12.2.4.2 A clearing-house for information on biodiversity

Parallel to the all-inclusive approach of raising awareness and educating the financial market actors, a clearing-house could be set up in which these parties can exchange general information regarding business and biodiversity as well as concrete information on companies' impacts on BES. It was indicated by several interviewees that such a clearing-house could be built making use of existing platforms, such as UN PRI, UNEP FI or the London Accord clearing houses.1 NGOs and scientific institutions can contribute sector and company-specific information to the clearing-house. The information can then serve as input for the company assessment by ESG Agencies as well as for their sector analyses. Asset managers and individual investors can use the information in their investment decision-making. Given the limited resources of most NGOs, commercially exploiting their knowledge may even expand their abilities to conduct more research, and at the same time to enhance their nature conservation activities. Due to the number of parties involved, the risk of association or bias is eliminated.

The information that is currently being used by ESG Agencies concerns the impact of companies on biodiversity. A clearing-house could first 'channel' this kind of NGO information, by bundling it and making it accessible for ESG Agencies and research analysts. At a later stage, the results from a study as proposed in the previous paragraph 12.2.4.1 regarding the 'materiality matrix' could be inserted to further develop the corporate BES dependence insights. As with the previous proposal, it will be important to consider linking existing initiatives in the development of such a clearing-house.2