BNP Paribas Asset Management to Co-Chair Finance for Biodiversity Foundation Working Group on Nature Transition Framework

BNP Paribas Asset Management has announced that Robert-Alexandre Poujade, Biodiversity Lead at BNPP AM, will co-chair a new Finance for Biodiversity Foundation working group tasked with creating a nature transition framework, alongside Emine Isciel, Head of Climate and Environment at Storebrand Asset Management. The working group will explore the role of financial institutions in scaling credible nature transition finance globally, translate this role into a practical framework to guide financial decision-making and ensure alignment with the global nature-positive goal. The initiative represents the next phase of BNPP AM's commitment to improving the environmental impact of its investments, building on the biodiversity roadmap launched by the firm in 2021 and reflecting its conviction that nature must be integrated into transition discussions alongside climate.

 

The Nature Transition Framework and Its Purpose

 

The working group will develop a framework designed to support financial institutions in identifying companies that are credibly transitioning toward alignment with the global nature-positive goal, providing a practical and decision-useful tool for use across asset managers, asset owners, banks and other financial institutions. The framework will be consistent with existing guidance from both the climate and nature fields as well as emerging practices from the Finance for Biodiversity community, aiming to build on rather than replace existing methodologies including the TNFD framework and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Poujade said the group aims to harness the energy and ideas of the FfB community and partners, noting that the insight that the finance sector needs the equivalent of net zero for nature sparked the genesis of this initiative.

The parallel with net zero is instructive, as the climate transition framework has provided financial institutions with a structured way to assess corporate decarbonisation credibility, set engagement expectations and make capital allocation decisions aligned with Paris Agreement goals. A comparable nature transition framework would enable financial institutions to assess whether companies across agriculture, forestry, consumer goods, mining and other nature-intensive sectors are implementing credible plans to reduce their negative impacts on biodiversity and natural ecosystems. The absence of such a framework has left financial institutions without a structured basis for nature-related engagement, making it difficult to move beyond biodiversity risk assessment into active support for corporate nature transition at the portfolio level.

 

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The Role of Financial Institutions in Nature-Positive Transition

 

Working towards a nature-positive financial system requires financial institutions to move beyond measuring and disclosing their nature-related risks and dependencies into actively directing capital toward companies and sectors that are demonstrating credible improvement trajectories. Jane Ambachtsheer, Global Head of Sustainability at BNPP AM, said there is growing awareness of the critical impact of biodiversity loss on the economy and that co-chairing the working group reinforces BNPP AM's commitment to be a leading player in the transition to a more sustainable economy. She said BNPP AM looks forward to evolving its partnership with the FfB Foundation and providing clients with the tools and resources needed to take action on nature.

The Finance for Biodiversity Foundation working group structure, coordinated by Technical Director Julen Gonzalez, brings together expertise from leading European institutional investors who have been among the most active in developing nature-related investment methodologies. The co-chair pairing of BNPP AM and Storebrand Asset Management reflects the complementary expertise of two institutions that have made biodiversity one of their distinctive investment focuses, with BNPP AM's systematic biodiversity integration since 2021 combining with Storebrand's long track record in responsible investment and Nordic market leadership. This combination of French and Nordic institutional leadership mirrors the geographic coalitions that have driven progress on corporate climate transition planning frameworks.

 

Connecting Nature Transition to Investment Methodology

 

For BNPP AM, the working group co-chairmanship provides an opportunity to develop dedicated methodologies across its investment platforms and fund offering, translating the nature transition framework into concrete analytical tools that investment teams can apply in company assessment and engagement. Poujade acknowledged that nature could remain absent from transition discussions and corporates lack financial incentives to transition without clearer frameworks defining what credible nature transition looks like at the corporate level. The framework development process is therefore as much about creating the common language and analytical structure that investment teams need as it is about establishing external standards.

Greater clarity in defining nature transition for corporates would also benefit the asset owner community and their clients, who increasingly want to direct capital toward nature-positive outcomes but lack the standardised assessment tools to distinguish credible corporate nature commitments from greenwashing. The practical, decision-useful design objective for the framework reflects lessons learned from the climate transition planning field, where frameworks that were too complex or too theoretical failed to achieve widespread adoption. A framework that investment teams across different institution types and geographies can actually use in their day-to-day analytical processes is more likely to scale the nature transition finance market than a theoretically comprehensive but operationally demanding standard.

 

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Outlook for Nature Transition Finance

 

The Finance for Biodiversity Foundation working group represents a meaningful step toward the institutional infrastructure needed to scale nature transition finance from the niche commitment of a small number of leading investors to a mainstream expectation across the institutional finance community. Whether the resulting framework can achieve the breadth of adoption needed to create genuine market pressure on corporate nature performance will depend on its practical usability, its alignment with regulatory expectations and the willingness of a critical mass of financial institutions to use it in engagement and capital allocation decisions. Sustained adoption by asset managers, asset owners and banks across multiple jurisdictions would establish nature transition as a parallel investment consideration to climate transition and accelerate the flow of finance toward companies demonstrating credible improvement trajectories.

The convergence of TNFD implementation, Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework policy commitments and growing investor recognition that biodiversity loss represents a material financial risk creates favourable conditions for a practical nature transition framework to gain traction. The next phase of the nature finance agenda is increasingly likely to be defined by the quality of transition assessment tools rather than by the breadth of risk disclosure frameworks, making the BNPP AM and Storebrand co-chairmanship of this working group a strategically important contribution to the field.

 

Source: BNP Paribas Asset Management