Nature-3B: Including Nature in decision making of central Banks, investment Benchmarks & Bond issuers

NATURE-3B aims to make a significant contribution by developing (i) Nature-Protecting Benchmarks for investors such as pension funds or insurance akin to EU Paris-Aligned Benchmarks (EU PABs), (ii) a Nature-Protecting Bond framework particularly targeted at municipalities and corporates, and (i) six tools for central banks, ESAs & NCAs (see Outcomes 1-6 in the Consortium Overview below), As a consortium including three current members of the EU’s Platform on Sustainable Finance including the Head of its Data Science Hub and lead author of EU PABs, NATURE-3B is uniquely positioned to achieve real world impact.

Following the success of EU PABs, which grew beyond €100 billion in assets within less than 3-years (European Commission, 2023), the consortium expects that Nature-Protecting Benchmarks can exceed €10bn within three years after the launch.

Given the fortunate timing of the EU Green Bond Standard applying from December 21st 2024, and the 60+ corporate and municipality supporters already interested in the concept of Nature-Protecting Bonds, the consortium expects an issuance volume of €30bn within 3-years of launch.

These could, for instance, fund marine ecosystem protection of Gozo (Malta), support the Pape Nature Reserve of Liepaja (Latvia) or encourage forest restoration near Sanok in southeast Poland.

With considerable work experience with central banks, ESAs and NCAs, NATURE-3B is confident that 15 of them will use a relevant tool following the project.

The tools include: (1) Nature Dependency Dashboard, (2) Asset level risk database, (3) Nature-related scenarios portal, (4) Nature-related stress test models, (5) Portfolio & financial system nature alignment tool, (6) Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools for SFRD biodiversity impact analysis and TNFD scoring.