Forthcoming: Nature Crime Elimination Taskforce
The aim of this work is to create a group of Financial Institutions (FIs) who will adopt due diligence mechanisms around their investment chains to ensure no beneficial relationship, knowingly or unknowingly, accruing to them from nature crimes. Those involved will increase awareness of their group-wide exposure to environmental crime, not only linked to their direct clientele but also understanding the risk generated by their correspondent banking relationships
The voluntary coalition would:
- Collaborate on finding solutions to key issues in the implementation of a mechanism.
- Explore the potential in innovative technologies such as AI, blockchain, and satellite observance.
- Test multiple methodologies to hone the mechanism
The coalition will have a transnational aspect to it and care will be taken to ensure that we get the right balance between multinational financial institutions overseen by global regulators, and financial institutions based in nature crime-intensive and biodiversity-rich countries to secure investment value chains that are both environment crime-free and equitable to those involved. Environmental destruction inevitably collides with human rights, and FIs have already implemented due diligence models to around illegally sourced minerals, such as war gold and blood diamonds, and labour practices such as child labour.
Two critical success factors need to be kept in mind: timing and time scales. The growing visibility of nature in the public eye, geopolitically and by the market, make ‘now’ a good time to advance this work and the ambitious goal will take years to achieve, which requires institutional stamina and persistence, with associated resources.
Interest in and comments on the coalition are welcome, as are suggestions for collaboration.
