The purpose of this NERC funded programme is to explore the gaps and integration between the financial system and biodiversity.
The programme will establish a virtual hub and networks that will convene and catalyse a multi-stakeholder community and support this integration. Recognising this integration is complex, driven by the financial services community and rapid development of public policy. It will require underpinning academic data and knowledge of different scales, from local to international.
This opportunity is designed to drive the development of knowledge, tools and a skilled community to incorporate reporting on biodiversity for all business sectors.
To address this challenge, the hub and spoke networks will be responsible for delivering:
- community networks across academic, business and policy, with common understanding, aims and linked approaches to embed biodiversity value into financial decision-making
- a robust suite of standardised, accessible, and verifiable data and metrics, tools, methods and frameworks that incorporate biodiversity into financial services
- a common framework and language to incorporate biodiversity as an asset that recognises value differs between audiences.
The environmental science community has the capacity to fill knowledge gaps, and provide environmental data and evidence to develop tools to incorporate biodiversity, as an asset or value, into private finance. In doing so, the community and financial sector can work together to help reverse the global trend of biodiversity depletion. This will be achieved through a change in business and consumer behaviour for a nature-positive future.
Expectations
Nature Positive Future programme awards are expected to complement and draw on the current NERC-led Economics of Biodiversity (EoB) programme.
The EoB programme explores the multiple values of biodiversity to many sectors of society using a broader economic (rather than financial) perspective. This includes both the ‘Synthesising evidence in economics of biodiversity’ and ‘Improve understanding of the economics of biodiversity’ funding opportunities and award holders.
Awards will also draw on the NERC and Innovate UK ‘Climate and environmental risk analytics for resilient finance (CERAF)’ programme, including the UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment (UKCGFI), which is developing a platform for climate and environmental analytics for resilient finance.
In building on these programmes, the Nature Positive Future awards will:
- harness the strong environmental sciences research base
- build on the tools and data from these and previous NERC investments, such as the Valuing Nature Programme.
The Nature Positive Future programme is core to NERC’s ambitions to deliver environmental solutions and provide knowledge, capability and tools that link academic research to business needs.
All proposals are expected to have at least one project partner from the financial sector or business community and demonstrate strong engagement with this partner and relevant stakeholders outside of academia. International collaborators can be included where there is clear value to the proposed project.
Full information can be found on the UKRI website.
The closing date for applications is 1 September with the award starting in January 2023.