Fields of Work

Due to their potential to realise system level change, our thematic focuses are finance, legal recourse and applying research:

Finance: Current efforts at the intersection of biodiversity and finance mainly focus on increasing finance for biodiversity-friendly activity, and are not commensurate with the scale of the challenge presented by the biodiversity crisis. We need a step change in these efforts, and more importantly, a paradigm shift across mainstream finance so that it acts to restore rather than destroy nature. We aim to stimulate genuine success at the intersection of biodiversity and finance by making the case to keystone actors for disruptive action to transform the rules that perpetuate our political and economic norms.

Legal Recourse: Biodiversity conservation law, and its enforcement, covers a huge range of topics and extends to all corners of the world. However, despite a 38-fold increase in environmental law between 1972 and 2017, current legal mechanisms are not sufficient. What is missing are efforts to change the political-economic rules-of-the-game which govern society and the economy. By focusing beyond the development and enforcement of biological diversity conservation law, into areas such as corporate and financial law as well as human rights law, we intend to support key actors in the field to develop new, and apply existing, legal mechanisms in support of transformative action at the scale and speed required to protect and restore the natural world.

Applying Research: Academic research is critical to much environmental action. Without rigorous, peer-reviewed, evidence-based foundations to build on, the fields of environmental and conservation campaigning would not be possible. However, the integration of campaigning and other practical, tangible, real-world focused activity into research processes is far from optimised, and often ignored or completely overlooked. Working with key academic actors and influencers, such as funders and research institutions, we aim to integrate campaign planning and narrative change into research processes, with the aim of realising political-economic rules change in support of biodiversity.