Why biodiversity is becoming an investment imperative

With more than half of global GDP reliant on healthy ecosystems, biodiversity is fast emerging as a critical lens for long-term sustainable investing.

• Biodiversity underpins over half global GDP, shaping investment
• World Bank bond funds conservation and sustainable livelihoods
• Find out more about Pendal’s Responsible Investing capabilities 

Regnan Credit Impact Trust and Pendal Sustainable Australian Fixed Interest Fund invested in an AUD Biodiversity and Sustainable Development bond from the World Bank.

More than half the world’s GDP is estimated to be dependent on biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Fresh water, fertile soils, clean air and even insects pollinating plants – the flow-on effects of the degradation of biodiversity are immense.

Biodiversity is emerging as an investment focus, coinciding with businesses increasingly disclosing the different environmental risks they face.

This bond is helping to position nature as central to development through promoting conservation, training, and policy to seek nature-based solutions in agriculture, forestry and fisheries.

Through this bond, the Regnan Credit Impact Trust and Pendal Sustainable Australian Fixed Interest Fund are investing in projects around the world that are promoting biodiversity, including by providing training and opportunities to manage resources. 

The World Bank lists examples of projects that may be funded by bonds like this. One example looks at oases in Tunisia.

Oases, which has long been the centre of trade and cultural exchange, are threatened from water wastage, soil salinity and fertility loss.

Local knowledge about how to manage these resources is being lost.

The World Bank project is funding improved governance of these spaces by improving water saving and reducing land degradation.

This project will place 25,000 hectares under sustainable landscape management practices, providing financial support for 250 small and medium enterprises. 

Another example of a project that is relevant to a biodiversity bond is in Mexico.

There are 12 million people in Mexico who live in poverty in forests and are directly dependent on local natural resources.

This project is helping to strengthen sustainable forest management and provide other economic opportunities.

This includes conservation and business development and providing other economic opportunities apart from logging and land clearing.

This project places a particular focus on the underserved such as indigenous people and women.

Find out about

Pendal Sustainable
Australian Fixed Interest Fund

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George Bishay,
Head of Credit and
Sustainable Strategies