Biodiversity- without bees, nothing happens

What would happen if biodiversity were to decline was demonstrated by a Penny store on World Bee Day in 2018: All items in the range that are directly or indirectly dependent on bees were removed from the shelves. The consequence: almost 60 percent of the retail chain’s products would not exist without bees and other pollinating insects in the ecosystem. Anyone wondering why that is: Pollination is essential for the species-rich organism, bird species and also for climate protection. A high level of diversity in the ecosystem enables diversity within species and habitats such as the sea.

This is just one of the key findings from Dr. Tobias Raffels presentation. He gave us an introduction to the topic of biodiversity and certainly gave many of those present in the room food for thought. How could the following facts not?

More than 50 percent of global GDP depends directly/indirectly on nature
Particularly affected: The agriculture, mining, forestry, fishing and tourism sectors
As things stand, external effects and the performance of nature are not taken into account in product prices. If this were the case, sausages would be 88% more expensive, mozzarella 74% more expensive and fruit yogurt 31% more expensive!

You can find more exciting insights in Tobias’ presentation here:

The good news is that the issue is slowly getting through to the regulators. There are more guidelines on how to report on generic diversity and biodiversity. In a few years’ time, 50,000 companies will be affected. The most important regulations are the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD).

Denis Frischmann from Leeana explained this in his presentation. The LEAP approach used by many organizations plays an important role here. It describes how companies must first locate the natural benefits (locate, L) and then evaluate them (evaluate, E), identify potential risks (assess, A) and prepare for them (prepare, P). The most difficult part of this is the collection and evaluation of natural data.

There are several ways to do this, e.g. satellite data, eDNA, GPS trackers, acoustic signals and much more. Biodiversity and the habitat of animal and plant species must be protected. You can find out more about this in Denis’ presentation:

711 billion US dollars – that is the size of the funding gap for biodiversity projects. The problem has been known for a few years, but too little private-sector money is still flowing into this market.

Andrea Reuter from the Global Nature Fund reports on this in her impulse and shows that currently 57 percent of the money invested in biodiversity comes from the public sector. This is far behind biodiversity offsets, for example, with 6 percent and “green” financial products with 4 percent. There is still a lot of upside potential!

What concrete solutions already exist for financing animals and plants and their habitats that are threatened with extinction? Green bonds should be mentioned here, but at the moment they are still mainly flowing into the energy and building sectors. Also worth mentioning are various forms of impact investing and sustainability linked loans. However, one thing quickly became clear: Germany’s banks still have some catching up to do here.

More on this in the video: