Focus on biodiversity
At AP Pension, we initiated an effort in 2023 focused on biodiversity. The world is facing a biodiversity crisis, and as an investor, we see it as our duty to consider how we can help mitigate negative impacts in this regard.
According to IPBES – The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services – species are becoming extinct at a faster rate than ever before in human history. The extinction of species can largely be attributed to human activities, including the way we consume natural resources and our expansion of cities and industries. When natural soil and vegetation are removed and replaced with, for example, monocultural plant growth, habitats for animals and plants are degraded. The extraction of materials from the earth and the consumption of natural resources are also destructive to biodiversity, and many of these activities pollute and emit a lot of CO2.
In our prioritization of efforts for biodiversity, we base our work on the five areas that IPBES identifies as critical for biodiversity loss1:
- Changes in land and sea use
- Climate change
- Pollution
- Natural resource use and exploitation
- Invasive alien species
The first area we focus on is changes in land use. Specifically, we will work with parts of AP Pension’s portfolio that are involved in deforestation, including the company’s involvement in industrial agriculture, which is a primary cause of deforestation.
Since 2023, we have been working on biodiversity and nature conservation, aiming to ensure increased integration of biodiversity considerations in new investments as much as possible. We will look at which companies in our portfolio have the greatest exposure to deforestation, and we will focus on exercising active ownership over selected companies involved in deforestation. Our dialogue will focus on how companies can mitigate deforestation and, ideally, not be involved in such activities at all. Finally, we want to increase the proportion of investments with a focus on biodiversity.
This work continues in 2024.
1https://www.ipbes.net/models-drivers-biodiversity-ecosystem-change