Nature Action 100 finalises list of companies to be targeted

Nature Action 100 has finalised the list of companies that will be targeted for engagement and letters will be sent this month, Responsible Investor can reveal. 

Work on the initiative – billed as the biodiversity equivalent to Climate Action 100+ – has been going on for more than two years. 

In June 2021, RI exclusively revealed that Robeco, the World Bank, the World Benchmark Alliance (WBA) and the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation were exploring the possibility of developing a nature equivalent to the influential CA100+ with several other unnamed global investors.  

Since then, institutional heavyweights including Storebrand Asset Management, BNP Paribas Asset Management, AXA Investment Managers, the Church Commissioners for England and Federated Hermes have backed the initiative and are among the members of the initiative’s launching investor group. 

In November, it was announced that the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) and sustainability advocacy non-profit Ceres would co-lead the secretariat and corporate engagement workstreams.  

The Finance for Biodiversity Foundation and Planet Tracker were also revealed as co-leads of the technical advisory group, which will help to identify priority engagements and develop science-based investor guidance and tools.  

The initiative was “soft launched” at COP15 in Montreal the following month. 

In June, Nature Action 100 outlined the six key expectations, which will be the starting point for corporate engagement for its investor signatories. 

Among the asks, companies will be expected to assess and publicly disclose nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities at the operational level and throughout value chains, as well as set time-bound, context-specific, science-based targets. 

As part of this update, the initiative also unveiled the eight sectors from which target companies would be drawn: biotechnology and pharmaceuticals; chemicals; household and personal goods; consumer goods retail; food; food and beverage retail; forestry and paper; and metals and mining.   

Nature Action 100 said these sectors are deemed to be systemically important in reversing nature and biodiversity loss by 2030. “They are the major drivers of nature loss due to their large impacts on habitat loss, overexploitation of resources, and soil, water, and solid waste pollution.” 

RI can now reveal that the list of companies has been decided. Nature Action 100 would not provide the list, although a spokesperson said the companies will be named. 

Alongside this, investor engagement teams are being finalised and the “initial baseline engagement letters” will be sent later this month. 

Investors have until Friday to sign up to Nature Action 100 to be able to add their names to the letters. After this date, investors can still express interest in joining the initiative “but it will not be possible to sign the baseline engagement letters”, according to a post by the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation.

Nature Action 100 confirmed that it will release the content of the letters.