Dr Caroline van Leenders

Dr Caroline van Leenders has a PhD in Environmental Studies and works on greening the financial sector at the Netherlands Enterprise Agency and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature. For more than thirty years, Caroline has successfully engaged in transformational change in the field of sustainable energy, plant-based food and biodiversity. In recent years, her focus has been on accelerating the transition towards a biodiversity-inclusive financial sector. Bringing people together is essential to change and Caroline has therefore formed various Communities of Practice where financial frontrunners learn from each other about how to implement biodiversity in decision-making. She has supported the forming of coalitions such as Partnership Biodiversity Accounting Financials (PBAF) and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). In the run up to COP15 of the CBD she developed and moderated the Interface Dialogue Finance and Biodiversity and is in the advisory board of the Birofin project. She also creates attention for the importance of halting biodiversity loss by writing books on transformational change, presenting and commissioning research. In 2021 and 2022 Caroline was honored in the list Top 50 Women in Sustainable Finance Netherlands.