FAQ

The Finance for Biodiversity Pledge is a commitment of financial institutions to call on global leaders and to protect and restore biodiversity through their finance activities and investments. The Pledge consists of 5 steps financial institutions promise to take:

1. Collaborating and sharing knowledge
2. Engaging with companies
3. Assessing impact
4. Setting targets
5. Reporting publicly on the above before 2025

The Guidance document clarifies these 5 commitments and illustrates them with own examples of financial institutions and the most relevant resources.

Every financial institution can sign up. From bank, insurer, asset manager, pension fund, impact fund to investor.

Your financial institutions can become a Finance for Biodiversity Pledge signatory by completing this application form and send it to info@financeforbiodiversity.org to join our next celebration of new signatories.

The next round of signatories will be announced in Q1 2023. The exact date has not been set yet. Financial institutions can already sign up via the Join the Pledge page.

In order to sign up, you need to fill in our application form and send it to us on info@financeforbiodiversity.org. More information for interested financial institutions can be found in our information pack.

There is no fee to sign the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge. However, a financial contribution to cover communications is most welcome. Financial contributors will be mentioned on the website and in the celebration video. CEOs of contributing FIs can be featured in the celebration video in the form of a video statement.

Collaboration and collective action on the Pledge commitments through the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation is subject to an annual fee. The amount payable depends on the type of membership you choose and the total assets of your organization. More details can be found in our information pack on the Join the Pledge page.

Yes all kind of components of your organization can sign up, as long as that part of the organization will undersign all commitments of the Pledge.

There are no obligations after signing the Pledge except fulfilling the promises and working on the commitments set out in the Pledge. If you wish, you are welcome to join the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation to work together and undertake collective action with the other signatories in order to fulfil the commitments and collectively report on our progress. More details on this can be found in our information pack on the Join the Pledge page.

We receive many questions about the clarifications and expectations of commitment 4 of the Pledge ‘Setting Targets’. This commitment needs to address investments and finance activities of the financial institutions that sign the Pledge. It does not say anything on specific assets or portfolio’s, that is up to the potential signatory to decide.

It also mentions ‘the best available science’ in which we mean the drivers of loss of the Intergovernmental Sciece-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), because we are still waiting for the adaption of the Global Biodiversity Framework during the 15 Convention of the Parties (COP15) in Canada in December 2022.

The Finance for Biodiversity Foundation works together with UNEPFI on nature targets for financial institutions and is a partner of the Science Based Targets Network.

The Pledge is a bottom-up initiative by members of the EU Finance and Biodiversity Community (F@B Community), set up by the European Commission under the EU B@B Platform. It is however fully independent of the European Commission and therefore no part of any policy processes at EU, Member States or global level. The Pledge is fully owned by its signatories. The signatories (EU and global) are welcome to join the F@B Community. This F@B Community provides a forum of dialogue between financial institutions (FIs) to share experiences, raise awareness and promote best practices at EU level on how to integrate biodiversity and natural capital into mainstream financial activities and foster investments to reverse nature loss. The Pledge and its launching activities are managed independently from the F@B Community and financed by the signatories that volunteer to contribute financially to each launching moment of new signatories.

The Task Force for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is mentioned in the guidance document as an example for commitment 5 of the Pledge, regarding public reporting as a financial institution. The Finance for Biodiversity Foundation is an observer member of the TNFD focusing on guidance and a framework for reporting on nature. The Task Force Members of TNFD will build the reporting framework which will be launched in 2023.

The Partnership for Biodiversity Accounting Financials (PBAF) is a partnership of financial institutions that work together to explore the opportunities and challenges surrounding the assessment and disclosure of the impact on biodiversity associated with their loans and investments. Through discussions, the exchange of experiences and practical case studies, PBAF members cooperate in the development of a set of globally harmonized principles underlying biodiversity impact assessment. Signatories to the Pledge may be interested to join the PBAF discussions, share experiences regarding impact assessment and contribute to a common approach. PBAF is mentioned in the guidance document as one of the platforms for sharing knowledge on finance and biodiversity.

The Finance for Biodiversity Pledge is aligned with the Business for Nature Call to Action, uniting the private sector voice to drive policy ambition. With its finance sector specific commitments on biodiversity, the FfB Pledge became part of the Business for Nature Commitment Framework after its launch on 25 September 2020.

The Finance for Biodiversity Foundation is a non-profit organization with as aim to support a call to action and collaboration between financial institutions via working groups and as a connecting body for contributing signatories and partner organizations.

Our mission:
“Supporting a call to action and collaboration among financial institutions to reverse nature loss this decade”

In February 2021, active Pledge signatories set up the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation as a new collaboration platform. In the different working groups financial institutions share practices and undertake collective action on Pledge commitments. Our aim is to connect and maximize collaboration with other finance initiatives on biodiversity, such as the Finance@Biodiversity Community, UNEP FI, the PRI, UNEP FI, TNFD and PBAF. We therefore coordinate the quarterly updated overview of finance and biodiversity initiatives.

We are currently hosting four working groups:

1. Engagement with companies
2. Impact assessment (incl. biodiversity measurement and data)
3. Public policy advocacy
4. Target Setting

Each working group is connected to one of the five commitments of the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge and convenes between 20-30 financial institutions. In 2023 we will launch another working group on positive impact.

Read more about our working groups.

Financial institutions that signed the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge can become a member of the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation by paying a yearly fee. With becoming a member your financial institution can become  active in one or more working groups.

Read more about our members.

The Finance for Biodiversity Foundation, set up in February 2021, is the coordinating secretariat of the Pledge, working groups and other finance and biodiversity related activities. The foundation is non-profit and has been set-up by Anne-Marie Bor and Anita de Horde to facilitate active Pledge signatories in a collaborative platform. See also our contact page.