At the recent RIAA (Responsible Investment Association Australia) Conference 2025, its Nature Working Group held a heated discussion on what investors need to know about how to “halt and reverse nature loss”.
The panel, about “finding nature’s formula”, consisted of Marco Lambertini, convener at Nature Positive Initiative, Julia Leske, managing director and senior consultant of ESG strategy at ISS STOXX, and Darren Grover, head of regenerative country at WWF Australia.
“We have taken nature for granted until now – because nature has been there, big, plentiful, providing for us all that mattered for us, until now,” Lambertini said.
“We’ve got to realise that we cannot continue this delusional idea [that] we can take, exploit, destroy, without consequences, without affecting [our] dependencies on nature. We just can’t continue.
“We’ve got to stop taking nature for granted and acknowledge dependencies and interconnections with everything else.”
It’s not just about policy, it’s risk
According to Lambertini the most pressing issue emerging and the reason why the audience of investors should act is risk. Especially when the costs attached to climate impacts are skyrocketing and affecting the profitability and resilience of businesses.
The risk is unaddressed and very quickly turning into costs. We have seen that we are seeing this every day.
He added that until recently, the focus of company ESG had been on credibility, positioning, communication, consumer pressure and policy and compliance risk.
“We need to recognise the risk – and the risk is unaddressed and very quickly turning into costs.
“We are talking about $400 billion in costs attached to climate change and the biodiversity crisis alone.”
While biodiversity impacts are more subtle and more difficult to quantify, it also connects directly to human actions, losses and risks.
“Let’s not forget, biodiversity plays a fundamental role in buffering and addressing climate change itself – half of the CO2 emissions emitted in the last 50 years have been neutralised by natural ecosystems,” Lambertini said.
He added that 90 per cent of the heat that our activities produce has been consistently neutralised by our ocean and land. Without nature buffering and [its] ability to sequester, to mitigate and help us adapt, we would already be in a [much more] serious situation.
Less savvy businesses are yet to react because biodiversity loss has yet to eat into their bottom line, but they must understand that it is a fundamental part of risk to society and the economy, he said.
Measurement is the key
Julia Leske argued to the contrary, saying there is already broader acknowledgement of a “twin crisis” when it comes to discussing climate and nature.
“The point you’re making with risk is that nature will drop off the agenda, sometimes I’m tempted to think that way as well.”
Data and metrics, and being able to measure impacts, were key to working with the financial world.
Leske argues that the industry can no longer look at both crises in isolation when people are seeing the risks play out “in front of our eyes” over the past 20 years. And now that the demands to address the issues are high, the challenges are around metrics.
Data and metrics, and being able to measure impacts, were key to working with the financial world.
“This is the first time that we have a topic where a lot of people have said, we actually have lots of data. It’s a first. But the masses of data and the type of data is very complex.
“There’s a lot of different types of disciplines that we’re needing to pull in. So, there’s a lot of new expertise that we need, and there’s no consensus.”
So, coming to a consensus was key to having joint conversations, Leske said. Being able to see the state of nature in numbers, progress and “if we are going in the right direction” was crucial, but “something we currently don’t have”.
Lambertini added that in order to incentivise more companies to start their journey, metrics need “more simplicity” than “perfectionism.”
“It is embarrassing the situation where we are now, and we need to feel responsible to provide clarity to markets that are willing to act, but they don’t because they feel completely lost.
His organisation, the Nature Positive Initiative, is trying to figure out a framework to measure nature positive outcomes that is universally usable at all levels, scales, and use cases. This included business strategies, target setting, regulations and reporting, as well as allowing financial institutions and investors to screen risk in portfolios.
The framework is currently four months into its pilot and is used by 40 companies around the world, including in Australia. The framework aims to measure contributions to nature positive outcomes and improvements to the state of nature.
How investors play a role
Measuring metrics needs dissecting of granular details, recording locally, and that’s why investors are needed to help aggregate the uptake, Leske said.
Systems needed to be able to capture details from the corporate level to the portfolio level and then dissected again to look into sectors, regions and locations.
It was incredibly complex, and “I’m not sure that has been made very explicit in our discussion around metrics yet”.
For investors interested in making a difference, especially when climate impacts are already showing on investment portfolios, Lambertini said the first step was to understand the importance of dealing with the issue and the “materiality of ESG”.
“We’re talking here about moving a system of 400 million companies. It’s not just the top 500 for Global Fortune.
“For the last few decades, a lot of good actions have been taken by corporates, by investors. But [it] clearly wasn’t enough, because nature has continued to decline rapidly.”
They need to understand that achieving nature positive and carbon neutral are completely interdependent, Lambertini said.
“Secondly, focus on the impacts that you know are already visible, already identified, and then use metrics and other tools that are going to be developed soon…to then progress in your journey”
“But don’t wait for the perfect framework to come up.”
Why we need actions now
Echoing Lambertini’s point, the key was not being perfect, Leske added, and said there will always be “missing puzzle pieces”.
“Don’t wait for the puzzle to come together completely before you start taking action – we need to move fast! There is already a wealth of data out there…I think there is enough to get started and make decisions on it.
Leske said responsible investors already understand the business case for nature, so it’s time to spread the knowledge to the rest of the financial space, and information and metrics will improve when more companies and investors join the cause.
Don’t wait for the puzzle to come together completely before you start taking action – we need to move fast!
“There’s a lot of activity happening, trying to really help, especially in the Western world, to help navigate this complexity.”
Why the Indigenous community needs to be involved
According to Darren Grover, much of the global GDP is dependent on nature, so not taking nature into account means impacts can be felt across the board.
This can be seen in Australia, where many landscapes need regeneration due to poor management.
And the key to this was engaging the Indigenous people who have managed the land in a “culturally rich way” for thousands of years.
“People are central to anything that we do. If we don’t bring people on that journey, then you can’t win.
Grover said projects that seek great engagement from the local Indigenous communities have deeper outcomes – “it’s the biggest step that nature conservation has taken in recent decades.”
“People and nature are linked, economy and nature are linked, you can’t treat it separately – it has to be right there with those other key concepts. Treating it separately [is] why we are where we are now.
Why there is a need for positive conversation
While it has always been a challenge to get nature in front of people, it is often done in a “negative, damaging way,” Grover said.
It’s time to amplify the voices of those “groups out there doing fantastic work”.
Nature positive is equality, and policies are needed
Lambertini admitted that the “nature negative” economy has generated a lot of returns for global wealth today – and it is “totally inequitably distributed”.
“That’s the challenge between understanding that returns they we’re enjoying today are made at [the] expense of the foundation of investment itself.
“If you are interested in maintaining the resilience of your business, your company, your investment over time, things have to change.”
Lambertini again pointed to policy – a prevalent theme in RIAA’s conference – saying it is important because “that’s what is missing today.”
“Today, we are still spending $2.3 trillion every year on public subsidies to the private sectors to incentivise nature negative practices.
“Today, we are still spending $2.3 trillion every year on public subsidies to the private sectors to incentivise nature negative practices.
Lambertini said that people are too used to thinking that when we make a mistake, we can rectify it.
“The natural system is on the brink of collapse in many areas of the world. You have a coral reef problem in the Great Barrier Reef in your country. You know when the tipping point is reached, we can’t fix it anymore.”