A global investor initiative has listed some of the world’s largest companies that its financial sector partners will now pressure for tangible progress on addressing nature-related risks and dependencies.
Nature Action 100 announced the start of its engagement phase on Tuesday by releasing the names of the 100 companies that its 190 investor participants will target to address nature loss.
The investor initiative aims to ramp up action within biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, chemicals, household and personal goods, consumer goods retail, food, food and beverage retail, forestry and paper, and metals and mining.
“As a member of the Nature Action 100 Launching Investor Group, we are gratified and energised by the strong response we’ve received from both asset managers and asset owners around the world,” said Adam Kanzer, head of stewardship in the Americas at BNP Paribas Asset Management.
“We believe this sends a very strong signal to the global markets – we must work together to reverse the systemic risk of nature loss.”
The finance initiative will now use its investor weight to drive urgent action on biodiversity within 100 companies, worth more than $9 trillion in market capital. Investors, representing more than $23 trillion in assets, are expected to send formal letters to the companies calling for action that mitigates their financial risk of biodiversity loss.
“The Nature Action 100 initiative’s selection of companies are considered as systemically important for protection of nature. All companies in the list have been identified as potentially the most impactful and representative of their respective sectors based on the best current data and knowledge provided by the partner organisations,” Liudmila Strakodonskaya, ESG analyst at AXA Investment Managers, said in a statement.
Among the companies selected for investor engagement are 3M, Amazon, Anglo American, Carrefour, Glencore, Kraft Heinz, L’Oreal, McDonald’s, Nestle, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Rio Tinto, Unilever, and Walmart.
They were chosen based on impact analysis conducted by the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation, have a large market capitalisation, and provide coverage in both developed and emerging markets.
Investors that sign up for the initiative define a number of actions that they expect companies they fund to take, including establishing board oversight and disclosing management’s role in assessing nature-related dependencies as well as setting time-bound science-based targets for nature.
Nature Action 100 was conceived by a group of investors known as the Launching Investor Group. It was later formed as a global initiative in Dec. 2022.
The Launching Investor Group includes AXA Investment Managers, Columbia Threadneedle Investments, BNP Paribas Asset Management, Church Commissioners for England, Domini Impact Investments, Federated Hermes, Karner Blue Capital, Robeco, Storebrand Asset Management, and Christian Brothers Investment Services.
The initiative is led by Ceres and Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), who managed the corporate engagement activities. Planet Tracker and Finance for Biodiversity Foundation lead the technical work of the group, including the delivery of science-based investor guidance.
By Tom Woolnough – tom@carbon-pulse.com
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