Natural Capital Investment EMEA 2025

4 March 2025, London

08:00

Registration and coffee

08:50

Chair’s welcoming remarks

Genevieve Redgrave, Reporter, Environmental Finance

09:00

Opening address: TNFD initiatives to support nature and biodiversity investment

Emily McKenzie, Technical Director, TNFD

09:20

Panel: Closing the nature and biodiversity financing gap: Blended finance and innovative funding solutions to catalyse private capital investment

  • What concessional capital structures have been most successful in attracting large-scale private capital investment?
  • Effective solutions to de-risk investment opportunities and encourage participation by larger institutional investors (eg first loss provisions, credit guarantees etc)
  • How to overcome reputational risk fears that high profile investors may have when considering nature investments? How can partnerships with high-integrity NGOs, DFIs and MDBs mitigate these?
  • What instruments are being used in other markets that might be transferable?

Moderator: Roland Bull, Partner and Head of Rural Investment, Bidwells

Ashley Camhi, Director of Innovative Finance, Wildlife Conservation Society
Carl Atkin-House, Head of Natural Capital Strategy, Climate Asset Management
Maya Hennerkes, Director for Green Financial Systems, Climate Strategy and Delivery Department, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
Paul Horrocks, Head of Unit for Private Finance for Sustainable Development, OECD

 

10:05

Panel: TNFD and the future of nature and biodiversity reporting

  • Lessons learned from early adopters of TNFD across different sectors
  • Where are the main gaps in companies' assessments and reporting? What solutions are available to close the data gaps?
  • Update on the TNFD's proposal for a Nature Data Public Facility – how should this be funded and structured? What impact will it have?
  • Interoperability between TNFD and CSRD reporting
  • How are corporates managing (double) materiality assessments? What insights are we seeing across different sectors?
  • How will investors use TNFD reports to benchmark companies? Will TNFD make a difference to the movement of capital into nature over the next few years?

Moderator: Emine Isciel, Head of Climate and Environment, Storebrand Asset Management

Anupam Ravi, Senior Vice President, Investor Services, GIST Impact
Åsa Mossberg, Head of Sustainability, AP2
Giorgio Cozzolino, Vice President - Product, Nature and Biodiversity, ISS STOXX
Ian Hudson, Head – Nature & Land, Anglo American
Mattie Yeta, Chief Sustainability Officer, CGI

10:50

Morning networking break

11:20

Panel: What does the future development of high-integrity biodiversity and carbon credit markets look like?

  • What role can the biodiversity credit market play – can it be scaled up sufficiently to have a real impact?
  • How will the International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits framework help shape the market?
  • Who are the natural buyers for these credits and how will they use them? How will schemes align with buyer needs, nature-related risk disclosure and target setting?
  • Will we see a revival of the Voluntary Carbon Market? What impact will the decision at COP 29 to operationalise Article 6.4 have?
  • How is uncertainty on the SBTi's future approach on permitting Environmental Attribute Certificates for offsetting Scope 3 affecting the market?
  • How prominent a role should quantifiable co-benefits have? How important are they to buyers?
  • How to address buyers' concerns (including legal and reputational risk, double counting, additionality, integrity and verification)

Moderator: Theresa Bodner, Head of Nature-based Solutions Research, MSCI

Asger Strange Olesen, Director - ESG, Climate & Biodiversity - AM+, International Woodland Company (IWC)
Fraser Green, Head of Natural Capital Investment, abrdn
Neelesh Agrawal, CEO, Calculus Carbon
Wendy Walford, Head of Climate and Nature Risk, Legal & General

 

12:05

Fireside Chat: Developing an integrated approach to financing climate and nature

  • Where are the key areas that can deliver co-benefits across both climate and nature?
  • To what extent are investors linking their nature and biodiversity investment strategies to their emission reduction targets?
  • How to evaluate the relative performance of net nature negative companies in sectors that are critical to the climate transition? How do you balance this trade-off where climate and nature interests diverge?
  • How do we ensure that ecosystem services are properly valued and funded? How might this be organised and who should take the lead?
  • What does a joint climate-biodiversity strategy look like? What data do you need to implement it?
  • Will the TNFD's draft guidance on nature transition plans help with the goal of developing integrated nature-climate plans?

Moderator: Hans Mehn, Advisory Partner, Generation Investment Management

Olga Hancock, Head of Responsible Investment, Church Commissioners for England
Pierre Devichi, Head of Responsible Investment, ERAFP

 

12:30

Lunch break

13:30

Track 1:Track 2:
Panel: Managing investment opportunities and risks in forests Panel:Time for action – Ensuring corporates and investors move forward with Science-Based Targets for Nature
  • How are trends in forestry and landscape investments evolving?
  • How can investors evaluate the investment opportunities in forestry?
  • Understanding and managing the risk and return profile of forestry assets
  • Assessing the impact of climate change and increasing resilience in your assets
  • What are the options for additional revenue streams?

Moderator: Michael Hurley, Deputy Editor, Environmental Finance

Darius Sarshar, Principal, SLM Partners
Francesa Parris, Private Finance Senior Executive Officer, International Forestry Unit
Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
Michael Strzelecki, Managing Director, Business Development, Senior Timberland Portfolio Manager, Manulife Investment Management
Tanja Havemann, Co-founder, Director, Clarmondial

  • How is the adoption of the SBTN's Science Based Targets for Nature by corporates progressing? What can we learn from those companies who have currently published targets? How useful are these for investors?
  • What progress are investors making on setting and reporting against their own science-based nature targets?
  • What impact are industry initiatives like the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation's Target Setting Framework having? How do we move towards a harmonised approach to target setting by investors?
  • How are investors using the Nature Action 100 Company Benchmark results to assess material nature-related financial risks and opportunities and support more meaningful engagement with companies?
  • What about the impact of other nature-based corporate engagement initiatives? 

Moderator: Genevieve Redgrave, Reporter, Environmental Finance

Kiran Sehra, Nature Specialist, Aviva Investors
Josephine Richardson, Head of Research, Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute
Norah Berk, Senior Program Manager, Nature, Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC)
Richard Harris, Global Biodiversity Manager, British American Tobacco

14:15

Panel: Sustainable agriculture and food production systems Panel: Blue finance – Addressing barriers to investment and scaling up the market
  • What role can investors play in the agricultural transition to sustainable food production systems? Where can they have most impact?
  • How do you generate returns in a fund?
  • What innovative financing structures are needed to address the funding gap facing the regenerative agricultural transition? How can different asset classes best be used?
  • How can offtakes agreements be used and how will the costs of regen agriculture be passed on?
  • How to value and monetize ecosystem services
  • Identifying and scaling investment to the most promising emerging agriculture technologies and solutions
  • What progress is being made to integrate agriculture into NDCs and what opportunities might this create for investors?


Moderator: Peter Cripps, Editor, Environmental Finance

Laura Moss-Bromage, Planet Themes Lead, Church Commissioners for England
Joe Horrocks-Taylor, Vice President, Sustainable Research, Columbia Threadneedle Investments
Simon Duchatelet, Manager, Financing & Structured Investments, Unilever Climate & Nature Fund

  • Identifying and scaling investable opportunities in ocean and freshwater themes
  • What are the different financial instruments needed to catalyse investment in blue finance?
  • Are there opportunities to pool blue finance projects together?
  • How to de-risk them to make them more attractive to larger investors
  • What is needed to grow the blue bond market and develop guarantee facilities to support this?
  • What role can parametric insurance play in protecting marine ecosystems, de-rising investments and enhancing climate change resilience?


Moderator: Jennifer Forrest, Reporter, Environmental Finance

Chip Cunliffe, Senior Director, Innovation and Pipeline Development, Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance
Doug Hull, Senior Associate Director, Finance Earth
Kris Atkinson, Portfolio Manager, Fidelity International
Julia Manning, Associate Director, Lead Sustainable Agri and Food Systems, Climate Strategy and Delivery, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)

15:00

Afternoon networking break

15:30

Panel: What is Nature Positive? Measuring and reporting impact in nature and biodiversity investments

  • What does 'nature positive' actually mean and how should investors and corporates approach this to avoid accusations of greenwashing?
  • Measuring Nature-Positive outcomes – Are we any closer to alignment and consensus on a unified set of State of Nature metrics?
  • Update on the work of the Nature Positive Initiative
  • What types of impact and outcome metrics are investors currently focusing on?
  • What are the specific challenges when integrating biodiversity into a sovereign investment process
  • What role can technology play in monitoring and verification of outcomes in nature projects and how is this evolving? How can Nature Tech unlock new opportunities to source impact data that is more comparable, standardised and traceable?

Moderator: Genevieve Redgrave, Reporter, Environmental Finance

Dmitry Ilin, Product, The Landbanking Group
Ed Pragnell, Nature Finance Lead, CreditNature
Harry Ashman, Engagement Specialist, Robeco
Peter Eerdmans, Portfolio Manager, Ninety One
Thomas Viegas, Nature Strategy Lead, Aviva

 

16:15

Panel: Unlocking the potential of Debt for Nature Swaps

  • How to develop and extend the use of Debt for Nature Swaps – what are the barriers to scaling up the number and size of transactions?
  • What are the opportunities and challenges for sovereigns, banks, investors and other participants in the deal?
  • How do investors analyse their risk profile and impact given their complex structure?
  • What can we learn from recent successful Debt for Nature Swap deals in terms of how they are structured?
  • What impact can other innovative sustainable debt instruments like outcome bonds and sovereign sustainability-linked bonds have in catalysing more private finance to nature?


Moderator: Ahren Lester, Assistant Editor, Environmental Finance

Barbara Oldani, Lead Sustainable Sovereign Debt Hub, Nature Finance
Imane Kabbaj, Head of Sustainable Investments Specialists, Carmignac
Jake Harper, Senior Investment Manager (Private Credit), Legal & General Asset Management
Olga Fedosova, Partner, White & Case

 

17:00

Chair’s closing remarks

17:05

Close of conference and networking drinks reception