GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

In particular, actions are expected to:

• Expand the evidence base on the dependence of the EU economy and its financial sector on nature, including by producing relevant macroeconomic indicators, e.g., assessing the share of the EU GDP and employment that depends on nature and evaluate implications of biodiversity loss. As much as possible, research should also extend to country level analysis and/or prepare the ground for future more in-depth studies with increased geographical resolution.
• Develop scenarios tailored to financial risk assessment, including identification of assets under highest risk from being stranded and sectors that represent the highest risk exposure.
• Co-design principles for a more comprehensive and more robust environmental risk management in the financial sector, develop innovative methodologies and tools to support risk assessment that can better capture the specificities of nature and ecosystems.
• Explore tools to assess the alignment of corporates and financial institutions with major European and global biodiversity-related goals, including by leveraging of the EU Taxonomy on Sustainable Finance.
• Investigate how biodiversity loss interacts with climate change and other socio-environmental challenges in regard of macro-financial stability and how different risks can reinforce each other.
• Identify possible response options and issue recommendations for EU institutions and Member States, investors, companies and other financial market participants about macro-financial risks of biodiversity loss.

In their research, actions should investigate various possible risk categories including both physical and transition ones, their transmission channels and cascading effects through sectors and supply chains, as well as adaptive capacity of economic and financial agents/institutions, with particular focus on the EU, its Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries.

Actions should improve the state-of-art knowledge on the relationships between biodiversity, economy and the financial system including better understanding of the nature and degree of risks associated to biodiversity loss, how these risks interact with each other and are likely to evolve over time.