While the world’s attention has rightly been focused on the climate change crisis, there is an increasing awareness that a second, linked crisis, that of accelerating biodiversity loss, has huge significance for society and the future of the human race. Biodiversity loss is among the top global risks to society.

The planet is now facing its sixth mass extinction, with consequences that will affect all life on Earth.  Biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history. The BBC recently reported that, since 1970, there has been on average almost a 70% decline in the populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians. It is thought that one million animal and plant species - almost a quarter of the global total - are threatened with extinction. This contrasts with a biodiversity retention rate of 90% that is considered as being the "safe limit" to prevent the world from tipping into an "ecological meltdown", according to researchers.

Biodiversity loss is now a critical business risk for both financial institutions and corporates. Spurred on by the recommendations of COP15, governments, policymakers and financial regulators are focused on how to align financial flows with the preservation of biodiversity and how to enforce this through ESG regulatory frameworks that currently mainly target climate change.

City & Financial’s timely summit, ‘The Biodiversity and Nature Markets Summit 2023: A Practical Guide for Corporates and Financial Institutions’, will analyse the key issues involved in the round and provide practical guidance on the steps that organisations should be taking now.

• The UK's strategy for protecting biodiversity 
• The COP15 Global Biodiversity Framework – Implications for business and finance
• Biodiversity loss: the scale of the problem and its broad implications
• Impact of biodiversity loss on corporates, banks and investment firms
• The latest development in Biodiversity Credit Markets
• Modelling and mitigating your company’s exposure to biodiversity loss risk
• Reporting on nature risks, opportunities, impacts and dependencies
• Portfolio analysis for banks and investment firms
• Due diligence and reporting: practical approaches and legal issues   
• The use of satellite data for monitoring nature
• Getting it wrong: reputational risks and their implications
• Business opportunities in biodiversity