Agenda

08:00

Registration and coffee

08:50

Chair’s welcoming remarks

09:00

Keynote Address

09:20

Panel: Closing the nature and biodiversity financing gap: Blended finance and innovative funding solutions to catalyse private capital investment

What concessional capital structures have been most successful in attracting large-scale private capital investment?
Effective solutions to de-risk investment opportunities and encourage participation by larger institutional investors (eg first loss provisions, credit guarantees etc)
How to overcome reputational risk fears that high profile investors may have when considering nature investments? How can partnerships with high-integrity NGOs, DFIs and MDBs mitigate these?
What instruments are being used in other markets that might be transferable?

Ashley Camhi, Director of Innovative Finance, Wildlife Conservation Society
Carl Atkin-House, Head of Natural Capital Strategy, Climate Asset Management
Maya Hennerkes, Director for Green Financial Systems, Climate Strategy and Delivery Department, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)

10:05

Panel: TNFD and the future of nature and biodiversity reporting

Lessons learned from early adopters of TNFD across different sectors
Where are the main gaps in companies' assessments and reporting? What solutions are available to close the data gaps?
Update on the TNFD's proposal for a Nature Data Public Facility – how should this be funded and structured? What impact will it have?
Interoperability between TNFD and CSRD reporting
How are corporates managing (double) materiality assessments? What insights are we seeing across different sectors?
How will investors use TNFD reports to benchmark companies? Will TNFD make a difference to the movement of capital into nature over the next few years?

Emine Isciel, Head of Climate and Environment, Storebrand Asset Management
Åsa Mossberg, Head of Sustainability, AP2
Senior representative, ISS STOXX

10:50

Morning networking break

11:20

Panel: What does the future development of high-integrity biodiversity and carbon credit markets look like?

What role can the biodiversity credit market play – can it be scaled up sufficiently to have a real impact?
How will the International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits framework help shape the market?
Who are the natural buyers for these credits and how will they use them? How will schemes align with buyer needs, nature-related risk disclosure and target setting?
Will we see a revival of the Voluntary Carbon Market? What impact will the decision at COP 29 to operationalise Article 6.4 have?
How is uncertainty on the SBTi's future approach on permitting Environmental Attribute Certificates for offsetting Scope 3 affecting the market?
How prominent a role should quantifiable co-benefits have? How important are they to buyers?
How to address buyers' concerns (including legal and reputational risk, double counting, additionality, integrity and verification)

Fraser Green, Head of Natural Capital Investment, abrdn

12:05

Fireside Chat: Developing an integrated approach to financing climate and nature

Where are the key areas that can deliver co-benefits across both climate and nature?
To what extent are investors linking their nature and biodiversity investment strategies to their emission reduction targets?
How to evaluate the relative performance of net nature negative companies in sectors that are critical to the climate transition? How do you balance this trade-off where climate and nature interests diverge?
How do we ensure that ecosystem services are properly valued and funded? How might this be organised and who should take the lead?
What does a joint climate-biodiversity strategy look like? What data do you need to implement it?
Will the TNFD's draft guidance on nature transition plans help with the goal of developing integrated nature-climate plans?

Olga Hancock, Head of Responsible Investment, Church Commissioners for England
Pierre Devichi, Head of Responsible Investment, ERAFP

12:30

Lunch break

13:30

Track 1:	Track 2:
Panel Managing investment opportunities and risks in forests and other landscapes	Panel:Time for action – Ensuring corporates and investors move forward with Science-Based Targets for Nature
How are trends in forestry and landscape investments evolving? Striking a balance between preventing landscape degradation and restoration projects whilst focusing on the most intact, biodiverse and highest integrity areas Assessing and managing deforestation risks - how can financial institutions effectively capture and disclose deforestation data relating to their portfolios? What impact will the EU's deforestation regulation have? Ensuring effective engagement with high-risk companies (including through industry engagement initiatives) How do investors conduct effective sovereign engagement – what are the challenges? How to prove additionality and measure impact in projects What are the options for additional revenue streams? Darius Sarshar, Principal, SLM Partners	How is the adoption of the SBTN's Science Based Targets for Nature by corporates progressing? What can we learn from those companies who have currently published targets? How useful are these for investors? What progress are investors making on setting and reporting against their own science-based nature targets? What impact are industry initiatives like the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation's Target Setting Framework having? How do we move towards a harmonised approach to target setting by investors? How are investors using the Nature Action 100 Company Benchmark results to assess material nature-related financial risks and opportunities and support more meaningful engagement with companies? What about the impact of other nature-based corporate engagement initiatives? Chris Hart, Nature SME, Phoenix Group Kiran Sehra, Nature Specialist, Aviva Investors Richard Harris, Global Biodiversity Manager, British American Tobacco

Track 1:

Track 2:

Panel Managing investment opportunities and risks in forests and other landscapes

Panel:Time for action – Ensuring corporates and investors move forward with Science-Based Targets for Nature

How are trends in forestry and landscape investments evolving?
Striking a balance between preventing landscape degradation and restoration projects whilst focusing on the most intact, biodiverse and highest integrity areas
Assessing and managing deforestation risks - how can financial institutions effectively capture and disclose deforestation data relating to their portfolios? What impact will the EU's deforestation regulation have?
Ensuring effective engagement with high-risk companies (including through industry engagement initiatives)
How do investors conduct effective sovereign engagement – what are the challenges?
How to prove additionality and measure impact in projects
What are the options for additional revenue streams?

Darius Sarshar, Principal, SLM Partners

How is the adoption of the SBTN's Science Based Targets for Nature by corporates progressing? What can we learn from those companies who have currently published targets? How useful are these for investors?
What progress are investors making on setting and reporting against their own science-based nature targets?
What impact are industry initiatives like the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation's Target Setting Framework having? How do we move towards a harmonised approach to target setting by investors?
How are investors using the Nature Action 100 Company Benchmark results to assess material nature-related financial risks and opportunities and support more meaningful engagement with companies?
What about the impact of other nature-based corporate engagement initiatives?

Chris Hart, Nature SME, Phoenix Group
Kiran Sehra, Nature Specialist, Aviva Investors
Richard Harris, Global Biodiversity Manager, British American Tobacco

14:15

Panel: Sustainable agriculture and food production systems

Panel: Blue finance – Addressing barriers to investment and scaling up the market

What role can investors play in the agricultural transition to sustainable food production systems? Where can they have most impact?
How do you generate returns in a fund?
What innovative financing structures are needed to address the funding gap facing the regenerative agricultural transition? How can different asset classes best be used?
How can offtakes agreements be used and how will the costs of regen agriculture be passed on?
How to value and monetize ecosystem services
Identifying and scaling investment to the most promising emerging agriculture technologies and solutions
What progress is being made to integrate agriculture into NDCs and what opportunities might this create for investors?

Laura Moss-Bromage, Planet Themes Lead, Church Commissioners for England
Joe Horrocks-Taylor, Vice President, Sustainable Research, Columbia Threadneedle Investments
Simon Duchatelet, Manager, Financing & Structured Investments, Unilever Climate & Nature Fund

Identifying and scaling investable opportunities in ocean and freshwater themes
What are the different financial instruments needed to catalyse investment in blue finance?
Are there opportunities to pool blue finance projects together?
How to de-risk them to make them more attractive to larger investors
What is needed to grow the blue bond market and develop guarantee facilities to support this?
What role can parametric insurance play in protecting marine ecosystems, de-rising investments and enhancing climate change resilience?

Chip Cunliffe, Senior Director, Innovation and Pipeline Development, Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance

15:00

Afternoon networking break

15:30

Panel: What is Nature Positive? Measuring and reporting impact in nature and biodiversity investments

What does 'nature positive' actually mean and how should investors and corporates approach this to avoid accusations of greenwashing?
Measuring Nature-Positive outcomes – Are we any closer to alignment and consensus on a unified set of State of Nature metrics?
Update on the work of the Nature Positive Initiative
What types of impact and outcome metrics are investors currently focusing on?
What role can technology play in monitoring and verification of outcomes in nature projects and how is this evolving? How can Nature Tech unlock new opportunities to source impact data that is more comparable, standardised and traceable?

Harry Ashman, Engagement Specialist, Robeco
Thomas Viegas, Nature Strategy Lead, Aviva

16:15

Panel: Unlocking the potential of Debt for Nature Swaps

How to develop and extend the use of Debt for Nature Swaps – what are the barriers to scaling up the number and size of transactions?
What are the opportunities and challenges for sovereigns, banks, investors and other participants in the deal?
How do investors analyse their risk profile and impact given their complex structure?
What can we learn from recent successful Debt for Nature Swap deals in terms of how they are structured?
What impact can other innovative sustainable debt instruments like outcome bonds and sovereign sustainability-linked bonds have in catalysing more private finance to nature?

Jake Harper, Senior Investment Manager (Private Credit), Legal & General Asset Management

17:00

Fireside Chat: Effectively integrating material nature and biodiversity risks into your investment process

What are the different approaches investors are taking - how are they using the data currently available? What solutions are available to fill the data gaps?
How are investors conducting materiality assessments?
How does engagement activity with companies vary across different asset classes? What about approaches to sovereign engagement?
Developing nature and biodiversity investment frameworks: How do you build biodiversity into outcomes?
How do you attribute alpha to specific biodiversity and nature metrics?
How should investors be adjusting their thinking on discount rates, investment time horizons and investment returns for nature and biodiversity? How to better align investor expectations with the characteristics of nature-based projects in developing markets?
How do asset managers communicate the investment proposition for nature and biodiversity to their clients?

17:25

Chair’s closing remarks

17:30

Close of conference and networking drinks reception

Natural Capital Investment EMEA 2025

Agenda