194. Royal Society Coffee Colloquy, Mansion House, 29 May 2024
Alderwoman
Alison Gowman introduced the seminar, which was chaired by Professor Louise
Heathwaite CBE FRS, Executive Chair of the Natural Environment Research Council
(NERC).
The speakers
were:
Sir Ian Boyd
FRS, Professor of Biology at the University of St Andrews
Claire
Coustar, Global Head of ESG & Sustainable Finance at Deutsche Bank
Christina
Hicks, Professor in the Political Ecology group at Lancaster University
Jo Paisley,
President of the GARP Risk Institute
Peter Smith
FRS, Professor of Soils & Global Change at the University of Aberdeen and
Science Director of Scotland’s ClimateXchange
They
discussed the challenges and opportunities associated with ensuring that
nature-related financial decisions and sustainability interventions can deliver
system-wide benefits.
I will await
the report from the event to add to the general information above which is
derived from their event flyer.
Key points
The cost of
damage to the environment accounts for 12% of GDP.
Investment
in nature is still niche.
One in ten
of the world’s population has no access to clean water.
In the
1970-80 farmers received grants for planting spruce and loss of
biodiversity. Now they are paid for
natural woodland.
We live with
natural assets all the time but do not appreciate them.
We need a
link between natural assets and the economy.
We are
losing our natural resources at an exponential rate.
Nature is a
public and private asset. Ministers want
private money to solve public problems so the easiest way is to privatise the
public assets.
Half of
company boards take account of natural risks. Businesses respond to financial
regulation when told. There is less response
to environmental regulation.
We need to
integrate the risk to nature: water; biodiversity; air pollution.
Nature is
essential to countries and their culture.
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