The United Nations Biodiversity Conference recently concluded in Cali, Colombia. On today’s programme, we discuss both the event and the theme of biodiversity more generally with two leaders in the field from UBS: lead for advocacy and nature in the chief sustainability office, Judson Berkey; and global head of sustainable and impact investing for the UBS CIO, Andrew Lee. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hello and welcome to the Bulletin with UBS on Monocle Radio.
Each week the sharpest minds and freshest thinkers in finance take you beyond the numbers and hype right to the heart of the big issues of the day.
This week, with the biodiversity Co op having just wrapped in Cali, Colombia, the time is right to discuss both the events and the theme of biodiversity more generally.
In particular, to consider why nature and nature based finance can and should matter so much for financial institutions.
With both the lead for advocacy and Nature in the Chief Sustainability Office in UBS and the global head of sustainable and impact investing for the UBS cio.
On the show we'll hear about everything from recent milestones in the space to the fast developing regulatory environment, to the kinds of thematic and investment innovations that are delivering solutions for smart investors portfolios.
First up, we welcome back to the program Judson Berkey, Lead for Advocacy and Nature in the Chief Sustainability Office in ubs.
Judson, welcome to the show.
Now we're talking about the just wrapped biodiversity cop, but maybe before we do that, can you tell us why these broader themes, nature and biodiversity, why they matter more generally?
For institutions like ubs, there's been a.
Lot of research done over the past years to try and tease out the relationship between nature and broader economy.
So there's been any number of analyses done, roughly all coming to the same conclusions.
Plus minus 50% of GDP can be tied back to some sort of material dependency to nature.
So essentially are our economies as we know them, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the pharmaceuticals that keep us healthy, all these things are derived from what are called ecosystem services.
Those are the benefits provided to us by nature.
So understanding that dependency and realizing at the same time that nature's under pressure, a publication came out just recently, it's from wwf.
Every two years they do something called the Living Planet Report.
And they've been documenting over the period of past 50 years how nature has been under pressure and essentially degrading.
And so they have a headline figure.
73% of the species that they have been tracking for those 50 years, their populations have decreased by 73%.