GFI Hive Financing Nature Podcast Episode #19 Taskforce on Nature Markets

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GFI page HERE, link to listen on spotify and here on apple.

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Transcript

Helen Avery

Hi, I'm Helen Avery with the Green Finance Institute, and you're listening to Financing Nature from GFI Hive. In this week's episode, we'll be discussing the new Taskforce on Nature Markets. And I'll be joined to do so by the co-chairs of its Secretariat, Simon Zadek, and Marcelo Furtado, from Finance for Biodiversity.

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Simon Zadek

Much of the business community profoundly understands where their businesses locate within the climate challenge and do understand where it's all heading. But that's not the same with nature. The ambition is not that there's a silver bullet that will solve that problem. But we need to shape markets as they emerge, and in so doing, shift the way in which profits are made.

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Marcelo Furtado

And I think, Helen, one of the strongest criticisms that we hear has to do with not addressing the urgency. So, I think that when we talk about governance, and getting it right, I think it's extremely important to include all the key players and address this, I would say- fast.

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Helen Avery

Welcome, everyone, I hope you're doing really well. As you know, the topic that we focus on here on this podcast, hence its name, is financing nature. And today's guests are going to be sharing with us about a new global task force that's been established to look precisely at this topic, the Taskforce on Nature Markets that launched at the very end of March, the co-chairs of the Secretariat hosting the task force, Simon Zadek and Marcelo Furtado from Finance for Biodiversity will be joining us momentarily, to talk us through why it was set up, what the Taskforce's aims are, who's involved, and indeed, how to get involved, how to learn a bit more about it. So, a little bit about Simon and Marcelo, if you don't know them already, Simon is the Chair of the Finance for Biodiversity Initiative. And he was also involved in the UN Secretary General's Task Force on Digital Financing of the Sustainable Development Goals, and co-director of the UNEP inquiry into the design of a sustainable financial system. And Marcelo, bit different background spent 24 years with Greenpeace where he was executive director of Greenpeace Brazil. He's been also the CEO of several foundations committed to sustainability and social justice, and co-founded the Brazilian Coalition on climate, forest and agriculture. So, I feel super lucky to have them both on today to join us. So, without further ado, let's get them on.

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Helen Avery

So welcome. Simon and Marcelo, thank you both so much for joining us today. And actually, where are you joining us from?

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Simon Zadek

I'm joining from Amsterdam,

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Marcelo Furtado

And I am joining from New York, but normally based in Brazil.

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Helen Avery

So well, representing the globe. But then I could say, thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy schedules, your international schedules to join us. And before we jump into the Taskforce, and what it's going to do, I want to first define what we're talking about when we say, nature markets. Simon, I've heard you say before that 100% of the global economy is 100% dependent on nature. So in that sense, every market is a nature market, but presumably, the Taskforce isn't taking on the world. So, can you sort of tell us what's your definition of a nature market?

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Simon Zadek

Yes, thanks. Well, I mean, 100 by 100 is true. It's a truism that we are all of nature, and a truism that we shouldn't forget. But for the purposes of the Taskforce, we're looking at markets that have revenue streams attached specifically to either nature assets, or the flow of associated ecosystem services. So, for example, if in the context of voluntary carbon markets, there are purchases- carbon offsets, linked to nature's sequestration capabilities. Yeah, then that is part of a nature market. But if one moves away from perhaps, that more exotic innovation, we can think of food markets, and we can think of commodity markets and we can think of wooden furniture markets that we can get quite basic. And we believe that although we're not considering all of nature, which is in all of the economy, that there will be increasing monetarization, specifically of the nature component of traded markets as well. And so, nature that is embedded within particular products and services will become more explicit, identified, measured and valued. And that could be because the public or the consumer is interested and is willing to pay a premium for a nature characteristic. Or it could be, for example, that there are nature trade barriers or trade tariffs. And policies and regulations require the nature component to be made explicit, and separately monetized.

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Helen Avery

So, if we were to sort of think about where we are in the evolution of niche markets, and what would be the nature markets that we're looking at right now, just to sort of give some concrete examples, what would that be?

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Simon Zadek

So certainly, I think the carbon nature interface is a huge growth space and needs to be understood, particularly its governance aspects and the basis on which revenues are distributed. We see a next generation of offset markets beginning to emerge that are not specific to carbon but cutting across many other aspects of biodiversity. We see, of course, in the news every day, major issues around particular, nature markets, and of the most obvious ones today are food markets, given what's happening to food prices. So, the question of how commodity markets function and how they're governed, and whether they relate to nature and equitable distribution in ways that make sense are all part and parcel of the agenda that we're looking at. And then finally, and importantly, in the context of this session, with GFI, there is the whole financing architecture associated with these markets. And that isn't just measuring closer finance, but understanding that there are these if you like, back to back, financial innovations and markets beginning to emerge with all sorts of innovative instruments and platforms that are effectively enabling those nature markets to be capitalized and invested in effectively.

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Marcelo Furtado

And I think Helen when we talk about nature markets, of course, what is on top of people's mind, is a history of disregard and destruction because of its extractive nature. I think what we're trying to do here with the provocation of this Taskforce, is, first of all, discuss and have more awareness, not only of the risks, but also the opportunities we have, when looking at the role of nature, in shaping our future. The other one is innovation and technology. If you look at this scenario, you'll see that with the evolution of technology and innovation, the transaction costs for how to monitor this, how to give transparency, how to give traceability changed drastically in these few years. The third one is standards and practices. And finally, I think, the creation of a community of practitioners, because at the end of the day to ensure transparency, accountability, governance, we need all elements of society engaged. And therefore, we need to build that community to ensure that this can work.

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Helen Avery

So, what I'm hearing then, just to summarize, and we'll go into sort of the details of the Taskforce, what it's going to do and who's in it and who's open to it in a moment-  is that you're really looking, as you say, at the emergence of all these markets under which nature's set. So, as you say, Simon, biodiversity, carbon credits, water credits, other innovative things that are going to emerge. And then Marcelo, you're saying that as those things are evolving, there is some concern about how they might evolve with the right standards and governance in place. Is that sort of capturing roughly where we are?

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Marcelo Furtado

Absolutely. And therefore, our role and our intention is how do we shape that to a positive and equitable outcome? 

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Helen Avery

And in fact, Marcelo, if I can just stay with you for a moment, your background is in environmental activism. And so, one might think you might be opposed to nature markets. And I mean, do you think nature markets can help us reach climate, social and environmental goals? 

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Marcelo Furtado

Well, I can tell you that there are nature markets today, destroying the Amazon with deforestation and contaminating water with illegal goldmines, and so on. On the other hand, I also believe that the solution for a thriving forest lies on developing nature markets that would not only reward for the standing forest but also allow that forest products are traded in a way that it includes also the forest communities, and particularly the indigenous peoples who are the true guardians for that forest. So, the same example we can give of markets that are destructive, that can be applied for thriving solutions. So, I think the question about nature markets has a lot to do with governance, and has a lot to do about how do we design those markets.

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Helen Avery

And Simon, I thought we sort of talked a little bit about why we need a Taskforce. And I'm sure some people may be rolling their eyes thinking -  not another Taskforce! And so, tell us why now, is it so important to set this up. I think there's something here about the timing.

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Simon Zadek

I think we're seeing a surge in the way in which different aspects of nature are being monetized by the financial community and across the global economy. As Marcelo says, there is a long and painful in many ways history, to the interface between nature and markets. But we're seeing a pivot, as many aspects of nature are coming into view of the investment and wider business community. I think there are lots of reasons for that, partly the role that nature plays in the broader challenges that we're facing in the climate context. And partly, because we have technological developments that allows us to acquire large scale accurate, timely, cost-effective data that enables, for example, the financial community through the work of the Task Force on Nature Related Financial Disclosure, and others, to begin to measure risks as well as assess opportunities in more effective ways. And that makes the challenge, as Marcelo puts it, not for that to lead to more inequitable outcomes, or nature destruction, but quite the reverse. Now, why a taskforce in that context. Because as you say, the reality is, is that there are many task forces, and many of them really contribute in the main, hot air, at best, a table of recommendations that are hard to implement, and at worst, even less, and so examples of really successful task forces, and what really exemplifies how they can contribute would be the way in which they shape if you like, a narrative as to what is possible. And narrative seems like a very abstract idea. But of course, storytelling as to how things are and how things could be is part and parcel of the way humans at scale, make change. Think of the Brundtland Commission, although I don't aspire us to be as extraordinary a breakthrough as the commission provided, what did it really do? You know, it didn't dig a hole or save a tree, what it really did was it cast a narrative that has shaped much of our work for the last half a century. And so, narratives can really help incredible memberships of task forces can be part of that process. But one has to, in a sense, be also lucky or smart and getting the timing right as to when something is really beginning to emerge quite rapidly, where there are going to be a profusion of different things happening. And we're helping to shape that profusion can really make a difference.

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Marcelo Furtado

And I would say, Helen, that interestingly enough, different than many task forces that, for example, the Secretary General of the UN assemble, or prime minister assembled, this one was, let's say, bottom up, right? We as society came up with the idea that we have an urgency, and we have an opportunity ahead of us. And when we spoke to our Taskforce members about it, everyone was ready and willing to jump quick on board. And the question was, what are the three things that we're aiming here? And we said, first of all, is a clear picture of what are the opportunities and risks of nature markets. The second one was, let's ensure that we come up with a framework for action with concrete policy recommendations. And finally, let's try to get examples. So, there is in addition to the Taskforce members, a very important element, which is what we call our Knowledge Partners, which are the organizations and people that will be helping us actually put some of these ideas into action, because I think that the world is full of reports, but what we really need right now is change happening. That's what got most people excited about engaging on this Taskforce.

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Helen Avery

Can you tell us sort of who do the members represent? I'm really intrigued because it's such a broad remit that you have, but also, as you mentioned, sort of now is this sort of fertile time to sort of bring all these different sectors of community together, so, who's on board?

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Simon Zadek

So, we have folks from the market that also have important policy experience, and probably the most obvious example of that is Hank Paulson, who was the US Finance Treasurer. And he’s now both the chair of the nonprofit organization, the Paulson Institute, and also leading a private equity fund. So, if you like, there are market actors. There are technology actors, for example, Katrina Donaghy, from Civic Ledger, best known for building some of the most interesting blockchain based water trading activities internationally, in her case in Australia. And that links to one of our key knowledge partners, the HBAR Foundation, which is the nonprofit institution, that is the spinoff from Hedera, which is one of the largest blockchain and tokenization platforms kind of out there looking for applications in the nature and climate space. We obviously have really key people from the policy space and there are a number of different actors there. I would certainly point out Maria Fernanda Espinosa, who was the head of the UN General Assembly, President of the UN General Assembly, and Carlos Manuel, who now is the Executive Director of the Global Environment Facility, he was the Minister of Environment in Costa Rica, but also really a leading light in advancing the High Ambition Coalition, which is a major coalition of sovereigns working around nature positive work, and perhaps I'll pass over to you, Marcelo, if you want to pick up on a couple of others.

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Marcelo Furtado

Absolutely, and I think if we are to learn from the past, to design a better future, we need to understand that diversity, and having the right stakeholders is super important. So for example, we invited Chief Almir Surui, who's not only an extremely important indigenous leader from the Amazon rainforest, but actually he is also the entrepreneur that stablished the first indigenous peoples carbon credit facility in the Amazon. We have intrapreneurs, like Nakul Saran, young, vibrant innovator. I think it's also interesting because we have Joaquim Levy, a former Minister of Finance of Brazil. We have Kate Hampton, the CEO of CIFF, bringing the wealth of understanding of the funding community. So, I think with this diversity, what we're trying to do is cover many aspects of where are the places where society would look at this development, and argue we may be missing something here.

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Simon Zadek

And I would probably add, finally, not to complete the list of 16, but to name the most obvious name that is absent, which is Rhian-Mari, the Executive Director of the GFI, has graciously agreed to join and I think brings energy and knowledge, and a really broad constituency of actors that we're very keen to work with going forward. So obviously, that's particularly appreciated.

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Helen Avery

And thank you for saying that Simon, I was gonna squeeze her in somewhere. It's a very impressive group. And I'm just wondering, is this sort of a closed group? Are you sort of going to be going out to others and sort of bringing in different work streams and things like that?  Sort of engaging the financial community and just sort of keen to sort of understand how that approach might work?

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Simon Zadek

So yeah, so this incredible group of 16 people will, needless to say, not be rolling up their sleeves and doing all the work themselves. They will provide guidance, they will provide insight, they will provide access, they will provide voice, but it's really how then we build the knowledge architecture and the outreach process of the Taskforce. So we have a work program, which is if you like thematic, substantive, about legal issues, about governance issues about looking at how big nature markets are. There are all kinds of different pieces of research that we're progressing. We have an outreach process partly linked to those different work streams. For example, the Paulson Institute, take forward a piece of work that is a comparative analysis of nature, market development in the US and China. Very important given the central place of those two countries in the global economy. But also, through that process, we will end up being able to engage with many other actors in the US and also in China. Similarly, the work that we do with the Nelson Mandela School of Governance based in Cape Town, on the one hand that's probably going to be focused on trade related issues along with governance aspects of nature markets, but the Nelson Mandela School sits in a broader Southern African ecosystem, and that will provide us with opportunities to reach out and understand other things that are going on in South Africa and the broader region. The opportunity exists, and we hope to continually open those opportunities for contributions to come from pretty much anywhere.

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Marcelo Furtado

And I think Helen, there is an interesting antenna effect that we're noticing. Because although brand new, we’re already having a lot of people coming to us with initiatives that they're running, or insights they're having, or papers they published. So, what we noticed is, we have the Taskforce members, we have these knowledge partners, and then we have a category that we're calling ‘friends’, which are all these new initiatives popping in with incredible ideas, anywhere from work being done with the government of Bhutan, to all the way to nature markets in the metaverse.  So all this is popping up, which shows to us that there is a wealth of interest that is very provocative, and the financial sector is a system just like any other sector. The food sector, the energy sector, and there is a transition, right, that the climate and nature crisis are demanding from these sectors. And I think that the provocation we're having also with this Taskforce is not to look into the financial sector as an add on to all these transformations, but a system that needs to transform itself, so that I imagined that one of the outcomes of our work will be also provocation to the financial sector of what the financial sector needs to do different in order to respond to those demands.

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Helen Avery

That's a great point, I was going to ask you actually, what are you… What would be useful from the finance sector? What would you like them to do? What are you hoping that they'll respond with?

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Simon Zadek

Well the financial community, of course, is the keystone of the global economy. And without them aligning to the vision and ambition and scale of urgency, there's not much else that will work terribly well. I think the table stakes is understanding nature, understanding its dynamic relationship with climate, and beginning to measure and manage the dependency relationships and the impacts they have, you know, so the very basics, I would say that sort of gets one to the table. I think there are then kind of several levels up, you know, we see already a wave of innovation coming from the financial community. Think of Intrinsic Exchange, and the New York Stock Exchange and their work on so called Nature Asset companies. More recently, another initiative emerging out of Munich, The Landbanking Group, these sorts of dimensions are key. But I think there's sort of another level, yeah, which is always a little bit harder to stomach, if you like when one thinks of the complexity of the financial community, Which is, it can't just be instrumental, we need the financial community to work with our money, which is ultimately what they're using to understand that nature, positive equitable impacts is part of the way in which the world needs to develop. And I know that sounds, if you like, perhaps, to abstract, a step away from the sort of instrumental way in which one prices risk and so on. But actually, the signs are not so bad. You know, we see increasing interest in impact investing, not necessarily because a bank or an asset manager has intrinsic interest in that topic, but because increasingly, the owners of capital are demanding it. And so we see, you know, organizations like Pollination, the HSBC spin off just as an example, not just making investments, that's their kind of job, and that's how they make money and so on. But really leaning in and trying to understand what the future of biodiversity credit markets are really going to look like. That's why Pollination has joined us. Ultimately, the more mature and sophisticated parts of the financial sector understand, yeah, that this nature market space needs to be done right. And if it is done right, they will be able to harness the profitable opportunities that are there.

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Marcelo Furtado

I think that historically, the financial community has looked into this equation as we take care of the market design and civil society, academia, governments take care of the governance. But turns out, that to be super honest, if we are to get this right, we need the financial community engaged on this governance question. And on the design of regulatory frameworks as well. Nature rich countries are in many cases, countries in which the enforcement is not as good as we hoped. Or maybe there is a need to strengthen the legal framework. It means that we're going to have to engage on this question of governance quite seriously. And I think that one great example we see currently is the deforestation issue. It doesn't… We will not solve the deforestation issue, simply putting the barriers to entry with these products in the European or US market. We need to stop deforestation, where deforestation is happening. And the financial sector together with civil society, academia, and governments have to be players on this. There is a lot of willingness, and I think that with the proper design, and the selection of what are the efficient and effective tools, we can get it done. 

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Helen Avery

Almost feels like this is like a global institute, or virtual global institute for nature markets. And so, I'd love to sort of just hear from you, what are some of the concerns? And then what are some of the best practices you've seen out there already?

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Simon Zadek

Yeah, if we look, for example, at the way in which voluntary carbon markets are interfacing with, let's call it natural capital, we see without doubt evidence of… should we call it sharp trading, that is paying perhaps too little for carbon, and taking advantage of weak regulations or indeed complete absence of regulations, and asymmetrical information between the buyer and the seller. And perhaps immature negotiation skills on the part of the seller… it might be local authority, or a community enterprise or a small private owner, or indeed an indigenous group. My point is not that that is a necessary feature of voluntary carbon markets, quite the reverse, you know, my point is, is that it's an example of poor governance. And so over time, if those sorts of sharp practices continue, then voluntary carbon markets will fall into disrepute and begin to become an unhelpful part, either to a private trader, or for those of us interested in the public goods that they create. Now, that's just one example, and it's not an example in fundamentalist, it's an example that has to do with design. And if you imagine similar issues associated with all of the things that we've described, over the last 25 minutes, plus others. Think about the way financial institutions are funding enterprises that are, you know, using nature, to develop products and services. Think about how much of that access to nature is associated with, for example, illegal logging, or illegal fishing, or other forms of environmental crimes, and the lack of connectivity between the financial community and the fact that those nature crimes are part and parcel unintentionally, of the investment models that they're pursuing. These are, again, not malicious activities. These are issues to do with poor governance, poor data flow, poor use of that data, poor understanding of how nature fits in to the way in which international markets work in practice. If we go back 10 years, the number of people in the financial community or indeed more broadly, within business communities, that could in any shape or form talk coherently about climate or carbon, you know, you could count in a few handful to be really honest. Today, there's lots to be done, but much of the business community profoundly understand where their businesses locate within the climate challenge and do understand where it's all heading. But that's not the same with nature today. And I think the ambition is not that there's a silver bullet that will solve that problem, but we need to shape markets as they emerge, and in so doing, raise people's awareness and knowledge, and shift the way in which profits are made, and gradually align international markets with nature, positive equitable outcomes.

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Marcelo Furtado

And I think Helen, one of the strongest criticisms that we hear has to do with not addressing the urgency. The main question is, what can we really do in the next eight years to avoid critical tipping points, be it in tropical forests or in the oceans. And I think that puts a very important question which is twofold. On one hand, I think it's extremely important to address this illegal crime connection. The other element of it is that the market failed to reward the true caretakers of nature, be it the sustainable fishing community, or be it the indigenous peoples in the forest, who kept the forest. So because they were kept out of the market, in the sense of receiving the revenues for the work, that very important work they've done, the economic equation didn't work, and therefore they were excluded. And by being excluded, you actually open the place for land grabbing, and so on. So, I think that when we talk about governance, and getting it right, I think it's extremely important to include all the key players in this and address this, I would say, fast.

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Helen Avery

Right. So, on that, you know, are there, are there best practices that we can learn from now that you could point to?

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Simon Zadek

I’ll kickoff. And I'll start with kind of the topic that so many of our community have focused on, which is carbon markets and nature assets. Although there are others I'd like to point out as well. We see carbon traders that are building profit share agreements into their carbon offset purchase agreements with nature assets, and nature owners and stewards. We see the beginnings of higher levels of transparency and accountability and voice being built into carbon markets. We see carbon traders with a deep expertise and knowledge of nature and a willingness not just to complete a transaction and a negotiation, but to really stay on the ground and become part of the stewardship of the asset themselves. Now, that doesn't mean every carbon trader has to do that. But it points to a much more stable, enduring understanding of the deeper relationship between carbon markets and their associated traders, and really what needs to be done to steward nature in a way that delivers what one needs from carbon markets. And then initiatives like The Landbanking Group, and Intrinsic Exchange are sort of new kids on the block and remain untested, but effectively are trying to figure out how on earth one wraps complicated land transformation processes, and business enterprises, social justice elements into a commoditized deliverable into capital markets, that can't deal with that level of complexity. And I think those sorts of initiatives will open capital markets to invest not just in carbon related advantages, but in a much deeper and wider array of land transformation processes. And then my third and final example, is an initiative that Finance for Biodiversity has been very pleased to support the development of, which is the so called Every Action Counts initiative of the Green Digital Finance Alliance based in Geneva. And that's a coalition of 14 different mobile payment platforms, looking at how one uses financial transaction platforms to inform consumer behavior, and, frankly, to try and nudge consumer behavior. And we shouldn't forget that, at the end of the line of most markets are us. 

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Helen Avery

So, it really does feel the ambition of the taskforce is really to, I mean, these are your words, to embed nature, positive equitable impact within markets, generally. Because as you say, all markets are effectively nature markets in the end. 

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Simon Zadek

You know, sometimes we think that markets are sort of, not of our making, that they emerge through the random walk of many different private actors. And of course, nothing could be further from the truth. That markets are as markets we create. And we choose to establish the rules of the game, the basis on which different actors either can't participate or can participate, and we seek to shape the values of institutions that are engaged in making decisions which shape their outcomes. And that's not just about carbon as an example, think of the way we regulate pharmaceutical markets. Think of the way in which we regulate the telecommunications industry and the debate around how we're going to regulate big tech going forward. What is all this about? It's about shaping markets with public interest outcomes in mind.

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Helen Avery

And I know we've talked a lot about carbon as examples, but I think I just kind of want to make clear, you know, there's a lot of work going on around carbon markets, but it's just probably the one that's most advancing at the moment, or certainly the one that seems most connected to nature, we haven't quite made the connection in the other markets yet. Is that sort of a fair assumption?

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Simon Zadek

Yes and no. I mean, yes, it is, in the sense that, you know, within, if I might call it the sustainable finance community. You know, when we talk about monetizing nature, many of us instinctively think about carbon, because carbon offsets seem to provide a new source of revenue flow, to invest in nature, and quite rightly, but if we take off our sustainable finance hats and put on our going to the supermarket and buying food hats, you know, then we're suddenly going to think about commodity markets, you know, and we're going to think about supply chains that have nothing to do with carbon, really, certainly nothing to do with carbon trading. And when asked how the commodity markets really work- because those markets are partly determining those increased food prices in our supermarkets today, but why isn't anybody talking about them? And I only made the observation because it's a sort of obvious case on the front of every page, every newspaper today. And because it's important that we don't get stuck in our sustainable finance bubble. But we kind of look at the wider landscape of the ways in which nature courses through our economy, most obviously, in the space of both hard and soft commodities.

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Helen Avery

We're sort of approaching time, so as we wrap up, Marcelo, I'd love to sort of hear from you. What's 

 next, what can we expect, in the next few months from the Taskforce? And what would you like us to do?

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Marcelo Furtado

I think what we expect is hard work, listening, learning, and engagement. I think there are three phases for this task force, right? The first phase is that we do a landscape mapping, we understand where we are, and we understand the gaps and the needs that we need to fulfill. The second part of the work is we prototype solutions, we experiment. And then the third one, we assemble all this together, and come up with ideas, suggestions, and concrete inputs. And we kind of divided each of these phases in six-month phases. So, adding up to 18 months exercise, but I think the ultimate goal we have is to in a short period of time to have something concrete, exciting, meaningful, and that can generate change. And by generating change, it needs to be exciting and interesting to government officials, to players in the market, to society and robust enough to get academia behind. We're super excited, and I think the way you can help is by promoting these ideas, not only because we think we're right, but actually we want feedback, we want to understand, what are we getting wrong here? What can we do better? What are the initiatives out there that may be playing into this with super innovative aspects that we simply don't know. So, I think it's at this very beginning, designing a proper landscape is very important, and one that we encourage a lot of people to get engaged with.

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Simon Zadek

And if I can offer just a sort of similar closing point, I obviously I completely concur with Marcelo. But if I think of the Green Finance Institute specifically, which is perhaps not quite what you asked, but I will... We don't have any knowledge partners that are just thinkers. Not because there's anything wrong with thinking, but because learning by doing is really how we break through and change bad practices and build good practices. And so, the GFI amongst many other players who are involved either through the fact that they're a member of the Taskforce, or they’re a Knowledge Partner, is an example of an organization that obviously thinks, and thinks a lot. But it's really experimenting and getting into the market and driving new initiatives and engaging new actors and thinking about how policy and regulation and standards fits into the world that we're describing. And so, I think we're really blessed in having an extraordinary set of knowledge partners and members that, you know, think hard, but do even more.

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Helen Avery

What I was, when I was just sort of thinking of words to sort of kind of sum up myself, just from our conversation day, it feels like that Taskforce is you know, ambitious, and certainly inspirational but also very, very clear that it needs to be practical, which I think is what you're saying there as well. So, congratulations on getting it off the ground with such an amazing membership and, and really look forward to continuing to hear about the work and take part in that work as you said and help support the work where we can. So, thanks very much.

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Simon Zadek

And Helen, thanks to you.

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Marcelo Furtado

Thank you so much.

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Helen Avery

Really interesting conversation and very inspiring, I think to hear of the kinds of systems based thinking that's accompanying the emergence of greater private investment into nature restoration and nature based solutions. So yeah, wonderful to have Simon and Marcelo on today. But that is it from us at Financing Nature. Next week, I'm joined by Anne-Laurence Rouche, Deputy CEO at Mirova to talk about private equity and nature. And in the following weeks we'll also be talking to Roel Nozeman from ASN bank, Douglas Eger from Intrinsic Exchange, and also Louisa Kiely from the Carbon Farmers of Australia. So don't forget to stay tuned to all that. You can do that by signing up to our monthly newsletter on our website, GFI Hive at screenfinanceinstitute.co.uk forward slash GFI hive on the events page there we also have the recording of the wire natural flood management project webinar that we recently hosted if you missed it. We have 18 case studies up and another 12 in the pipeline over the next couple of months. There's a lot going on. But for now, all that remains for me to say is a big thank you for listening today and a big thank you to our financing nature funders the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, and our editor Robin Lieberman Fairly Media. See you next week.

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