Biodiversity loss, deforestation, ecosystem degradation. These manifestations of the anthropocene will have severe consequences for nature, society, and economies. While not yet fully recognized, biodiversity loss poses systemic and existential risks, including to investors and markets, for example threatening food supply chains,  livelihoods, creating health risks (such as Covid-19), and significantly impacting climate degradation

So what business transformation is needed? In what sectors or regions? What role for investors vis a vis companies but also policymakers and stakeholders to preserve species, genetic wealth, nature and ecosystems? And what role for markets?

There has been growing interest in these issues among institutional investors, thanks to activists, to the work of IPBES,  global visibility with the upcoming United Nations Biodiversity COP and, in this pandemic age, the links between zoonotic diseases and land use.

We are interested in identifying the specific areas and ways institutional investors can have an important and rapid intact, as well as lessons learned from the global climate action playbook.

In February 2021, we held a week long online dialogue bringing together 90 participants from financial markets, science, academia, civil society and other stakeholders groups.  An extensive summary captures the wealth of the conversations with daily provocations and syntheses, select responses and observations from the participants, a list of actionable ideas and survey data.

Winning without win-win represents Preventable Surprises’ own take-aways from the dialogue, as well as from many more recent developments on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) finance and climate action. They aren’t meant and do not claim to be a consensus view of dialogue participants.