Paola Masperi

On Earth Day there are posts with lots of pretty pictures and pledges. But what should count is recognition of differentiated responsibilty for biodiversity loss; novel ideas to engage with traditional stewards and initiatives to do ecosystem strengthening. What exactly is Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) doing that is NOT business-as-usual. Are we still tracking corporate disclosures as important actions?

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🌟 Major Funding Alert: Smart Grants UK Open for Applications! 🌟 UK innovators and organisations take note! The Smart Grants UK programme now accepts applications, offering a significant opportunity to secure funding for your most ambitious R&D projects. 🔬 What’s on Offer? Get a share of up to £25 million to support your game-changing innovations that can significantly impact the UK economy. This is your chance to transform your visionary ideas into commercial successes. 📅 Key Dates: Closing Date: 23 October 2024 🎯 Eligibility: Open to all UK registered organisations aiming to develop commercially viable R&D innovations. 💡 This funding is designed to accelerate the development of outstanding innovative ideas across any technology and industrial area. Whether you're in health, tech, engineering, or environmental sciences, Smart Grants UK can boost your project's potential. https://zurl.co/V2ll 👉 Don’t miss out on this opportunity to drive your innovation forward with substantial funding. Let’s push the boundaries of what’s possible! #UKInnovation #RnDFunding #SmartGrantsUK #TechnologyDevelopment #EconomicImpact Connect with us: https://zurl.co/tgQ9

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🌟 Major Funding Alert: Smart Grants UK Open for Applications! 🌟 UK innovators and organisations take note! The Smart Grants UK programme now accepts applications, offering a significant opportunity to secure funding for your most ambitious R&D projects. 🔬 What’s on Offer? Get a share of up to £25 million to support your game-changing innovations that can significantly impact the UK economy. This is your chance to transform your visionary ideas into commercial successes. 📅 Key Dates: Closing Date: 23 October 2024 🎯 Eligibility: Open to all UK registered organisations aiming to develop commercially viable R&D innovations. 💡 This funding is designed to accelerate the development of outstanding innovative ideas across any technology and industrial area. Whether you're in health, tech, engineering, or environmental sciences, Smart Grants UK can boost your project's potential. https://zurl.co/V2ll 👉 Don’t miss out on this opportunity to drive your innovation forward with substantial funding. Let’s push the boundaries of what’s possible! #UKInnovation #RnDFunding #SmartGrantsUK #TechnologyDevelopment #EconomicImpact Connect with us: https://zurl.co/tgQ9

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The concept of #materiality sits at the heart of #bestpractice identification, management and reporting of #sustainability risks and opportunities. It guides the prioritisation of those risks and opportunities that can significantly impact our business and/or are most important to our stakeholders. As a demonstration of our #sustainabilityleadership, New Forests regularly assesses materiality, guided by globally leading sustainability-related reporting frameworks including the Integrated Reporting (IR) Framework, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the FSB Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and the nascent International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). Done well, a materiality assessment should do more than inform our sustainability management and reporting. A refreshed understanding of the environmental, social, and governance themes that are most important to stakeholders is a valuable input to strategic planning, helping to inform business strategy and resource allocation and guide performance measurement. This year we evolved our Materiality Assessment to incorporate a double materiality approach to understand the environmental, social or governance themes of significant to our stakeholders (impact materiality), the themes which most affect New Forests’ business going forward (financial materiality) and those themes which are material from both an impact and financial lens. We also expanded the number and types of stakeholders engaged, for example, including Environmental NGOs as a proxy for the environment, given our reliance on nature as manager of nature-based real assets and natural capital strategies. Well done Carly Hammond for pursuing a novel approach to gaining input from our stakeholders and her considered way of bringing it all together. If you want to know the findings from our 2024 Materiality Assessment, I encourage you to read our Report, that can be found here https://lnkd.in/gepKBiq6.

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Greenwashing in the IFA world, if it happens, will happen in the main for different reasons than it does in other sectors; as many IFAs do not yet recognise green characteristics as a product feature that will win lots of new custom. It will however give IFAs a "stick" reason to be much more diligent about the investment solutions they use and the claims made by the investment providers. The lack of prescription in the SDR rules means that this due diligence requires scrutiny of areas that many firms will not have much expertise in, areas where both nuance and nascence collide. But, despite the need to be cautious and measured about green investment claims, we must as a profession remain enthusiastic about the compelling need to invest greenly and sustainably -to help manage personal, financial and systemic risk. Greenhushing is as great a risk.

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Triodos Bank in the UK have just released a white paper, ‘Financing the Nature-based Solutions Sector’, which aims to support other financial institutions to draw up their own investments. It emphasises biodiversity’s critical role in economic stability, noting that more than half of global GDP depends on ecosystem services. According to WWF’s recent Living Planet Report, wildlife vertebrate populations have declined by 73% over the past 50 years, underscoring the urgent need for ecosystem restoration. #Nature #Fintech #NBS #Payments #Investment #Innovation #Crowdfunding #Impactfund #Naturebased #greenfinance

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Making the consideration of nature, second nature in the workplace. WWF-UK, National Trust and RSPB have combined forces to support workers at all businesses to take the steps to make #nature part of everyday thinking, discussion. and decision making. Developed alongside employees and managers across a range of firms and industries, Nature’s Workforce provides a suite of resources including a detailed step-by-step guide on how to start conversations at work on ways businesses can help support #naturepositive outcomes. Its core five steps are: 📚Learn about business and nature - Understanding how your business depends and impacts on nature. ❓Ask the right questions- discover five areas you can make a different in your workplace. 👫Collaborate with Collegues - Find out how to engage your collegues in the discussion. 🗣️Hold the Conversation- Get started no matter how much time you have. 🎬Turn talk into Action - Take the first steps and spread the message about your work. You don’t need to be a nature expert or know all the answers to get involved. You only need to be curious, open, and willing to get the conversation going! Congratulations to my Aviva colleagues who contributed to bring this to life, and we continue to work together with WWF to act on climate change and nature loss to make a better tomorrow.

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Our Q2 Public Engagement Report is now live. In the third feature, Will Farrell and Hannah Heuser examine ways to engage with demand-side companies to help drive the low carbon transition, using insights from EOS’s engagements with fossil fuel producers. #ESG #climatechange #netzero #stewardship https://bit.ly/3MfR9YM

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Legally binding climate targets mean something! Twice in two years the UK government has been taken to court for not doing enough to meet its carbon reduction targets. And both times the government has lost. In 2022, the courts agreed that the government's Net Zero Plan did not clearly show how the plan would achieve the targets set out in the #ClimateChangeAct. And the government was sent away to beef its plan up. This year, the plans have been challenged again. And again, the government has lost. Later today, the High Court is expected to announce timelines for Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to come back for a third time with a credible plan. #climatechange #netzero #climateemergency https://lnkd.in/ekSM4AxC

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Today on #EarthDay I would like to reflect on the importance of considering the natural capital issues into our investment decisions. For that purpose a highly useful framework is the disclosure recommendations from the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). See below in the post for more information about this framework. #TNFD #SustainableFinance #NaturePositive #biodiversity

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In case you are interested

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It is going to be a busy day for all of us in sustainability roles - The Financial Conduct Authority has just published two highly anticipated documents! 1️⃣ Finalised Guidance FG24/3 Finalised non‑handbook guidance on the Anti‑Greenwashing Rule 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eJCsGS_u 2️⃣ Consultation Paper CP24/8** Extending the Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) regime to Portfolio Management  🔗 https://lnkd.in/eXPUdMAs 🧐 We look forward to sharing our comments in due course! Please DM me or email us at ESG ACCORD (Accord Initiative) if you have any questions. #AccordInitiative #compliance #esginvesting #climate #sustainableinvesting #financialplanning #esg #wealthmanagement

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At Triodos, we talk a lot about overconsumption and the #CircularEconomy… but why is this so important to us? As a sustainable bank, we play a crucial role in protecting the environment and preserving the Earth’s resources through the organisations we fund. Our team work with businesses who create products that are designed for longevity, to be reused, or that have minimal waste. We also urge organisations and individuals to question whether some of the products we purchase are even needed at all. Learn more about how and why we’re championing #SustainableResources here 👇

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UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD): Leveraging carbon markets for least developed countries - article and report. “By connecting economic growth with climate action, carbon markets can offer a pathway to mobilize funds for sustainable development in the world’s most vulnerable economies.” As we head to COP29 Azerbaijan, we at ZERO13 believe that these markets will be distributed across the world and interoperability across multiple blockchains and APIs is key to scale them through a cooperative ecosystem building approach to interconnect registries, exchanges, trading participants, project developers and services. 👉🏼 Read the article hete: https://lnkd.in/eiMDENMd 👉🏼 See the full report here: https://lnkd.in/eVPUGAYG 👉🏼 We are going to be in the blue zone and green zones at COP29 and available for meetings and engagement. If you are going to be there, please feel free to get in touch. GMEX Group SECDEX Group #carbonmarkets #carboncredits

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Yesterday's speech from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres United Nations was a wake-up call that we urgently need bold climate leadership and cooperation at all levels of society, including businesses.   The UK’s recent shaky commitments to its climate goals has undermined its international credibility and hampered UK businesses from leading the global energy transition.   So what does the next government need to prioritise?   From waiting lists of 15 years for renewable projects to connect to the grid, to some of the leakiest homes in Europe and inadequate charging infrastructure for EVs, the UK stands at a critical point.   The new government has a vital role to play in ensuring the UK can: - Fulfil its international potential and meet its climate commitments. - Support businesses in their transition. - Drive climate action, fast.   More thoughts in BusinessGreen:

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It was pertinent to follow the UK’s NDC announcement at COP29 Azerbaijan yesterday with a really good discussion between former Deputy PM and environment secretary Thérèse Coffey, Head of Labour Together Jonathan Ashworth, and Kate Andrews, Economics editor of The Spectator, on the subject of sustainable futures and the impact of political agendas on #ESG this evening. Things that struck me in conversation included: - Moments of political upheaval present an opportunity to do things differently, and we really ought to make the most of that - #climate change appears in the top 5 concerns of former Conservative voters who voted for The Labour Party at the last election, so for as long as it remains there it’ll remain high on the current government agenda - For all the talk of #InflationReductionAct money going to Republican states in the US, this is outweighed by voters who felt that it actually drove inflation that made life harder for them, even in those states - Staying with the US, promised $2tn of spending cuts across government administrations is going to hit departments like the EPA hard, not just due to the anti-green agenda, but also because of other departments that are due to be protected from cuts. An interesting contradiction from Elon Musk being charged with masterminding such things, yet with an obvious established agenda to promote uptake of #EVs - The government has to prove to investors that the projects they support will actually happen to get the cash flowing in the right direction - no more questionable project finance of schemes with no discernible delivery over a 15 year horizon and an unknown future administration deciding on success etc etc - Tackling the problem of short term stick vs long term carrot is imperative, as well as the conflict of attracting #investment by pushing profits to the private sector and the costs being borne by society - We really ought to have unpegged the cost of energy from gas by now hadn’t we! 😂 Thanks to Jones Day for organising a top panel, Aidan Lawes for ably moderating, and John Crowley for inviting me along! #sustainablefutures #sustainablepolitics https://lnkd.in/dixye8re

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