 And a very warm welcome to our attendees who have joined us this morning. My name is Ebony Holland. I'm a senior researcher with the Institute for International, the International Institute for Environment and Development. Welcome to the event today. Today's event will focus on biodiversity loss is an underestimated risk and we'll be looking at this from the climate development and business perspectives. So a warm welcome to all of you from us for this important opportunity to discuss risks arising from accelerating biodiversity loss. I'm Joe Elliott. I work for Fauna and Flora International and we are co-hosting this event with IID. We'd all like to thank the Understanding Risk Forum for hosting these sessions. And I'd like to thank our three speakers who I will introduce you to shortly in turn. They will each give us a short talk and then as Matt says we'll have an opportunity to do some Q&A and interaction and find out more about how our panellists are thinking about these different perspectives. A quick introduction from me before we get started. In the past 50 years, the populations of vertebrate species that we share our planet with have declined by more than two thirds, a dramatic depopulation of wildlife alongside a human population that has of course doubled to 7.8 billion people and we have extended our economic system that supports us as humans across more than 75% of the planet's terrestrial surface. And in addition to the decline in wildlife and biodiversity abundance, we're seeing a worrying acceleration in species extinctions caused by the way we're using Earth's resources. This scale of biodiversity loss presents us all with critical risks across multiple dimensions including development, climate and business. And our speakers today will explore these risks and their implications across these three dimensions. So with no further ado, let me introduce the first of our speakers, Dillis Rowe. Dillis leads IED's work on biodiversity and conservation. She focuses on the human dimensions with a particular focus on community-based conservation and on the links between biodiversity development and well-being. Dillis, over to you. Thanks very much, Jo. So yes, I'm going to talk about why biodiversity loss is a risk to development. And by development, I mean international development, human development in developing countries. I'm going to start off by just sort of touching on what we actually mean by biodiversity because it's a complex and technical scientific term that is misunderstood by many. And many people, when we mention the word biodiversity, if they know what it means at all, think it's about iconic species. Or it might resonate with people that are thinking about the Amazon rainforest or coral reefs and other iconic landscapes. But biodiversity is actually much more than that. It's about the whole variety and abundance of life on Earth. It's a term that sums up that variety and abundance of life. So it's not just about iconic species such as black rhinos and Sumatran tigers, but it's also about the boring stuff, the fish, the fungi, the insects, the soil microbes, crop varieties, and also their habitats. So it's the living components of nature. And those living components often underpin the health of the nonliving components of nature, water, soil, air, and so on. So WWF in the regularly produced living planet report refer to nature underpinned by biodiversity, which is a nice phrase, I think, and a way of kind of thinking about the relationship between the two. And as Jo mentioned, we are facing a real natural emergency. We're losing biodiversity at an unprecedented scale. She mentioned in her introduction various headline stats that have been generated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services by WWF and by others. One million species facing extinction. Populations of vertebrates down by 60% since 1970. The global biomass of wild mammals down 80% since 1970. A third of global fish stocks overfished. A third of freshwater fish threatened. And not just at the species level, but also at the ecosystem level of 47% average decline in the extent of natural ecosystems since records began. And even greater in the case of wetlands up to 85%. Only 3% of the oceans now free from human pressures. And even genetic diversity, 75% of crop genetic diversity lost since the 1900s. So it really is a major, major loss of biodiversity at all its different levels. And perhaps the most worrying thing is that the drivers of that loss are accelerating. So this is a, this is a nice diagram that was produced by the, by it best the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. And it shows the main direct drivers of biodiversity loss of particularly emphasizing land and sea use change and over exploitation. And you can see that those direct drivers are themselves driven by demographics, by macroeconomics, by institutions, by conflicts. And as we've seen recently by epidemics such as COVID-19. So does this really matter? Are we really worried about it? Well, yes it does because we all depend on nature. It delivers a wide range of goods and services on which everybody depends, but particularly poor people. So this includes breathable air, fertile soil, raw materials, clean water, cultural, cultural dimensions and all sorts. And diversity really matters within that. Diversity underpins the abundance and the extent and the condition of nature. And so it secures the flow of these benefits to people in the future, particularly in the face of changing external environment, climate change and so on. So if we lose biodiversity, we see crop yields declining, we see timber production declining, fodder production declining, all sorts of declines. We also see that nature is more vulnerable and less resilient to climate extremes, to invasion by exotic species and to other external risks. And it has less capacity to deal with sequestering carbon and performing other basic ecological functions. So really, the biodiversity emergency and it is an emergency is also a development emergency. The global community has made significant gains in international development and poverty alleviation in the last 50 years, but biodiversity loss threatens to undermine those gains. And the impacts of loss are clear from a number of different entry points depending on your interests in biodiversity. So if we're concerned about it from the point of thinking about the SDGs and how we might achieve them, these two nice graphics developed by the Stockholm Resilience Center frame the SDGs in ways that demonstrate how biodiversity underpins the delivery of other SDGs, including the social and economic SDGs. So without achieving the biodiversity-linked SDGs, the others fall apart as well. From a development aid perspective, these are some of the priorities that aid agencies have been trying to deliver in their poverty alleviation efforts over the last 50 years. Economic growth, jobs, income, reducing hunger, improving health, reducing conflict and security, improving gender equality and biodiversity loss threatens to undermine all of these. I'm not going to read through this table in detail, but things natural resource sectors like agriculture, forestry and fisheries are the bedrock of development and all of these are, the productivity of all of these are undermined by biodiversity loss. On the health side, biodiversity loss means a loss of access to traditional medicines. It also means reduced options for future drug development. It means increased disease emergence and burden and so on. So all sorts of different effects that biodiversity loss has on these key development priorities. And from a poverty reduction perspective, it is the poor that will be the hardest hit. And they'll be hardest hit by biodiversity loss because they depend most directly on it for natural resources and the services that nature delivers to meet their immediate livelihood needs. And also because they often can't afford substitutes for things that were previously freely available from nature, such as food, fuel and so on. But quite often the poor are also hardest hit by some of the responses to biodiversity loss. They're vulnerable to displacement and human rights abuses in efforts by others, either to gain access to a rapidly dwindling biodiversity base or to conserve it. So just thinking about how we deal with this risk, one obvious thing is to really nature-proof any investments, any development investments. And this means building biodiversity safeguards and incentives into those development interventions. So at a macro scale, this might mean things like removing damaging subsidies, for example, for industrialised agriculture and fisheries, and at the same time introducing biodiversity-friendly subsidies for nature-friendly development. And at a project level it means thinking about possible impacts on biodiversity of interventions and screening for risks. I mean even things like the siting of refugee camps and the type of food that's provided can have an impact on biodiversity. Other options are to think about how to invest in people that are resident in biodiversity rich or vulnerable areas in order to reduce their reliance on biodiversity. So this means investing in their livelihoods and in things like improved agriculture in order to reduce the risk that they will overexploit biodiversity. It means recognising the real potential of biodiversity for development, for climate resilience and actively investing in that potential. If biodiversity loss undermines development, then tackling it can support development. So the nature-based solutions that it can offer can really generate multiple development outcomes. And finally it means investing in elements of biodiversity that are important to poor people. So yes, of course, we are worried about elephants and tigers and rhinos, but it's really the less iconic species, crop varieties and the smaller stuff that is important to poor people and that really requires greater attention or at least as much attention as we give to iconic species. And finally just to think about the policy angles. Many people in development agencies see conservation as being anti-poor. And indeed there's lots of protected areas and other types of interventions that have had bad track records of eviction, dispossession and human rights, other human rights abuses being meted out in the name of conservation. The same can be true for other forms of interventions in nature. So some things which are labeled as nature-based solutions aren't necessarily good for people, aren't necessarily good for nature either. So solutions that prioritise, for example, monoculture plantations of exotic species are not good for biodiversity. Solutions that mean land is appropriated for tree planting from poor people is not good for people. So we really need to think about ways that we can invest in conservation, in restoration, in nature-based solutions that empower poor people and at the very, very least do them no harm. We also need to think about the drivers of biodiversity loss, land conversion, pollution, over-exploitation, climate change, et cetera. And the underlying drivers, governance, conflicts, epidemics and so on. These are quite often, the drivers of biodiversity loss are quite often the same as the drivers of climate change and the drivers of inequality. So tackling those drivers can really deliver a triple win. And overall, as we approach 2021, I think the key thing is with all the various summits that are ahead of us and the negotiations are ahead of us, that we shouldn't be thinking about just biodiversity loss, just climate change or just development. These are interlinked challenges and they need interlinked solutions. So as we go forward into 2021, we really need to be thinking in a triple agenda rather than single agenda way in order to make sure that these challenges are addressed together and the risks of all of them are reduced in combination. Many thanks. Thanks, Dillis. So our second speaker today is Natalie Seddon. Natalie's Professor of Biodiversity at University of Oxford and Director of the Nature-Based Solutions Initiative, which is an interdisciplinary programme of research, policy, advice and education, looking at the effectiveness of nature-based solutions to global challenges. And Natalie will be focusing today on the climate dimension of biodiversity risk. Natalie. Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks very much for this opportunity. So as Dillis very clearly explained, then there is growing evidence and also growing awareness that the global crisis of biodiversity loss and climate change are deeply interlinked. And it is now often claims that we cannot deal with one problem without also addressing the other, as again, as Dillis said. And in particular, in recent months, we've been hearing a great deal about the idea that biodiversity can support climate action in particular through so-called nature-based solutions. And this is an idea that has gained huge traction in government, in businesses, and among the general public. So over the next 10 minutes, I want to unpack this a bit. I want to discuss how biodiversity loss and climate change are linked. And I want to particularly explain why it is that the diversity of nature from the level of the gene to the level of the ecosystem is particularly important when it comes to addressing the causes and also the consequences of climate change. So we know that the main direct cause of biodiversity loss is land and sea use change, largely for industrial-scale food production, which drives an estimated 30% of biodiversity declines across the globe. This is followed by the over-exploitation, so overfishing and overhunting, which drives around 20%. Climate change, meanwhile, although currently ranked the third most significant driver of biodiversity loss, massively amplifies the effects of all the other stresses, for example, the fragmentation of landscapes. And it's predicted. The key thing about climate change is it's accelerating and it's predicted to become the main cause of biodiversity declines in the coming decades. Biodiversity changes in climate cause organisms to shift their geographical ranges, and often as a result of the way humans are managing the lands, those are nowhere to go. Also, climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of fires and storms, and this can destroy or badly damage entire ecosystems, undermine their integrity, so they can no longer function and support biodiverse assemblages. Now, at the same time, ecosystems on land and in the sea play a critical role in the global carbon cycle. So agriculture, forestry, and other land use activities account for around 23% of human greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, terrestrial ecosystems are estimated to draw down around, could well, between 20% and 30% of carbon dioxide emissions, and the oceans thought to remove around 30%. Therefore, in theory, addressing land and sea use change through the protection, the restoration, and the sustainable management of our ecosystems, in other words, through good nature-based solutions, should help slow warming and also arrest biodiversity declines. The other points, I think especially important for this particular webinar, this particular audience, there is also much evidence that working with biodiverse nature can also help address the impacts of climate change. Nature-based solutions underpinned by biodiversity can support human adaptation to climate change in various ways, and there are three main ways that I thought would be worth just very briefly describing. So first of all, and perhaps most obviously, nature-based solutions can reduce the exposure of communities, of agricultural lands of infrastructure to the immediate impacts of climate change. So for example, if we restore and if we protect our coastal habitats, our salt marshes, our mangroves and so forth, there is good evidence that this can really help defend against storms, against flood damage and so forth. Meanwhile, if we restore and work with our wetlands and our forests and our catchments, this can improve water security, reduce the risk of floods, soil erosion, and landslides that have brought extreme weather events. And green infrastructure in cities, for example, can provide cooling functions and can also help to abate floods and also bring countless mental and physical health benefits to city dwellers. So that's the first way. The second way is that nature-based solutions can reduce social sensitivity to the impacts of climate change. For example, by supporting the diversification of sources of income, of sources of food, and thereby providing nutritional and financial security when crops or all the usual sources of income fail during climate extremes. And of course, this is particularly important in the global south where dependency on nature for food and income is particularly high. The third way, and perhaps the less talked about way, is that nature-based solutions are working with nature, can really reduce vulnerability to climate impacts by building what's called adaptive capacity. So this is through the building social capital, in other words, through the process of being involved with designing and implementing the nature-based interventions. This empowers people and equips them with knowledge and resources that will enable them to prepare for future climate impacts. This so-called adaptive capacity in turn can improve or enhance the stewardship of ecosystems so that can then ensure the flow of benefits from nature to people. So in summary of all that, biodiversity loss in the form of the loss and damage to ecosystems is a big driver of climate change while climate change is fast becoming the biggest driver of biodiversity loss. So by restoring our ecosystems, protecting them, we can help reduce emissions and enhance carbon stores and thereby help to slow warming whilst also building the resilience of societies and ecosystems. But this is the basic idea of nature-based solutions, but I can't emphasise this enough. Nature-based solutions and biodiversity can only support people if we also decarbonise our economy. This really isn't an either or situation because warming damages ecosystems and their capacity to provide all these benefits to people in a warming world. So we need to therefore treat offsetting schemes with extreme caution, and perhaps that might be something we want to circle back to. But the big question is why specifically does the erosion of the diversity of life matter so much for climate change? After all, there are around 12 million species, probably more than that on planet Earth. Can we afford to lose the 1 million species predicted to go extinct in the recent Global Assessment Report produced by It-Bez? And the answer is no. Diversity matters enormously. Why? Basically, diversity is our insurance policy. And let me go on to explain what I mean by that. So, Andilus in fact touched on this in her presentation. But obviously for nature to deliver benefits to people over the long term, whether they're climate change benefits or other benefits, the ecosystems involved must themselves be healthy and functionally resilient to environmental change. In other words, they must be able to resist and or recover quickly from perturbations and from climate change. So in other words, functionally resilient ecosystems are the foundation of sustainable nature-based solutions. And there is now much evidence, much observational, much empirical experimental evidence that has been collected, particularly over the last 40 years, that the resistance and resilience of an ecosystem, the resistance of the people who depend upon it, is strongly determined by its connectivity to other ecosystems across the landscape, as well as by the diversity of genes of ecological traits or species contained within its communities of animals, fungi, plants, bacteria and so forth. Connectivity is really important. Connectivity is a property of biodiversity and connectivity is very important because this allows species to track their preferred ecological niches in the landscape under climate change. Meanwhile, diversity, species richness across all those different groups that I mentioned, buffers ecosystems against perturbation via so-called insurance effects. And this is variation in space and time, some complementarity between species in their ecological functions. In other words, if you have lots of species, when the environmental conditions change under climate change, there is a higher probability that a subset of those species will be able to continue functioning and support ecosystem services and the people who depend upon them. So there's lots of examples of this and obviously I'm not going to go into all of them, but just relevant to this particular conversation. There's lots of evidence that natural forests and mixed species forest plantations have much more stable carbon stores during climate extremes compared to species poor plantations. And as we saw in the same findings with grasslands as well, low diversity grassland plots have much less resilience to droughts and other climate extremes than high diversity grassland plots. And similarly, compared to low diversity plantations, very biodiverse natural forests and areas allowed to regenerate naturally have lower resilience to fires, to pests and diseases, all of which are becoming much more common under climate change and that they also support a wider range of ecosystem services. And it's not just found in plants. We also found the findings of these patterns in all sorts of different groups as well. More diverse coral reefs, for example, have more stable ecosystem functions, more community stability, and again, greater resilience to disturbance. But it's very complicated. Increasing native and that's key, natural biodiversity is usually associated with improved ecosystem functions and services, but the relationship is nonlinear and its direction and strength can vary among different types of species. And this is really important to bear in mind. For example, the removal of a keystone species from a habitat through overhunting or overfishing, which commonly happens, has a very negative effect on ecological functioning. Whereas if we lose species that share very similar traits with other species in the community, then their loss would have less effect. The problem is when it comes to biodiversity loss, it's usually the keystone species that go first. An ecosystem may appear to have lots of species in it and they appear to be buzzing with life and thriving, but if it has lost the main species that dispersed the seas of large tree species, for example, that health is an illusion and the ecosystem will eventually collapse and its carbon stores and so forth will then be released into the atmosphere. So to conclude, the maintenance or enhancements of natural biodiversity needs to be considered a critical element of successful, sustainable nature-based solutions to climate change. As Dilla said, biodiversity is not wildlife, it's just, it's not a luxury or a nice to have, an additional benefit of working with nature. Biodiversity is that which secures the flow of all that we need now and into the future. It ensures the stability, productivity and resilience of our ecosystems and in a rapidly changing world, that's absolutely essential. In other words, if we don't ensure that biodiversity is supported or enhanced as we design our nature-based solutions, then nature won't be able to provide any benefits to people at all. Thanks very much. Thank you very much indeed, Natalie. So thanks both to Natalie and Dillis. Let's have our third speaker before we move on to a, hopefully a rather interesting and solution-focused discussion of some of your Q&A. Our third speaker is Liz. Liz Rogers. Liz is Vice President for Environmental Technology at BP International. She has led the development and deployment of new technologies there, including those related to carbon capture She supports broad engagement in climate science, including natural climate solutions and she's currently working on the development of BP's sustainability frame. So Liz, thank you very much for coming to share your thoughts with us. Pleasure, Joe. Thank you very much and good morning everybody. It's great to be here at this important event and thanks to our other two speakers. That was a great, great presentation. But now let's turn to why biodiversity loss matters to business and I'll be talking about of course why it matters to BP in particular. At BP we recognize that there's an intrinsic link between the need for global action on climate change and biodiversity and of course as we've heard this morning the strong link to society. Why does global biodiversity loss matter to business? Well we've heard quite a few examples this morning already but it's clear and we all know and it's worth reinforcing this the world is on an unsustainable path Biodiversity loss is happening now and we not only need to avoid the risk of biodiversity loss accelerating but also focus on how we stop biodiversity loss happening and help regenerate nature. There are a number of points on this slide I'm not going to speak to all of them but why global biodiversity loss matters to business I'm just going to highlight a few one in particular around financial institutions increasingly there's great interest from investors on environment and social and governance issues they're sort of abbreviated to the sort of ESG issues and those also include how we're managing biodiversity risk these usually show up as ESG ratings or ESG assessment of companies performance and these are increasingly informing investment decisions. Another key area is the private sector's role in providing input as well as obviously delivering international policies goals and targets and also managing compliance with new and emerging regulations in this area and I'll come back to that at the very end and as we've just heard from Natalie as well in particular there are huge opportunities for us in business to learn from nature and just building on Natalie's presentation as an example understanding the importance of natural carbon cycles and how to conserve these and perhaps even enhance them particularly in part with nature-based solutions so those are just a few reasons why biodiversity loss matters to business but what does this mean from a BP point of view earlier this year BP announced a new purpose to reimagine energy for people on our planet and we also announced a new sustainability frame which includes these three interconnected focus areas getting to net zero improving people's lives and care for our planet now our ambition is to get to net zero by 2050 or sooner and help the world to do the same and that's all about our ambitions to reduce emissions not only from our operations but also from the products that we sell we've launched our new business strategy in August this year that will reshape our business in BP within a decade as we pivot from an international oil company focused on producing resources to an integrated energy company focused on delivering solutions now over time of course our wide-ranging approach to sustainability has brought benefits but often at a local scale and now we believe we can do more by being focused on all priorities to drive our activities around the world and of course one of these priorities is to promote cleaner environments enhance biodiversity and promote natural climate solutions and just as a reminder as we've talked about this is because the continued decline in biodiversity and the degradation of our environment poses serious risks as we've heard about this morning with the natural environment and the natural resources upon which we all depend and it's reducing the ability of ecosystems to take carbon out of the atmosphere as an example which makes it harder to tackle issues like climate change BP is making significant investments in natural climate solutions and we're also working to strengthen and unify existing environmental standards and principles of climate solutions and the co-benefits that they can provide including those to society now we launched these in September and we are working together with different organizations including FFI and IUCN and others to really help think through how we deepen these into a series of objectives and targets and workshops to help us think through those and we'll be reporting on progress on those later this well actually early next year so let's move on to the next slide and what we're doing in terms of enhancing biodiversity and the recent position that we announced in June because managing biodiversity impacts and risks of course is nothing new in BP and biodiversity management has been integrated into our internal processes including risk management procedures for a long time and over that time we've learned a lot both good and bad and we realize that we need to upscale our approach to biodiversity again for all the reasons that we've heard this morning as I mentioned in June we launched our new biodiversity position and this slide talks to and a few things I just wanted to pull out in terms of our new position here we've committed to that there'll be no new oil and gas exploration or production in the most sensitive protected areas and we've defined those as World Heritage sites and the IUCN category 1A and 1B sites we will, we want to have a clear pathway and setting out our actions to help restore maintain and enhance nature which includes these other three points having a net positive impact on biodiversity from our new projects enhancing biodiversity around existing operating sites and supporting biodiversity restoration work in countries where we work and support the sustainable use of natural resources by local communities now working to help us develop that position we've been working with a number of people but in particular Flora, Fauna and Flora International and we're pleased to say that in September we signed a new agreement with FFI to launch a new five-year collaboration and partnership and in particular some of the priority focus is really helping us work on metrics around net positive impact that will help us demonstrate progress so we need to, we believe we need to make transformative changes, I think we've heard again quite a few reasons why we need to make transformative changes and in particular through collective action across all sectors, government, businesses non-governmental organisations and civil society alike of course governments have a vital role in creating the right conditions and incentives through long-term and coherent national policy frameworks and allowing the private sector to also play a big role and businesses such as ours are forming new partnerships, I've just talked about our partnership and long relationship with FFI but another example is work we're doing at T-Side in the UK where working with our partners we're working on how to bring biodiversity management as an integral part of one of the UK's decarbonised industrial hubs now in conclusion businesses I think need to upscale real action for biodiversity conservation increase the use of nature-based solutions and at BP we'll also be supporting major conservation projects in countries where we work and we'll provide more details on that next year we think we need to integrate the importance of biodiversity into business decision-making and I think a lot of organisations including the World Economic Forum have also sort of pointing at this and just as an example what we're thinking about is how to include biodiversity into our business decision-making into our capital allocation processes so going beyond the normal risk assessment processes that are in place today we need to work together of course we need to work together to solve some of these problems and we absolutely need to be opening to listening be open to listening, really listening not just with the people we agree with but with people who can provide solutions but also who have maybe opposing views because we all need to come together to solve some of these really complex challenges and we need to encourage others to pursue opportunities for these collective actions as well for example raising standards across sectors and we're working with IPCA which is the trade association for environmental and social issues in the oil and gas industry and the cross sector biodiversity initiative and of course we need to work with some of our partners to adopt similar approaches so the need for action is clear and why this matters to business is very clear it's critical that we get on and deliver real tangible progress together for biodiversity but for climate people and the planet and do that in an integrated way and I completely agree with the other speakers this morning and I think that's exactly in the integrated way an approach is very important but also so is the need to take action now thank you very much everybody much appreciate the opportunity to share that with you marvellous can we reassemble our panel please and we'll have a I think we've got a few minutes that we can actually have a bit of Q&A and I've had a few questions come through let me look forward as the world comes out of the pandemic and as we head for this critical biodiversity and climate year 2021 that we hope will set the frame for looking at risk through a different lens what measures, let's keep this fairly short if we can because of time but maybe one or two measures what do you hope for as measures of progress over the next period that will actually ensure that nature is in its appropriate place in decision making as it moves forward what would you hope to see over the next 12 months or so let's start with then Dillis perhaps on that one thanks Joe so I guess I'll start with a major concern as well as what I would hope for I mean my concern is that despite all the rhetoric about recognizing that the pandemic is partly related to our broken relationship with nature and the need to mend that relationship that economic priorities will override that sort of brief moment of enlightenment and the sort of talk about green COVID recovery will just turn into talk about let's just build back as quickly as possible in order to restore our economies you know and sod the environment again as it was before so I think that is sort of my major fear and my major hope is that that doesn't happen that we really do get serious about green investments and green recovery not just recovery at all costs but that does require a huge political shift and you know that is really transformation at the scale that we need it but that at a scale that we know is a political hot potato so yeah that's it will be interesting to see how much that does come to all this talk this year comes to bear next year thank you and Natalie how hopeful are you with your role at COP26 we're expecting great things yeah I mean there's a slightly different question I mean what do we need what do I believe we need to see in the next 12 months and that is signs of real systemic change so move from pledges and everybody talking the talk about nature based solutions to actually backing that up with solid sustainable flows of finance with verifiable action plans and in particular all those entities across business and government that are committing to investing in so-called nature based solutions are only doing they also have credible and ambitious pathways to achieving net zero and credible ambitious pathways to removing loss and damage to biodiversity in their supply chains because if they are instead offsetting their damaging their activities that are harming the biosphere and harming the climate by investments in nature based solutions then we're going to be toast because unless we keep fossil fuels in the ground we're going to be very warm beyond the environment so much that we you know that the sustainability of humanity and biodiversity on the planet will be compromised and that's the bottom line everything else otherwise is rearranging theirs on the Titanic yeah let me let Liz let me ask you if you want to respond to that before maybe we ask our panellists to talk to one another about this Liz what's your sense of that large scale measure that might enable a response along the lines of those that Dillis and Natalie have called for well I think I think it's very important that we're you know we recognize that we're in a world of transition you know we're moving from absolutely a world of fossil fuel based energy systems and it's you know it is going to take time but actually signs are encouraging that we are sort of and we're sort of learning by doing that we I completely agree we need to be in action we need to remind ourselves about you know what the benefits and that there were benefits of you know people sort of people in lockdown which is I mean you know there were lots of disadvantages but one of the benefits was people realize the true value of nature you know cleaner air the opportunity to benefit from nature particularly from a mental well-being you know and it really connected people back to nature so going forward in building back better building back in a more resilient way understanding the benefits of nature and how we can sort of bring those in to accelerate our transition to cleaner energy and cleaner energy systems is really important and so I do think that's quite critical and having the commitment to building back better decarbonizing our energy systems having targets and making real tangible progress and demonstrating progress will be essential and as I mentioned in my talk I think it's all of us have a role to play governments non-governmental organizations businesses and we've got to work together but I agree you know we do need tangible action and if we focus specifically on the question of risk which was the topic of this discussion do we see ways in which risk could be better measured better integrated into decision making I keep hearing that the finance sector is getting on top of this and that we're getting some really good much more objective and verifiable sense of how nature could be built into monitoring and decision making and so on and I think the panel's view of progress we're making on risk Liz maybe I'll start with you on that one first there's our corporate representative do you think there's ways in which the whole sector can better understand and disclose risk it's one of the questions that have come up in the chat box yeah I mean that's the journey we've been on on climate and over the years I've been working in this industry for 30 plus years and actually you know the journey we've been on particularly on climate and climate related risks and disclosing information not only around you know emissions and emission numbers but also how we understand adaptation and resilience and now it's linked of course to the transition pathway metrics are important to the business decision making is important as I mentioned in my talk and incorporating aspects of biodiversity and nature-based solutions and so on that is all now in play and will be an important part of the discussion in terms of measuring performance but also helping people understand why it's important to actually include this as an integral part of your business processes right up and including board considerations board level discussions Natalie what's your sense of risk and how what mechanisms are out there to better manage the risk side do you see that as being a tool that will be used more effectively well I think so I think there's sort of widespread acknowledgement including this being pushed up by the World Economic Forum as well that you know the loss of biodiversity and climate change presents all different categories or different types of risk opportunity risks and risks to asset risks to supply chains there's all sorts of different types of risks and there's an acknowledgement that you know that this is happening but so long as corporate strategies tackling risk are based on this idea of net biodiversity you know no net loss or offsetting which is another way it makes the assumption that it's okay to have some damage somewhere when it really isn't so we need to get I think away from this idea of no net loss towards certainly when it comes to biodiversity no loss at all so I would say that we're under the corporations are underestimating the risks to their operations and their profit margins by thinking in terms of no net loss that would be my view on that lots of very interesting stuff to unpack there among the science and the decision making and so on anything you'd like to say well just only to say that it's great that biodiversity risk is finally getting the attention it deserves it's been something that has been flagged by others you know probably for 10 if not 15 years and it's something that's you know constantly being pushed to one side and I think it applies not just to corporate sector and the finance sector but also to development organizations you know just thinking about you know that's what I meant in many ways in terms of thinking about how we nature proof our investments that you don't just go along and I mean we've got some kind of screening for climate change impacts currently is fairly mainstream for development organizations but we do routinely need to look at you know what are the biodiversity risks of these planned developments as well as what are the climate risks and how strategies in place to deal with that are much better mechanisms better metrics and systems across the board in order to be able to manage that but at least sort of acknowledging that this is now an issue is a major step forward yeah very much so lots to unpack there be great to understand more about the task force on nature related financial disclosure as well which we know is one of the opportunities coming forwards that might actually help with making this a little bit more transparent and visible and monitorable but we are starting to run out of time so I thought we might just have one final question which somebody is posed to us in the chat which is sort of exemplars of good work are there might you each have one example you could bring to us of something that you think is working and the others can draw from as a you know an example of how how biodiversity and nature risks are being better addressed and thought about whether that's a project or an initiative or just something you read recently you know is there something which gives you a sense that that there are you know there are good ideas out there that we can and we can enhance and maybe lift up to a higher scale Dillis you're nodding well I think there's so many good ideas out there it's difficult to pick a few one of the things that I idea is interested in is thinking about how we can use debt swaps for improved climate and nature performance recognizing that developing countries have a lot of debt before COVID-19 they've now got even more debt asset managers are the holders of a lot of that debt and are beginning to build in climate considerations so you know in many ways debt relief can be a way of fulfilling some of those climate commitments so I think that sort of whole area of debt swaps is an interesting one but I wouldn't be IID if I didn't say that really I think that the most a lot of the innovation is happening at the local level so these are global challenges but development is felt at the local level climate change impacts are felt at the local level as is biodiversity loss so it's really those local level solutions of which there are hundreds of different types of solutions so I'm going to pick out a couple but how we kind of pick those up amplify them scale them up so that they can have the kind of impact that we need beyond the local level I think is where you know is really exciting and interesting good brilliant Liz any any suggestions from you yeah well just a sort of a parochial one but but I do think this is absolutely right for solar power with which is now actually 10 years old as of 1st of December and one of the things that I wanted to sort of mention is you know in the energy transition as we transition to cleaner forms and decarbonized energy we've got to keep the pressure on making sure we manage that responsibly and we actually you know learn and make sure from an environmental and social point of view that actually we don't cause more harm light source BP just a small example where they're putting their solar arrays on land they're also integrating wildflower conservation or planting wildflowers to encourage pollination and bees and beekeeping and honey production so it's a small contribution to conservation it's a small contribution to pollination and bees and so on but also with sort of local input from sort of livelihood around honey sales now it's a tiny sort of piece in a much bigger issue but actually the CEO of light source BP the fact that they've done this and committed to it and then can scale it up and sort of influence others thinking about renewable forms of energy what more can you do in terms of additive to bring in that connection with nature that is I think really important thanks Liz and Natalie can it close us out with an idea that you've you appreciate what I wanted to say was to strongly endorse what Dillis said in fact she said exactly the kind of thing I was going to say there are thousands of projects and I you know one of the best bits about working in this space is sort of finding out almost on a daily basis about other new and amazing ways local communities across the world whether it's you know women leading mangrove restoration projects the Cameroon and the Philippines to farmer led rewilding on the coast and then the highlands of the UK to all those that are bringing wildlife into cities and green spaces and improving you know the quality of life for people living in cities you know whatever it is there's a huge amount of innovation there and you know in a lot of knowledge at the local level and the best sorts of nature-based solutions are those ones the ones that come from the communities because those are the ones that will scale out and will spread fantastic examples of all these projects happening and I think it's very effective of the chaos that might be going on you know in the government and administrative level so we can spotlight those and I think it will really an important thing for us to do in the next 12 months is really spotlight those projects and point to governments and businesses and say this is the kind of thing that we need to federate and take to scale and I think what we really need thinking about you know there's an awful lot of potential finance out there for all these projects creating these boundary organizations that enable the channeling so to go back to what I said before the investors that have strong and verifiable credible decarbonization plans with those projects that are led by people that support biodiversity and there are so many of those so we need to match this up we need to work together and those boundary organizations are you know people from all sorts of different disciplines to ensure that all that funding isn't poorly invested and doesn't do more harm than good thank you very much and I will then add a final comment from an FFI point of view as well which is this exact we have a campaign moment called our one home and it is calling for channeling new funding down to local initiatives recognizing that these local initiatives are where we can make it make all of these things come together so thank you very much panel we're out of time I hope you've all enjoyed it thank you participants and please enjoy the rest of these sessions thank you and goodbye