計算企業「生物多樣性足跡」 法國永續金融業者將推出量化工具 | 環境資訊中心
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計算企業「生物多樣性足跡」 法國永續金融業者將推出量化工具

2020年11月04日
環境資訊中心外電;姜唯 翻譯;林大利 審校;稿源:ENS

為了開發出能夠評估投資如何影響生物多樣性的工具,法國多個大型投資人聯合招標,最後由巴黎的冰山資料實驗室(Iceberg Data Lab)和法國環境顧問公司I Care&Consult雀屏中選。

旋角羚(學名:Addax nasomaculatus)是世界上最瀕危的物種之一,生活在撒哈拉沙漠。法國動物學家Henri Blainville於1816年首次描述牠們。照片來源:Josh More(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

生物多樣性評估工具 將結合專業知識與建模技術

此次招標單位包括AXA投資經理人、法國巴黎銀行資產管理公司、Sycomore資產管理公司及Mirova基金管理公司,全都是法國永續金融業者。

四家金融業者的聯合聲明指出:「……我們一致認可冰山資料實驗室的建模技術加上I Care&Consult在生物多樣性和方法建立上的專業。我們非常希望能向利害關係人報告投資組合對生物多樣性的影響,並將其逐步納入我們的評估和投資流程。」

要探討一間公司的生物多樣性足跡(the Corporate Biodiversity Footprint),就需要了解公司的活動在整個價值鏈中的所有影響,包括場址對環境的影響,產品和生產過程中所使用的物資,以及產品的使用和生命週期終止階段產生的影響。

就算是完全掌握這些資訊,要用可管理的評估標準並隨時納入最新的科學知識於投資決策,仍然存在許多挑戰。

研究報告指出 地球上生物多樣性正快速喪失 且連帶影響經濟

根據法國政府在其企業社會責任平台中,引用的IPBES「2019年全球生物多樣性和生態系統服務評估報告」,地球上的生物大規模滅絕正在以前所未有的速度發生中。

世界經濟論壇(World Economic Forum)2020年度風險報告指出,全球前五大最有可能發生的風險全部是環境風險,包括嚴重生物多樣性喪失。

根據世界自然基金會(WWF)「2020年地球生命力報告」,自1970年以來,哺乳動物、鳥類、魚類、兩棲動物和爬行動物的族群規模平均下降了68%,這是令人咋舌的數字。世界經濟論壇估計,這個生物多樣性危機威脅著全球GDP的一半,但是若能積極因應,將帶來10兆美元的商業價值,並創造3.95億個就業機會。

IPBES去(2019)年報告稱,生物多樣性喪失關係著80%的永續發展目標能否實現,包括貧困、飢餓、健康、水、城市、氣候、海洋和土地相關的子目標。

投資者意識到,要提高企業在自然相關依存和衝擊方面的透明度,還有許多工作要做。這份採購合約共獲得全球30多個主要投資者的簽名支持,代表著超過6兆歐元的資產。

從量化開始 計算企業的生物多樣性足跡

新工具將以企業生物多樣性足跡為基礎,目標是量化金融投資組合對生物多樣性的影響,幫助金融機構將這種影響納入其投資策略。

法國政府在其企業生物多樣性足跡網站上警告,截至2019年2月1日,法國國家受脅物種紅皮書上18%的物種已滅絕或受到威脅。在1989年至2017年之間,法國都會區的鳥類中至少消失了22%。全球而言更有40%的兩棲動物受到威脅。

法國政府認為造成生物多樣性下降的五大因素分別是氣候變遷、土地利用變化、資源過度開發、污染和外來種。

2008年,法國開始針對生物多樣性問題投入外交資源,並任命生物倫理學和企業社會責任特使,主要職責是積極參與生物多樣性談判,目前的代表是Geneviève Jean-Van Rossum。

冰山資料實驗室和I Care&Consult已開始合作擴展企業生物多樣性足跡指標。該指標量化企業所有活動對生物多樣性的影響,以幫助投資者將自然和生物多樣性影響納入其風險評估和研究中。

此方法的透明度將有助讓指標更加標準化和可比較,成為私部門行動的重要催化劑,並透過被加以利用產生連鎖反應。

French Companies Integrate Biodiversity Impact Assessment
PARIS, France, October 27, 2020 (ENS)

A tool that will allow investors to measure how their investments impact biodiversity – the diversity of plants and animals – is one step closer to completion now that a consortium of some of France’s largest investors have selected the Iceberg Data Lab based in Paris and the French environmental consulting company I Care & Consult as the developers of the tool.

The investors’ group includes AXA Investment Managers and BNP Paribas Asset Management, Sycomore Asset Management, and Mirova – all based in France, and all sustainable finance providers.

In a joint statement, the four investors said, “This tender process has been a collaborative experience and we thank all the bidders for their huge involvement. Bringing together the data modeling skills of Iceberg Data Lab with the deep expertise on biodiversity and methodology build-up of I Care & Consult, their innovative approach have convinced us unanimously. We are eager to report to our stakeholders on the biodiversity impacts of our portfolios and progressively integrate them into our assessment and investment processes.”

“We unanimously decided to select the innovative approach that combines the data modeling skills of Iceberg Data Lab and the in-depth expertise on biodiversity and methodology build-up of I Care & Consult,” said Julien Foll of AXA IM, Robert-Alexandre Poujade of BNPP AM, Sarah Maillard of Mirova and Jean-Guillaume Péladan of Sycomore AM.

Understanding and identifying a company’s biodiversity footprint requires knowledge of all the impacts of the company’s activities throughout its value chain – impacts on sites or impacts related to products, inputs used in production processes, and the use and end-of-life phases of products.

Even with all that knowledge, many challenges remain to capture nature’s complexity into manageable metrics and to integrate the latest science into investment decision making.

The sixth mass extinction of life on Earth is underway at an unprecedented pace, according to the IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, 2019, cited by the Government of France in its Corporate Social Responsibility platform.

For the first time in the World Economic Forum survey’s 10 year outlook, the top five global risks in terms of likelihood are all environmental, including major biodiversity loss, found in the Global Risks Report 2020.

The population sizes of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles have seen an “alarming” average drop of 68 percent since 1970, as recently assessed by the WWF in its “Living Planet Report 2020.” The World Economic Forum calculates that this crisis threatens half of global GDP, whereas positive pathways are estimated to bring US$10 trillion in business value and create 395 million jobs.

Biodiversity loss threatens the achievement of 80 percent of Sustainable Development Goals sub-targets related to poverty, hunger, health, water, cities, climate, oceans and land said the IPBES 2019 report.

The investors recognize that “much more needs to be done to promote corporate transparency on nature-related dependencies and impacts.”

This contract was supported by an Investor Statement on the need for biodiversity impact metrics, which gathered more than 30 signatures from leading institutional investors around the world, representing over EUR 6.000 billion in assets under management.

Matthieu Maurin, CEO of Iceberg Data Lab, and Guillaume Neveux, CEO of I Care & Consult, said, “We are honored that our innovative solution, the ‘Corporate Biodiversity Footprint,’ has been selected in this highly competitive international process. We look forward to cooperating with the investor consortium and with all financial actors interested in their strategy to preserve and restore natural capital.”

The statement demonstrates that there is currently an unmet demand for quality research to assist investors in responding to the biodiversity crisis.

Calculating the Corporate Biodiversity Footprint

The tool will be built on the Corporate Biodiversity Footprint, a database that aims to quantify the biodiversity impact of financial portfolios. This tool will enable financial institutions to integrate that impact into their investment strategies.

On its Corporate Biodiversity Footprint website, the French Government warns that 18 percent of the species on the French national Red Data List are extinct or threatened in France as of February 1, 2019. At least 22 percent of common specialist birds have disappeared from metropolitan France between 1989 and 2017.

Globally, 40 percent of the world’s amphibian species are threatened.

The government has identified the five factors in the decline of biodiversity: climate change, changes in land use, overexploitation of resources, pollution and invasive alien species.

In 2008, France began special diplomacy on the biodiversity issue, with a Special Representative for Bioethics and Corporate Social Responsibility, a position currently held by Geneviève Jean-Van Rossum. Her primary role is to actively participate in these negotiations.

Iceberg Data Lab and I Care & Consult have joined forces to expand the Corporate Biodiversity Footprint, metric quantifying the impact on biodiversity of corporations across their activities. The tool being expanded will help investors to integrate impacts on nature and biodiversity into their risk assessments and research.

The transparency of this approach is expected to contribute to the required convergence towards more standard and comparable metrics. This should serve as an important catalyst for private-sector action, with ripple effects through the economies that utilize it.

※ 全文及圖片詳見:ENS

※ 本文與 行政院農業委員會 林務局  合作刊登

作者

姜唯

如果有一件事是重要的,如果能為孩子實現一個願望,那就是人類與大自然和諧共存。

林大利

農業部生物多樣性研究所副研究員,小鳥和棲地是主要的研究對象。是龜毛的讀者,認為龜毛是探索世界的美德。