Turning ecology into economy: who provides biodiversity knowledge for institutional investors?

Abstract

Biodiversity is emerging as a material issue for institutional investors, driven by a growing concern for nature-related risks. This presents a challenge to the financial sector as institutional investors require metrics and tools to develop their investment strategies. Yet, biodiversity is not easily captured in standardized metrics. Therefore, new actors have emerged as knowledge providers. A question that remains unexamined is: which actors provide biodiversity expertise to the financial sector? Conducting a qualitative content analysis of investor reports, we highlight which actors have become knowledge producers in the field of biodiversity finance and what type of knowledge they introduce to the financial sector. We find that intergovernmental organizations, environmental NGOs, and member organizations are central to the communication of biodiversity loss to the financial sector. Additionally, we find that national research centers are taking on new, consultancy-like roles. Our findings highlight that, despite the emphasis on market actors in the social scientific scholarship of finance, the case of biodiversity finance draws attention to non-financial actors, in particular well-established ecological organizations, that are actively involved in turning ecology into economy.