Achieving the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework requires immediate and ambitious action across sectors, particularly within financial institutions and corporations. Yet, translating emerging (academic) frameworks into actionable biodiversity targets has proven complex, with many practical questions still unresolved.
This workshop will present and discuss the outcomes of a large-scale action research project conducted between 2024 and 2025 with six leading asset managers and pension funds, alongside organisations such as WWF and the Sustainable Finance Lab. Drawing on candid reflections from a transdisciplinary team spanning ecology, finance, and business sustainability, we will explore how institutions can identify the right information to set informed targets, including assessments of biodiversity impacts, drivers, risks, and opportunities. Participants will engage with key themes such as the types of biodiversity targets financial and corporate actors can adopt, the support structures needed to sustain implementation, and the type of strategic interventions such as engagement for systemic change, and the integration of biodiversity targets within the climate-biodiversity nexus and the exploration of social justice We will have a particular focus on deforestation as a critical test case.
The session aims to foster dialogue among financial actors, NGOs, academics, and practitioners, building on collaborative initiatives such as the Financing Biodiversity Project in the Netherlands. By connecting theory with practice, the workshop seeks to advance collective capacity for setting and operationalising biodiversity-positive financial strategies that are both ambitious, triggering time-bound action and equitable.