UK-based Impax Asset Management has called on governments to implement stronger regulation to incentivise corporates to protect and restore biodiversity. The asset manager partnered with independent academics from Imperial College London to produce a report which has highlighted that corporates are currently taking limited action to protect biodiversity. “We found that motivations for corporate action varied by case study,” said Dr Alex Köberle, Advanced Research Fellow at the Centre for Climate Finance & Investment at Imperial College Business School. “Supply chain security emerged as a primary driver where companies rely on the natural capital environment for their products and services, as illustrated by the case studies of companies in agriculture and the water sector.” A surprising outcome was that the case studies in the report did not reveal consumer preferences to be a “major motivating factor behind action”, Köberle added. The report makes recommendations for governments and companies to accelerate progress, including strengthening environmental licensing, making nature-related disclosures mandatory, asking for information on corporates’ nature-positive investments, and conducting further research into how private investments can be leveraged by public funding or philanthropy. Impax AM Head of Policy and Advocacy Chris Dodwell said: “Until appropriate financial values are assigned to natural capital, regulation and policy incentives will likely remain the most effective way to encourage nature-positive investments.”
