate by advancing a portfolio of natural-based solutions. And that will deliver carbon benefits that are equal to our remaining emissions estimate about 30 million metric tons over the next decade. So in terms of the learning, it's relatively early days for us, but I can capture the top learnings as follows. I mean, the first one is really trust the experts. You know, the experts who will tell you where the carbon is, you know, because it's not about what we want to protect. It's about what the planet needs. And so this is why we work with experts like Conservation International and WWF to really curate our programs in the best way possible. The second learning, I would say, is about seeking to maximize both the environmental and the social co-benefits. You know, it's very important to take into account local communities, you know, to ensure that they are engaged, that they are supportive, and that they will benefit from the program. And this is what we do in the planning of our programs. You know, we use a participatory design approach where all stakeholders are taken into account. The third learning would be really to consider the whole spectrum of, you know, protection, land management, improvement and restoration versus, you know, only planting trees. You know, protection and improvement, land management can actually drive a very meaningful carbon benefit. So for instance, we have a program in the Philippines, the Palawan mangroves with Conservation International, and that is about protection. But our planting forest project that we run in Brazil with WWF is a restoration project. And I would say the fourth learning, and it's particularly relevant for consumer goods company like us, I mean, we touch five billion consumers every day through our brands, is the opportunity to engage people, you know, citizens, to turn them into, I would say, conservation champions, you know, making them more aware of the role they can play, you know, in responsible consumption. And we are running several consumer-facing programs to engage consumers. So like Pampers Seeds of Love, you know, for every tree, for every pack that people purchase of Pampers, you know, we plant a tree or we have a program in Russia to protect the forest of Russia. For every purchase of a P&G product, you know, we donate to WWF to protect the forests that are devastated by human cause fires. So those will be the top learning so far, as I said, it's early days. And in terms of the barriers, you know, I would say that, you know, natural-based solution is an emerging space and we are all learning together. But what I personally see is that everyone understands the value that nature brings and the role it can play in addressing climate change. But the issue is that we don't have a globally acknowledged framework, you know, to move from concept to execution, especially at a scale and speed that is needed. So for me, the first obstacle is that there is no clear framework, parameters, you know, that define natural climate solution, including how you account for the carbon benefits. And there has been some work, you know, to define natural-based solution in general. But there is no widely agreed definition and criteria. So developing international standards like the ISO for natural-based solution and an international recognized, you know, certification system would be of great value. And this is why PNG is working closely with expert organizations. We are creating an advisory board, you know, to understand how to not only best design and implement natural-based solution, but also how to define the metrics, you know, to effectively and accurately measure and track our effort. So, and last, you know, the collateral of this absence of clear definition is a lack of financing. You know, most esteemed suggests that natural-based solution only attracts two to three percent of public climate finance globally. So it's very low. It's very low compared to the need and the potential. So a clear framework may help priority on capital flows and de-risking investment in natural-based solutions for the capital market. But as we've heard, you know, from Minister, when you invest in nature, nature pays you back, you know, one to one to nine. So in the end, it is a very smart business. So I'm hopeful that things will will develop in the right way to accelerate efforts, you know, at the scale we need. Thank you so much, Virginia. And I think that some encouraging trends towards global standards are happening right now. You know, you've really hit the nail on the head with the need for a common framework. And I think IUCN had earlier this year launched a global framework for nature-based solutions. So hopefully we can see the industry coming together. And I'd like now to turn to Juan Juhi, who is going to share with us some interesting stories from Africa. Can you tell us a little bit about your greatest success and challenges in your work to restore Kenya's forest cover? And perhaps also if you can, your top three recommendations for projects working with nature-based solutions at the community level. Over to you. Thank you very much. For me, I would say that my greatest success this far has been working with rural communities, especially those that the people living around forest. When I ran the Save Our Forest KE campaign, which was very, very successful and led to a ban on forest timber harvesting in national and community forests. At the time, I would say I lived in a bubble because I wanted to see forest harvesting completely abolished in Kenya. But that wasn't realistic because there are people who rely solely on this forest as a source of livelihood. So when you say stop cutting down trees, what are the alternatives are you giving them? It was a journey of humility and understanding that climate action without the people was useless. It is going to go around in circles. We've had restoration projects where the community has grazed their sheep and cattle on our trees, the trees that we planted. But when you work together with them, when you create awareness, we love working with school children, particularly those in primary schools, although we work with high schools and universities as well. But those in primary schools are like sponges that absorb. So you will go for tree planting exercise and you tell the kids who've planted the trees that these trees are your sole responsibility. And I remember in one school that didn't have a fence, the students went back home and told the parents you cannot graze your sheep or cattle on our trees because my trees have to survive. And so working with rural communities for me has been the greatest success. It's been a beautiful experience because at times you're going to communities and you find that these communities do not even appreciate the benefits of forests, other benefits of forests, other than wood benefits. But when you expose them to benefits such as beekeeping, when you expose them to things like bamboo, they realize that oh my goodness, there is something else that we can do with these forests without destroying their natural states as well. So my lowest moment has obviously been weak policies that some have been formulated with loopholes that allow for the brutal mutilation of forests. The second one will be the insatiable human greed, because at times we deliberately, and this happens to be with the leaders, they will deliberately pass laws that have loopholes so that they can continue mutilating our forests. One of the forests is called Mau Forest. In the early 90s, we had a knocked past that allowed indigenous communities to continue living in the forests. Unfortunately, that was used by people, people who are not even indigenous communities, sold their land and went to live in the forest. And the damage, and this is one of the biggest water towers in Kenya, the damage on that forest is painful. My three recommendations would be I have learned that there is nothing for us without us. So if we are going to do restoration projects in the rural areas, in the community level, we have to involve the community. The first recommendation will be creation of awareness. Most of the people who mutilate the forest, unfortunately, do not understand climate change and the severe effects of climate change. Some of them do not even, as I said earlier, understand that there are other benefits that they could derive from this forest. And thirdly, there is also so much to learn from these communities. So when you go to the community and you interact with them, first you expose them to another world of other benefits such as beekeeping, which is highly profitable, to other benefits like seedlings, to other benefits such as bamboo plantations, whose regeneration is amazing and has countless benefits as well. I would say the next recommendation would be economic empowerment. Improvement of livelihoods and restoration are intertwined. I remember when again in 2018, when all this started, and we were running the SAVA forest campaign following the brutal mutilation of forests in Kenya, at the time we wanted to have people kicked out of forests. But the government has a project called the Shamba system. Shamba is Swahili for farm. And so when we have plantations where government allows people to harvest as a way of raising capital and also meeting the growing demand for timber. So when a section is harvested, the community is allowed to go back in and plant the trees as well as have a bit of agroforestry for the first five years. Initially we were opposed to the project because we thought this was a loophole that many people are using to mutilate the forest. But today we appreciate that when it's done well, the community benefits from agroforestry. They benefit from farming, farm produce on the forest as well as taking care of the trees until they are at a point where they can grow on their own. Secondly, I would say that the third recommendation I would give is policy formulation. In Africa and I stand corrected for a very long time, Kenya was the only country with a climate change act which was passed in 2016. Unfortunately, the same act is not active because it still has its age to be implemented. Africa Union, which ought to be the organ that gives guidance to the rest of Africa, their climate change act is still in its draft form since 2017. And this is a case across many countries in the global south. Some it's because they do not know how. Climate change is complex and they do not know how to navigate. Others because they're not simply willing to do it. They want to continue with the laws that have loophole so that they can continue mutilating the forest. And unless we have very, very strong policies in place, I doubt anything that we do today is of any use because somebody else will still take advantage of the law and the loopholes that exist to go ahead and mutilate the forest. So my three recommendations are creation of awareness, improvement of livelihoods, incorporating improvement of livelihoods into the restoration projects. And thirdly, formulation or change of policies. We need strong policies in place. Thank you. Thank you so much, Juan Juhi. Many important lessons learned for us there, especially where it comes to policy formulation. I really hope that us having this conversation will actually help to bring those issues to light and we're actually going to see improvements in legislation. I'm going to come to Steven now. Steven, you're from our group, which is a huge infrastructure-based urban planner. How can nature-based solutions help to make infrastructure more sustainable? And can you also share with us what in your experience has been the biggest barriers to the integration of major positive design in our built environment? Thanks, Jessica. So there are many ways nature-based solutions can make infrastructure more sustainable. I'm really going to focus on three example areas. First, natural solutions can improve infrastructure service provision and can really enhance the resilience to climate change. So combining natural systems such as forests and floodplains with traditional grain structures such as treatment systems and tunnels can enhance both climate mitigation and resilience adaptation. So for example, forest landscapes restoration and regreening of city spaces has a huge impact on carbon sequestration. What this means is that land use management is now a critical opportunity area for major landowners such as utilities. Using upstream catchments and restoration of natural water courses to manage floodwaters provide effective responses. These natural approaches can also help us move towards biodiversity net gain. So net gains where we restore the natural ecosystem to enable the recovery but also the creation of new habitats. So in the UK, we're building coastal levees and barriers to use natural vegetation and natural realignment with managed retreat and that's creating new biodiversity and new habitats. So second benefit is despite the common view that natural solutions are more expensive, actually there's lots of examples to prove there can be more cost effective. So implementation of blue-green solutions in New York and post-hurricane sandy significantly reduced the capital costs compared to traditional grey solutions. And we've repeated this in Shanghai where we're using green and blue solutions to hugely reduce the size of drainage intercepted tunnels which is solving the massive surface flooding issue across the city. I think a third opportunity area is around, as we just heard from Kenyan from Pakistan, is around the response to societal challenges. So engaging communities and developing natural solutions to infrastructure creates real opportunities for economic and social development and creates better places to live. So think of an example that watershed protection can create income opportunities for local communities through restoration of soil quality or improved food security. And natural solutions can also create opportunities for community action and ownership and implementation of these ideas, so maintaining bioswales or green spaces within cities. But also natural solutions play a large role in improving health and mental well being. I think the mental well-being thing is often overlooked, but so examples of improving the air quality, creating more level spaces and providing immunity assets, really important areas. So if I now have to sort of look across to the challenges, there are many challenges to adopting natural solutions and some of these are real or physical and some are more perceived or about attitudes. I think the starting point with thinking about nature solutions is actually underlying complexity of biodiversity. Nature-based systems of themselves are complex and need a local-based solutions, not generic responses, so you can't just have a cookie-cutter approach. It has to be really bespoke. And natural systems don't respect organizational structures and boundaries, so there's often a siloed mentality across key stakeholders and across systems. So if we're going to respond to this, we need to operate better across these integrated natural systems and develop solutions at the appropriate scale that cut across the governance and organizational barriers. I think the second challenge is the lack of awareness, we've just been hearing that from others, and resistance to change. This creates challenges and hurdles at every stage of the value chain or through the project lifecycle. So this means that even when you do create an innovative solution and it's developed, it can often be diluted or eroded at later stages. So I think we need a clearer line of sight for nature-based solutions from investment planning all the way through to delivering operation and maintenance of infrastructure. I think there's a lack of urgency within policy makers and there could be conflict and inconsistency between national and local policy. This results in a lack of financial incentives and continued support for fossil fuels example. So as we've heard, we need more policy support mechanisms such as cost sharing or tax incentive, but also the policy focus often is focused towards offsetting rather than finding actual solutions, nature solutions. I think the planning system needs updating to improve some spatial planning requirements both to make space for nature and avoid the negative impacts on connected ecosystems around development. So there's not a lot of thought about actual habitats and their variations and the biodiversity those habitats actually support. I think about engineering. It's actually conservative engineering and design practices I think are resulting in low adoption so far of natural solutions and continued use of hard engineering. So I think we need more training education as engineers are developed in specialist fields around biodiversity natural solutions. A third challenge is we're not building in the strong enough business case to influence natural solutions. So we need to embed natural capital really early within investment decision making so we can use total value frameworks to value natural capital and ecosystem services which builds a stronger emphasis of sustainability within this investment decision making. So qualitative measures for biodiversity are often discounted within the waiting system and decision making tools and therefore get ignored. Key issues is who's responsible is it to pay for these things. So project sponsors see the benefits are going to accrue to others in the wider community. So it's a challenge to have to capture this wider benefit in the overall business case and citizens perhaps see the responsibilities of government's responsibility and the lack of awareness for charging extra costs for these services. And just to wrap up the final challenge is the frequent need for trade-offs. So these could be trade-offs between benefits and risks. So people value benefits in different ways. You need to find a consensus and show an inclusive approach to demonstrate a transparent negotiation of the trade-offs and the safeguards are in place. I think there's also a trade-off between short-term and long-term benefits. So complex dynamic systems well they need a long-term monitoring flexibility. And this long-term approach doesn't often match with short-term political decision-making for governments and mayors or for budgetary time frames but for corporate investment planning. So I think we need to take an adaptive approach and to manage uncertainty and work with nature over the long term. Thank you very much Stephen and I think you know that you made a very valid point there that a lot of recovery and stimulus plans now actually are giving up for a few subsidies. So why not give that to nature right? I think that that is something that we really need to look and do. We'll come back to some of your points later. I'm just going to go to Zoe now and like to invite Zoe. Can you please you know tell us a little bit more about HSBC's new partnership on natural capital and also what are some of your top three learnings and obstacles for investing in nature-based solutions? Excellent thank you Jessica and to the World Economic Forum for inviting me to contribute to this discussion. So yes you're right we've recently announced a joint venture with our asset management business and a climate change strategy organisation Pollination. Now Pollination was founded about a year ago by some people that have been working in the climate space for a long time now and the real purpose is to try and unleash capital for nature-based solutions. So as a reminder for everyone of course reducing emissions isn't going to be enough on its own to get us to that one and a half degree world that we're trying to limit temperature rises to and so far the finance industry has been concentrating on scalable solutions. So looking at the growth of products in relation to green activities so green bonds green lending etc. But now what we're seeing is an increasing appetite for both institutional investors and corporates to try and find access to nature-based solutions with the idea of being able to offset those residual emissions that they can't eliminate through for example getting them out of the supply chain or reducing them in their operations. So really we're trying to address the need for scaling capital into this market. The aim as I said is to get to a six billion fund. We're starting with a one billion aim and it's targeted at institutional investors and corporates and we're looking at six areas to identify opportunities. Firstly forestry which is the obvious one. Agriculture so sustainable land management clearly land use change in forestry is the biggest area of emissions after the energy system. We're looking at water water management blue carbon within oceans and nature-based biofuels but the critical point of the fund is that it's not just about raising capital it's about the importance of stewardship and one of the learnings that we are that we have taken so far and bearing in mind this is a very fast pace and new initiative is the appetite for education around understanding how nature really can play a role in providing that planetary balance that we're so looking for in terms of adjusting climate change. In terms of the the the learnings really there are two things to take away. One is that the credibility of the project is of course of critical importance and one of the ways to help with that for corporates and other investors that are looking to get access to this market is through scaling up expertise and knowledge and standards around impact and that's building on one of the points that Visiony made about P&G it's understanding the impact of how nature can really help us solve climate problems and then the second thing is also about reporting principles and standards again a common theme about how we really need to gain credibility and trust in this market we need to have consistency across being able to compare the various types of projects that will come up. So just to give a little bit of context the voluntary market for carbon offsets is only 0.6 billion at the moment and that's less than 1% of the compliance mechanism so there's a massive opportunity here as both individuals and corporates are moving towards making that net zero pledge. In terms of the barriers it's really the scale of the opportunity and again this comes back to the point of understanding impact so for example if you're a large fortune 500 company that's wanting to address emissions in the supply chain there's plenty of room to invest in a project because of a high level of cash availability in for instance ASEAN markets which might be part of the supply chain for those companies and industries. The problem is there's not a good understanding as yet about true impact of nature-based solutions and therefore where to divert capital to first so which is going to be the area to protect the most that is going to have the largest impact on saving the planet but also in reducing emissions so is it really forestry or is it an ocean-based solution or is it a land-based solution? Investors aren't really sure where to look on that. The second point in terms of barriers is liquidity of the market. We really need a global market that offers liquidity between both the voluntary mechanism and the compliance mechanism and of course that would help with pricing and then the third point is transparency around the risks and the greenness of the projects themselves and then lastly risk sharing and insurance mechanisms. I think we need to overcome the barrier of credibility and doing that means really understanding what the unintended risks are of protecting one particular element of nature versus another and so that impact curve if we can work closely with scientists to develop an impact curve of what to do first and where the scale of capital is needed we can allocate funding to those projects accordingly. So that's a few thoughts on the project. I'll leave it there and I'm sure there'll be plenty of room for questions. Thank you so much Zoe and for building on some of the points that were raised I think they were super relevant in some food for thought which we'll come back to. Right now we're going to introduce a video that's been specially prepared by the Minister Ricardo Lozano of the Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development in Colombia who will not join us today because of the time zone difference I think it's two or three in the am for him so we're going to play this video and let's hear from him now. Federal Minister of Climate Change and Advisor of the Prime Minister of Pakistan Mr. Steve Loyd, Lead Sustainable Investment Advisory, a group so a night group head HSBC Center of Sustainable Finance, Beijing alias Chief Sustainability Officer in Brockton and Gambo International Operations, Banburi Norohi Community Champion, Nairobi Hub. Never before the relationship between health and empowerment has been so clear. Therefore we see 2020 as an opportunity to promote nature at the central axis of sustainable development investing in healthy ecosystem and nature based solution is the best strategy to move forward towards to green and resilient recovery. Colombia's strategy policy to address the impacts of the COVID-19 has an approach based on linking of ecosystem health with the well-being of current and future generations deforestation reduction restoration and reforestation our forestry payment for environment services ecotourism clean energy and green public spaces are some example of the nature based solution that without no doubt should be part of our economic recovery. Nature based solution provides an opportunity to integrate climate biodiversity and SDGs agendas under an coherent approach to solve social challenges. Colombia's portfolio of the nature based solution amounts to 365 projects of which 47% of these projects are related to agricultural forestry sector 13% to tourism sector and 12% to food sector other projects are related to the circular economy power generation art artisan products among others. Our government aim is to achieve a green and sustainable economic recovery to improve the quality of life of our population through the sustainable use of natural capital and social inclusion as main elements of this recovery. We are already undertaking important steps under the initiative by planting we are brought together we will plant 180 million trees to restore 300,000 hectares by 2022 for a greener country by generating approximately 50,800 jobs. We seek to conserve 160,000 hectares while generating income for 13 families through the payment for ecosystem services. The estimated investment is approximately $38 million for two years. In these two years we have seen constant trend towards a reduction of deforestation and by 2019 we achieved a reduction of almost 20% compared to the previous year. In order to strengthen cross sectoral management to reduce deforestation and as a part of our country's involvement in the tropical forest alliance 2020 zero deforestation agreement had been signed with the chain supplies such as meat dairy, pan oil, wood and cocoa. Colombia promotes the lethicia pact adaptation among amazonian countries last year to reaffirm our commitment with the protection of the amazon and our communities we who inhabit it. We are working on developing biodiversity cities in which citizens conserve natural capital to increase urban sustainability and circular economy but also to promote connectivity between cities and rural centers. In all these efforts we need to work closely with the private sector as a partner in the transition to sustainable partners of production and consumption and to invest in several opportunities that measure brings us to make our economies thrive. We are still in time to take the right path. The 2020 years should be seen as the year in which governments, the private sector, the civil society and other stakeholders get together to follow a green and resilient recovery which prioritizes education, participation, innovation, research, financing, adaptation and mitigation as its most important strategic lines. Thank you very much. Thank you very much minister for that wonderful insight and it's great to see how even more governments are really looking at nature-based solutions in their recovery plans. I understand that we have a few questions here from our audience today. I'd like to keep encouraging people to interact with each other and on the topic in our chat box. I'm going to call on them right now to ask their questions. Would you please keep your questions under one minute and feel free to bring in some fresh perspectives and also to pose a question to a specific person or to the entire panel. I'd like to invite first now Nina Jensen to ask a question. Thank you so much and thanks to all the great speakers so far. We talk a lot about protecting nature as a climate-based solution but I think it's also important to remember that nature has to be protected for nature itself and we often turn to solutions like planting trees rather than actually protecting the trees and land that is already there. My question is what are the top three actions that business leaders including those of us listening now should take to protect and restore nature both for the sake of nature itself but also to protect the climate. Thank you. Thank you very much Nina. We're going to go to the next question and then we'll come back to the panel. I have the next question from Varavi Jani. Yeah thanks. I have a question to the panelists and continue to the point raised on involving communities in on-ground nature action agenda and if there were any ideas and thoughts about what kind of frameworks exist to provide financial support either by public sector or private sector or multilateral institutions for those kind of collaborations on the ground and what would success look like in that context? Thank you very much for that question and last but not least we have a question here from Donna Barattarelli. Yes hello hi. It's not really a question is really more a statement. I think when we talk about climate and nature I think we cannot ignore that we live on a blue planet and the role that the ocean has to play in trying to solve some of our environmental and social and economic problems so I really think that awareness is key as it was mentioned. We need to engage the communities in conservation but we also have to think that we have to stop really losing what we have restored what we have lost and really protect what we still have and that nature-based solutions can really help to do to do that. Thank you. Thank you very much Donna for that. Those insights are very relevant. I'm going to come back to the panel and with an eye on the time because the Nina's question is totally spot on and it was a question that I was going to ask all of you to kind of close so if I can invite you to give your thoughts you know what are the top three actions to protect nature not just to restore and also can you give your thoughts on what are some of the frameworks for financial support that are out there. Perhaps I can invite minister to go first minister Amin if you're there. Yes thank you and thanks for a very interesting session I was listening to all of it was very enlightening. Just a few things I think what is most important is we talked about the standards not being there right now but as you rightly pointed out IUCN has launched nature-based standards and I was lucky to be there when that happened. I think that's going to be critical and when we look at nature-based solutions going forward. What is also very important is that all the activities that we are doing need to be a strongly impact driver and quantifiable. The credibility of these projects which was also mentioned in one of the remarks is absolutely essential if we are to start looking at you know private sector and I hope that private sector would start investing in the nature-based solutions. As far as nature protection is concerned I mean I can give you my own example that for the Billion Tree project almost 60% was assisted natural regeneration so we were not planting new trees for the full Billion Tree target but 60% of it was just to protect nature and see it bounce back and the bounce back was much beyond our own expectations. We had expected about a thousand saplings to be regenerated in an acre but it happened to be 2,500 which was actually happened. So it just shows that when you start protecting nature the best way to do it is to protect the natural surroundings that nature is in and that pays you back in the most efficient cost efficient and the most quick manner. So I think that that's really critical. I think when we start looking at this and a link to that I think is the issue of valuation of nature. There has been a lot of work done on it but still a lot more needs to be done especially for the protected areas that we have assigned all over the world. There needs to be a valuation of the biodiversity that is present over there. Again giving an example of Pakistan you know there's one national part of Pakistan which is at 15,000 feet. It's a huge plateau probably the biggest plateau in the world at that height. There is no other ecosystem like that in the world. So when you're talking about valuing that particular protected area the economic value for protecting it in terms of biodiversity in terms of carbon sequestration and in terms of you know the few possibilities for nature within that ecosystem which is which is not available anywhere else in the world needs to be clearly laid out. We at the moment do not know really how to get that issue done but I think that's something which is critical when we start protecting nature that the true value of that nature needs to be understood. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd like to go to Zoe now for the question on frameworks for financial support. Zoe over to you very quickly. Thank you. Yeah I wanted to respond to the actions very quickly and in terms of how to finance this. So in terms of the protection and restoring businesses have got three ways that they can tackle this. One is addressing emissions in their operational activities so purely around power use, waste management, food supply that kind of stuff and what they're actually doing to run the business itself. Second is whether or not the strategic business model is a high climate impact sector or a low climate impact one and how they address the emissions in that and thirdly what their moral responsibility and philanthropic objectives are. We've had most success on this where we've adopted approach that captures all of these elements to give a holistic view on addressing the climate. One in terms of protection we've used volunteering and community investment in philanthropy to target that angle and that's brought a lot of employee engagement into the thinking. The operational management has provided bigger funding to address bigger issues like renewable power and how to protect areas around energy and land use. And then finally the sort of business model point is around thinking about how finances a whole can provide the solutions hence the asset management and joint venture with Polynation and I just I'm going to give us a quick plug which is we won World's Best Bank for Sustainable Finance for the second year in a row recently so I'm really excited to be part of that so thank you for the opportunity for this session. Thank you very much Zoe. Going quickly to Virginia like just to give us your top clear business actions where protecting nature is concerned. So I would say the best thing and the first thing that business needs to do to protect nature is to lower their emissions that they control you know so this is why our first goal is to cut our emissions by 50% in the next decade and then you know going to nature as I echo what Zoe was saying in terms of we need to advance the science of impact measurement and so I will not pretend to have the answers to you know what do we need to do you know to protect nature this is why we are partnering with a great organization like Conservation International and WWF because we need to understand you know where we need to go to have the greatest impact where we need to go in priority to have the greatest benefit in terms of in terms of carbon so this is something that will take time I mean we need to develop over the next 10 years a portfolio of solution and we will prioritize the one that can have the greatest impact. Fantastic thank you so much and going to Stephen very quickly you know as an urban planner there's so many people being added to cities all the time how do we keep nature-based solutions right at the top? Thanks just go I think the key action I'd like to take away is one that we can all adopt in it so it's thinking about are we thinking about natural solutions and wider capitals in every decision we make so how do we how do we actually sort of think about nature and biodiversity and how do we take a sort of capital approach in every investment decision so it shouldn't be possible for us to make a decision if we're not actually making a rigorous assessment of what the natural risks and opportunities are and are we properly quantifying that and are we using the frameworks that are out there the best practice is evolving and it is available to us so if we can't hand on heart and say we've made a business decision taking full account of nature then we've not really you know we've just not done we're not we're not been good enough you know we're not we're not addressing the problem so it's every investment decision really needs a rigorous assessment of natural capital and biodiversity opportunities and challenges. Fantastic thank you so much Stephen and going last but not least to Wanjuhi as the youngest person on this panel what what gives you hope when you think about nature-based solutions. Seeing young people truly involved in restoration and conservation projects I'm happy when I think about the global shapers community which I belong in we are all volunteers but we are devoted to mitigating against the adverse effects of climate change but allow me to also quickly mention that businesses must hold governments accountable you find that these are the key contributors of taxes for governments in countries and so they have direct lines to government and they can hold government accountable and say we want stronger policies and this happened in Kenya after the the Sabah Forest Gei my greatest allies were the Kenya private sector alliance. Secondly our biggest financier has been the private sector through the CSR but we are changing our model seeing that they cannot we cannot continue receiving CSR yet these companies are the biggest contributors to for instance PET bottles and yet they are giving us money for CSR but then their products are humming the the environment so we need to rethink we are rethinking our model and we have a stakeholders meeting in the next two weeks because we have two of our biggest restoration projects we have a 850 hectares forest and a 150 hectares forest and we're bringing all stakeholders together to see how can we raise resources raise money from people who are truly prioritizing people and planet without working with corporates that are contributing to humming the same environment they claim to be solving problems for. Wonderful Juan Juhi and that is a really really good note to end this session on I'm afraid that's all we have time for even though I know there were many comments as well as questions coming in I'm sorry we could not take all of them just as a very short summary I'm going to come back to the the quote that I started with which is there are no jobs on the dead planet and I think you know many people think of nature-based solutions as just nature-related or environment-related but this is an absolute economic issue so I hope that we can take these learnings into our work and our professions and also to think about how we can really embed nature into building back better for a resilient future. I'd like to once again thank all our speakers today and the World Economic Forum for organizing this much needed conversation. There's going to be a survey that's going to be launched for everyone and also a rapid-fire networking for those that you can can stay on for just 15 minutes so thank you everyone for your participation I hope to see you all at the networking. Thank you so much speakers.