Natural Capital Investment Conference 2021 (Virtual)

Nature+ Accelerator Fund – An innovative and scalable market strategy for nature-based solutions

Speaker: Edit Kiss, Investment and Development Director, Mirova Natural Capital

Natural Climate Solutions - carbon offsets today and tomorrow: How have offsetting markets for carbon evolved? How transformative can increased natural capital investment be? What is the future of offsetting in natural climate solutions?

Speaker: David Antonioli, Chief Executive Officer, Verra

An update on The Dasgupta Review – an Independent Review on the Economics of Biodiversity

Speaker: Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus, University of Cambridge

An update from the Environment Agency

Speaker: Emma Howard Boyd, Chair, Environment Agency

Impax's Sustainable Food investment strategy

Speaker: Harry Boyle, Associate Director, Portfolio Specialist, Impax Asset Management

Natural Capital Funds: Key considerations for managers and investors

Speakers: James Burdett, Partner, Head of Investment Funds Group, Baker McKenzie
Caitlin McErlane, Partner, Baker McKenzie's Financial Services & Regulatory Group
Ilona Millar, Partner, Head Global Climate Change, Baker McKenzie

Welcome and introduction to the day

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: : The interdependence between finance and nature

Simon Zadek, Chair, Finance for Biodiversity

UNDERSTANDING NATURAL CAPITAL INVESTMENT

PANEL: Financial institutions’ exposure to nature-related risks

• What do investors look for when asset screening and assessing climate risk?
• What the challenges in risk integration with natural capital investments?
• How are risk assessments best undertaken?
• How are investors embedding natural capital and biodiversity into ESG assessments?
• Connecting finance and business to deliver shared objectives and reduce risk

Moderator: Andrew Mitchell, Founder & Senior Adviser, Natural Capital Finance Alliance
& Global Canopy

Panellists: Richard Burrett, Chief Sustainability Officer, Earth Capital
Dawn Slevin, Managing Director, Environmental Liability Solutions Europe, Co-Chair, EFRAG Project Task Force on reporting of non-financial risks and opportunities and linkage to the business model
Katie Leach, Senior Programme Officer, Business and Biodiversity, UNEP-WCMC
Nick Robins, Professor in Practice, Sustainable Finance, London School of Economics

PANEL: Scaling natural capital investments and building a market

• Examples of nature-based solutions and ecosystem services where investors see potential
• Establishing value in ecosystem services
• What can we learn from the success of other green investment opportunities when scaling natural capital investment?

Moderator: Alejandro Litovsky, Founder & CEO, Earth Security
Panellists: Matthew McLuckie, Managing Partner, Posaidon
Darius Sarshar, Investment Director, SLM Partners
Katherine Birnie, Managing Director, Ecosystem Investment Partners
Pierre Rousseau, Senior Strategic Advisor, Sustainable Business, BNP Paribas
Alina Donets, Portfolio Manager, Lombard Odier Investment Managers

Speed networking

INVESTMENT STRATEGIES AND IMPACT MEASUREMENTS

INVESTOR PANEL: Unpicking metrics and materiality

• Valuing an asset and structuring returns
• Where are the opportunities for standardisation in approaches and metrics?
• Integrating natural capital accounting
• Making the business case for investable natural assets

Moderator: Peter Cripps, Editor, Environmental Finance
Panellists: Jim Totty, Managing Director, Viridis Capital
James Mansfield, Managing Director, Finance Earth
Eoin Fahy, Head of Responsible Investing and Chief Economist, KBI Global Investors
Edit Kiss, Investment and Development Director, Mirova Natural Capital

PRESENTATION: Environmental data and the finance sector

• What information is needed to align portfolios with nature-based solutions or biodiversity targets?
• Where and how are investors sourcing data in this space?
• What investment tools support a natural capital investment strategy?

Speaker: Ed Ellis, Manager, IBAT

PANEL: Investing for impact

• What impact strategies maximise environmental and biodiversity gains?
• How should projects measure and report impact in a way that is useful for investors?
• How can natural capital impacts of other investments be best captured and understood?
• How can TCFD/TNFD disclosures be utilised when making decisions around impact?
• Natural capital accounting as an impact measurement approach

Moderator: Martin Berg, Head of Natural Capital Impact Strategy, HSBC Pollination Climate Asset Management
Panellists: Ece Özdemiroğlu, Founding Director, eftec
Wijnand Broer, Partner, CREM/Partnership Biodiversity Accounting Financials (PBAF)
Tammy Newmark, Managing Partner & CEO, EcoEnterprises Fund
Charlotte Kaiser, Managing Director, NatureVest, The Nature Conservancy

Speed networking

FIRESIDE CHAT: Internalising the externalities of nature

Steve Waygood, Chief Responsible Investment Officer, Aviva Investors

POLICY MAKING AND THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENTS

PANEL: Blended finance

• Government incentives to enhance returns and reduce risk
• Case studies: did it work and what further questions were raised?
• What can be done to get such projects to scale?
• Are pooled funds and aggregating capital preferred to blended finance?

Moderator: Ivo Mulder, Head, Climate Finance Unit, United Nations Environment Programme
Panellists: Johnny Brom, Chief Investment Officer, Sail Ventures, Investment Advisor, &Green Fund
Bianca Nijhof, Managing Director, Netherlands Water Partnership
Fiona Stewart, Lead Financial Sector Specialist, The World Bank
Katherine Stodulka, Director, Blended Finance Taskforce

AFTERNOON KEYNOTE: Task Force for Nature-related Financial Disclosures

Nicky Chambers, Programme and Impact Director, Global Canopy

PANEL: The global governance and legislative agenda

• What can governments do to collectively to protect nature within financial systems?
• Natural Capital considerations for the EU legislative agenda
• How might asset owners and investment managers be expected to report on biodiversity impacts?
• What can be expected to come out of the UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP 15) in Kunming 2021?
• How are central banks approaching the theme of biodiversity loss?

Moderator: Rhian-Mari Thomas, CEO, Green Finance Institute
Panellists: Joris van Toor, Policy Advisor, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB)
Chris Dodwell, Head of Policy & Advocacy, Director, Impax
Odile Conchou, Financial Sector Focal Point, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity
Caitlin McErlane, Partner, Baker McKenzie Financial Services & Regulatory Group

LIVE DISCUSSION GROUP: Investing in natural capital

The founding members of the Natural Capital Investment Alliance (HSBC Pollination Climate Asset Limited, Mirova and Lombard Odier) will be running a live discussion group via zoom.

It will be an open discussion between the Alliance, institutional members and any other interested participants on the current opportunities and challenges related to natural capital investing. The Alliance will present ideas how natural capital can be integrated as an investment theme in established and new asset classes. The main goal is to start a discussion how investors currently approach natural capital, where they see opportunities and what barriers need to be addressed to mainstream natural capital into wider asset allocations.

The Alliance was established under the auspices of HRH The Prince of Wales's Sustainable Market Initiative to facilitate a dialogue between asset managers and institutional investors on the investment opportunities related to natural capital.

Closing remarks

End of conference