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We Promote Biodiversity

We Promote Biodiversity

In a nutshell:

Our appreciation of the vital importance of maintaining the delicate balance in the biodiversity of our ecosystems is continually growing, along with our understanding of the negative consequences of failing to preserve biodiversity on our day-to-day lives. Damage to soil quality threatens our agricultural industry and the supply chains we rely on for the food we eat. Deterioration of water quality threatens the hospitality and medical sectors and a vital resource in each of our lives.

While this is an area that hasn’t received as much attention as climate change, it is expected to become highly topical in the coming years.

What this means:

“Biodiversity is all the different kinds of life you’ll find in one area—the variety of animals, plants, fungi, and even microorganisms like bacteria that make up our natural world. Each of these species and organisms work together in ecosystems, like an intricate web, to maintain balance and support life.” (World Wildlife Federation)

Climate change and biodiversity loss are inextricably linked. Climate change causes biodiversity loss, biodiversity loss accelerates climate change. While climate change and our response to it has been a high priority in recent years, biodiversity loss has arguably received far less attention.

Biodiversity loss should however, become far more topical in the coming years. This will be the result of the publication in September 2023 of the Recommendations of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD).

The TNFD has been designed to complement existing climate and sustainability related frameworks, in particular the TCFD (Climate-related Financial Disclosures), but with a core focus on nature and biodiversity.

In the near term, we recommend that credit unions keep an eye on the evolution of the adoption of the TNFD but not to get too bogged down in it just yet. The approach taken by TNFD replicates that of the TCFD so all of the work completed on adopting the climate-related recommendations will be foundational to the adoption of the TNFD so in theory should be a much easier matter of layering in nature-related considerations to your existing framework, rather than introducing anything new.

 

Steps that don’t take much effort:

Many credit unions have engaged in very innovative activities to promote biodiversity, examples of which include;

  • Rooftop green spaces and bee hive installations;
  • Supporting the planting of native trees;
  • Funding the establishments of community gardens with pollinator friendly planting.

 

Steps that will have a big impact:

  • Continue with the adoption of the recommendations of the TCFD to allow for the layering in of the recommendations of the TNFD;
  • Review the guidance available from the TNFD on getting started with the framework.
  • Familiarise yourself with the LEAP approach set out by the TNFD for the identification and assessment of nature-related issues.

 

Resources:

Guidance issued by the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures –

https://tnfd.global/guidance/

 

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