As an associate in the Center of Expertise and Innovation at Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking's (CIB) Green & Sustainable Hub (GSH), Gratien Davasse is helping shape the future of biodiversity and nature-related finance. His work sits at the intersection of research, advisory, innovation, and market design – with a particular aim to advance how financial institutions understand and act on nature.
Davasse's interest in sustainability took root during his early internships, where he tells Environmental Finance he felt like he could have a "greater positive impact within sustainable finance and the private sector rather than in public policy or international organisations."
Starting first as an intern at the firm, he started in Natixis' GSH before moving over to Mirova, which had one of the few nature-focused investment funds at the time. He describes it as "a compelling experience in terms of nature-related financing", calling it "an innovative fund".
Since joining Natixis CIB full-time in 2021, Davasse has been involved in high-impact transactions, including sovereign issuances for Mexico and Senegal. He also contributed to key publications – such as the Transition Tightrope report. He recalls such work allowing him to be involved in important market-shaping initiatives, giving him early exposure to discussions around the International Capital Market Associations (ICMA) standards and taxonomies, and highlighting the rigour required to drive systemic market change.
More recently, he has been involved in the bank's advancement in nature-related analytics, disclosure frameworks, and advisory solutions. Much of his work focuses on equipping the bank and its clients with tools to understand their exposure to nature, he says.
Over the past two years, Davasse has focused intensively on developing methodologies to assess biodiversity impacts, especially through location-based analysis and geospatial data manipulation and interpretation. He is currently building a tool that maps the assets financed indirectly through corporate clients, paired with local ecosystem degradation data.
Davasse has also contributed to market guidance and standard-setting efforts, including ICMA's Nature Finance Practitioner's Guide and collaborations with IFC on biodiversity metrics. He has also been involved in the introduction of biodiversity loss exposure criteria in Natixis' Green Weighting Factor (GWF) assessments.
His work comes from a conviction that nature can no longer be sidelined in favour of climate-only metrics. Looking ahead, he hopes to advance the mainstreaming of nature metrics in financial decision-making.
"Financial institutions have been reluctant because tools are imperfect," he notes, "but that should not delay action on nature."
Despite recent challenges in sustainable finance and a knock-on effect to recruitment, Davasse's message to future young professionals is to remain optimistic: "There is no need to reconsider career choices regarding sustainability...we're only at the beginning [of understanding nature as it relates to financial decision-making] and we need a lot of people to join the effort".
Also winning the award for Lender of the year, Natixis CIB has solidified its position as a leading force in sustainable finance, continuing its efforts to integrate environmental and social objectives across its global lending activities.
Over the past year, the bank reports several market firsts, including the world's first blue repurchase agreement with Banco do Brasil, the EU Taxonomy-aligned rail financing for Portugal's Avan Norte, and China's first syndicated sustainability-linked loan for zinc producer Nandan Nanfang.
It was such initiatives that led the IMPACT Investment Award judges to praise Natixis for being an "active participant in the sustainable debt markets" with an "innovative approach to debt financing" and a "willingness to focus on hard-to-abate sectors".
Central to Natixis CIB's strategy are its proprietary tools – the GWF and Transition Plan Assessment (TPA) – which embed sustainability directly into capital allocation and client evaluation. These instruments enable the bank to prioritise clients demonstrating credible transition pathways and to generate actionable environmental data for investors and co-lenders.
Between 2020 and 2024, the share of green assets in Natixis CIB's portfolio rose from 22% to 35%, while brown assets fell from 43% to 28%. Under parent Groupe BPCE's Vision 2030 strategy, the bank aims to grow green revenues 1.5 times faster than overall CIB revenues.
