![]() |
|||
The newsletter of United
Nations University and its international network of research and training centres/programmes |
|||
Issue30: March-April 2004 | |||
Money talks loudest in battle to save biodiversity Business represents a threat to biodiversity but also a potential source of help through innovation, funding and technology, according to a UNU Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS) researcher.
And for business, biodiversity now has a growing and direct
relationship to business risk and opportunity (and in turn to share
price), profits, costs, public relations and reputation, brand, customer
and employee retention, access to new markets and competitiveness, said
Kerry ten Kate, Director of Investor Responsibility at Insight Investment and a Senior
Visiting Fellow at UNU-IAS
Ms.
ten Kate was one of the featured speakers at a panel discussion on
socially responsible investment (SRI) co-organised by UNU-IAS during the
7th conference of parties to the UN Convention on Biological
Diversity,
held in Kuala Lumpur in February.
"Access
to land to exploit new sites is thus vital to extractive and utility
companies. Companies are
acknowledging the business risk of the potential of public concern about
biodiversity resulting in restrictions to land," said ten Kate.
"Growing
resource scarcity, increasing development pressures on biodiversity and
escalating public concern pose a strategic threat to extractive and
utility industries. These companies may be denied access to resources in new sites in the medium and
long term, with corresponding risks to revenues, unless they demonstrate
high standards with respect to biodiversity conservation."
Private
sector spending arguably matters to the cause of biodiversity far more
profoundly than the relatively small amount spent by governments or
multilateral agencies, says ten Kate, defining corporate responsibility as meeting or exceeding the ethical, legal, commercial
or public expectations in business practices.
"There
is an enormous opportunity for business to contribute to the goals of the
UN Convention on Biodiversity through better practices," she said. Investors can be key allies of the CBD by using their money in
ways that help influence business behavior.
The
February 11 forum was designed to convene representatives of some of the
biggest fund managers to examine the potential for developing effective
screens for GMOs and biodiversity, with a view to promoting the role of
SRI to support the aims of the Convention.
The
forum was told that a new breed of fund managers looking to pressure businesses to improve
social, environmental and ethical performance now wield more than $640 billion in clout in the UK alone – more
than 12% of all managed investments in that nation.
"Meaningful
engagement of the private sector in addressing biodiversity and other
environmental concerns has been elusive until now and confined to isolated
instances. However, this is about to change,” said UNU-IAS director A.H.
Zakri.
"Carbon
trading systems, the growing number of investments needed to protect
nature’s watershed services, the advent of labeling schemes for
genetically modified food products, the emphasis of global environmental
agreements on private sector involvement, and the rise of socially
responsible investment portfolios are just a some of the signs that the
private sector is at last being drawn into the critical biodiversity
issue."
UNU-IAS
researcher Sam Johnston said the first industry-wide survey, conducted in 1984, identified $40 billion in
assets in funds which feature a screen of some type for social
responsibility. By 1995, the figure had risen to $639 billion and to $2.18
trillion in 2003. In the United States, such SRI
portfolios grew by more than 240 percent from 1995 to 2003, 40% more than
the 174 percent growth of the universe of assets under professional
management.
"Money talks. And we need to hear its full voice in the
biodiversity crisis," said UNU Rector
Hans van Ginkel.
STOP SPAM! A Javascript-enabled browser is required to email |
|||
Copyright © 2004 United Nations University. All rights reserved. |