Nature

Nature

It is our ambition to shape the nature-oriented sustainable finance industry and support our clients’ increasing needs for nature-based solutions.

Nature’s importance in the global economy

The international community has been focused on climate to date, but nature is increasingly taking centre stage, as also reflected on the agenda of the United Nation’s Conferences of Parties (COP27 on climate and COP15 on biodiversity). This is of the utmost importance since nature provides services economic activity depends on, worth around $ 125 trillion (Living Planet Report (2018), WWF) a year and has thus an immense impact on the global GDP.

Financing and investment opportunities

Deutsche Bank sees huge growth opportunities to meet financing requirements, including nature-based solutions, that can be met through existing such as sustainability-linked loans, bonds tied to ESG KPIs, green loans and bonds tied to specific environmental use of proceeds. We also see the potential for new products offered across all divisions like, carbon and biodiversity credits as well as debt-for-nature swaps for sovereigns or alternative investments with focus on natural capital.

Risk management challenges

Nature destruction has implications for several risk types, in particular credit risk. For this reason, nature risk is currently being embedded into the existing risk frameworks alongside climate risks. Deutsche Bank is committed to develop standards and adequate measurements for nature-related risks that also consider different magnitudes on industry sectors.

The bank’s efforts to contribute to nature-based solutions, like its decarbonization agenda, is supported by enabling activities, frameworks and processes.

Active external engagement

Deutsche Bank actively engages with the industry on nature topics through initiatives such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). In particular, the bank is a member of the TNFD Forum (the consultative body of the Taskforce), participated in a pilot of United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) for testing the TNFD framework and is engaged in working groups with the UNEP and Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) on scenario analysis and nature-related target setting. Additionally, Deutsche Bank is the leading banking partner of the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA).
Expansion of governance, policy and control frameworks

Since 2011, Deutsche Bank has been enhancing its Environmental and Social Policy Framework with nature-related provisions, including protection of high-sensitivity ecosystems and primary tropical forests and sector-specific requirements. In 2023, Deutsche Bank set up a workstream in its sustainability strategy change program to integrate nature into its policies, control processes, governance, and product and service offering in a holistic way. As a first step, Deutsche Bank leverages a widely accepted definition of nature as ’all non-human living entities and their interaction with other living or non-living physical entities and processes‘ (in line with IPBES Global Assessment, 2019) along the four realms of land, freshwater, ocean and atmosphere, as also proposed by the TNFD.
Portfolio and risk analysis

Starting with this foundational definition, Deutsche Bank has begun mapping impacts and dependencies of its financing portfolio towards nature indicators. Through a nature materiality assessment based on tools developed by ENCORE (Exploring Natural Capital Opportunities, Risks and Exposures) and the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN), Deutsche Bank has identified the impact drivers and ecosystem services which are linked to critical natural capital loss types.

Nature Advisory Panel

In October 2023 Deutsche Bank set up an advisory panel with independent external thought leaders specializing in nature

Aims:

Advisory on how the bank can focus its business more on financing conservation and so-called nature-positive solutions
Ensure that Deutsche Bank’s nature-related activities are in line with the latest scientific developments
opine on nature-related criteria and methodologies to be integrated into Deutsche Bank’s processes,
review nature- related adjustments of policies and frameworks

The Nature Advisory Panel comprises a number of renowned external experts who will be working together with specialists from Deutsche Bank. Co-chairs are Viktoriya Brand, Head of Group Sustainability, and Markus Müller, Chief Investment Officer for ESG of the Private Bank. Other members from Deutsche Bank are Claire Coustar, Global Head of ESG & Sustainable Finance in the Investment Bank; Jörg Eigendorf, Chief Sustainability Officer; and Christopher Howland, Head of Portfolio Management & ESG within the Risk function.

Gavin Edwards

Director, Nature Positive Initiative, World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) International

Gavin Edwards is a conservation and environment advocate with three decades of experience in pursuing and helping secure solutions to the twin biodiversity and climate crises.
He has contributed to important conservation successes, including working alongside indigenous peoples to conserve the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, Canada; Brazil’s Amazon soy moratorium; a Hong Kong ivory sales ban; and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
He recently helped develop and launch the Nature Positive Initiative – a collaboration of 27 leading organisations that have agreed to drive alignment around the definition, integrity and use of the term “nature positive”.

Dorothée Herr

Senior Associate, Nature Markets

Until early 2023, Dorothée Herr was the lead for international policy engagement on marine climate change issues (including on Blue Carbon) and the development of new innovative financing tools for coastal and marine conservation efforts at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). She championed state-of-the art concepts and implementations of different blended finance vehicles for fast-tracking private investments into nature-based solutions. At NatureFinance she most recently provided thought leadership around equitable governance into the emerging biodiversity credit market space and supported the development of the UK/France-led Global Roadmap to Harness Biodiversity Credits for the Benefit of People and Planet.

Dr. Beatriz Merino

Director, Financial Institutions Europe, The Nature Conservancy (TNC)

Dr. Beatriz Merino leads TNC’s engagement and relationships with Europe’s private, multilateral and bilateral finance institutions and industry-led initiatives to mainstream climate and nature in finance and investment decisions. She works with colleagues across TNC and NatureVest, TNC’s impact investment unit, to drive financial innovation and blended-finance investment opportunities that deliver climate and biodiversity impacts alongside financial returns.

Karen Sack

Executive Director and Co-Founder, Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA)

Karen Sack is the Executive Director and Co-founder of the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA), a global multi-stakeholder alliance driving investments into coastal and Ocean resilience through finance and insurance products. She has spent three decades working in the non-profit sector on Ocean and climate policy, conservation and resilience.

Dr. Karina von Schuckmann

Oceanographer specialised in Ocean climate, Mercator Ocean International

Dr. Karina von Schuckmann is a physical oceanographer at Mercator Ocean International (France) with particular focus on the role of the Ocean in the earth’s climate system. She is the Lead of the Copernicus Marine Ocean reporting framework as well as lead author of numerous international reports on Ocean science. In addition, she is a contributor to the “State of the Global Climate Report” of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and is a member of the European Academy of Science, as well as various international science panels.

Jessica Smith

Nature Lead, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Finance Initiative

Jessica Smith has been the lead nature expert at UNEP's Finance Initiative since 2020, helping to rapidly expand leadership on nature-related themes in the financial sector and particularly banking. She has led in developing key initiatives shaping this space internationally, including the founding group of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures and market-shaping work on biodiversity credits in the Biodiversity Credits Alliance.

Prof. Dr. Klement Tockner

Director General, Senckenberg Society for Nature Research

Prof. Dr. Klement Tockner is an internationally renowned freshwater scientist, particularly in the research fields of biodiversity, ecosystem science and environmental management. He is Professor of Ecosystem Sciences at Goethe University in Frankfurt as well as an elected member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature.

Dr. Anthony Waldron

Lead Consultant, 30 x 30 Economic Analysis, University of Cambridge

Dr. Anthony Waldron is currently the Lead Author on the 30 x 30 Economic Analysis project, which brings together over 100 researchers across ten disciplines to examine the economic impacts of the proposed Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) target to protect 30 percent of the planet. The project is funded by National Geographic and the Campaign for Nature and he is based out of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative. He has researched and taught for Oxford University (Zoology Department) and other renowned universities.