The floor may not be in your robot. The reason I am writing this today, is that I need to warn the maximum number of people possible. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself, if I didn't at least try. I can feel it, the more powerful he gets, the more powerless I feel. I won't be able to stop him, but maybe, I can slow him down. My name is Mike. I am 24, and the thing that happened to me, defies the laws of physics.  Let me tell you how it all started. When I was in elementary school, I had a group of friends, with whom I spent all my time. We were all close, except baby for Boris. We liked him, but he was annoying. The only thing he would talk about was that old cartoon, that his mother brought him from a garage sale. We listened to him the first few times, and rapidly got bored after that. The cartoon sounded weird. And to be honest, we were more interested in exchanging Pokemon cards and playing marbles. A few weeks into his obsession for the cartoon, Boris came to school looking extremely pale. We asked him if he was sick, but he just sat there in silence, with a weird grin on his face, looking around the room, his eyes wide open. The class began, and we were all focused on some calculus, when Boris started to whistle. The teacher asked him to stop immediately, but he just wouldn't stop. After a few minutes, the teacher lost patience and grabbed Boris' hand to take him to the principal's office. Of course, the classroom filled with laughter and chatter, as soon as the teacher left with him. But I was genuinely scared for my friend, and I kept staring at his desk. That's when I noticed it. There was a VHS tape. I stood up and went to grab it, I was very curious. The tape seemed in good condition, and on the side, it read, The Whistle Guy. I bet it was that cartoon, that he kept talking about. I only remembered a vague description of it. It was about a character, with a large balloon head, and a top hat, who went about his day whistling and holding an axe. Like I said, nothing to be excited about. But I don't know why, I knew I had to look at it. I knew it would explain my friend's behavior. I put the tape in my bag. When the teacher came back, she explained that Boris wasn't feeling right, and that his parents came to pick him up. I spent the whole day waiting to go home and watch the cartoon. After school got out, I quickly said goodbye to my friends, and rode my bike so fast, that it took me half the time it usually did to get home. I said hello to my parents, and ran upstairs to my room. I took the tape out of my bag and looked at it. I didn't notice earlier, that the title was written in an irregular carved fashion. I was going to put the tape in the VCR, when I heard Mum calling me from downstairs. She seemed in distress. I threw the tape into my old toy box and ran to her.  Her voice was shaking, but Mum managed to speak. Mike, it's Boris. He had an accident. He's... I'm sorry. He's dead. I fell into her arms, and cried like I had never cried before. It was the first time I had lost someone, and I didn't handle it well. I missed school for two weeks after that. I was depressed to the point where my parents had to take me to a psychologist. After a year of therapy, I finally was able to grieve. I still thought about it, of course, but the pain wasn't so unbearable anymore. Fast forward to a few years ago, I was going through old stuff, when I found an old picture of me and my classmates. Boris was there, smiling happily like the rest of us. The events came back to my mind, and I decided to finally check how he died. My parents and the school always kept it a big secret, and we were forbidden to talk about it. I did my own investigation, and what I found was worse than I ever imagined. According to the local papers, Boris was found dead in his room. He was hanging from a rope, that he tied to the top of his bunk bed. But that was not even the most disturbing part.  I decided to leave it all alone. That was too disturbing, and I didn't want to spend another year going through therapy. Time went by and I kept pushing the memory away. It was getting easier and easier, as I had lost all contact with my childhood friends, and my parents had moved from our little town. I now lived with my girlfriend, and a few days ago, we decided to have a garage sale. While going through the cellar, I found a box with all my childhood stuff. I didn't even remember when I brought all of that to my house. It was full of pictures, toys, my action man. But what caught my attention was an old VHS tape. It was at the bottom of the box. Strangely, the tape seemed in a good condition, as if the years going by didn't affect it. It was also the only thing in the box that didn't have dust on it. What went through my mind gave me the chills. I could see flashes of boars, hanging from the cord, swinging left and right, as he looked deep into my eyes, smiling. And all of a sudden, his face moved, and he started to whistle. The sick noise was coupled with the sound of the rope against the wooden bank bed. I shook my head to clear those terrible images from my mind. It had been years, since I thought about the tape. My therapist did such a good job, that it was as if he never existed. But now, I wanted to see it and finally lift the mystery from it. I knew I had a VCR somewhere. So I looked for it for a good hour, and finally found it. I heard my girlfriend calling me for dinner, and I left all my findings on the floor. I was going to wait, until she fell asleep, to go back and watch the cartoon. I didn't want her to be disturbed by the story. The moment finally came, and I took the VCR and the tape down to the living room, and plugged everything in. I have to admit that I was surprised that the old VCR was still working. I put the tape in, and the familiar noise on the tape entering the VCR gave me chills. Weirdly, the tape didn't start right away, and stayed a few minutes on a black screen. Then suddenly, it started. It was an old cartoon from the 30s. I could hear a metallic sound, coupled with cartoonish music. It sounded like typical music from this era. The cartoon was in black and white, and had a yellowish tint to it. The first scene was set in what seemed to be an old garage, or a shack filled with tools. There was a character standing with his back to me. He was holding a hammer, and tapping on something. It looked like he was building something. He grabbed more tools, and while doing so, he kept whistling the same melody. It sounded more and more uncomfortable. That sound terrified me. I knew I heard it somewhere. The character turned slowly, and what he was building finally came into sight. It was a hatchet, that he was waving with pride. The character was strange. He had a huge blue-looking head. He was wearing a tie, tied so tight, that anyone else would have suffocated from. His eyes were really dark, and his top hat was tiny. It was him. The whistle guy. He started to walk towards the house, in a typical 30s animation style, his eyes sparkling with excitation. In the garden, there was a tree, that seemed way too big for him to go by.  I finally understood, that he was making the hatchet to cut down the large tree. For a second I asked myself, how it was possible to build a hatchet, with the few tools I saw him use, but hey, it was a cartoon after all. The whistle guy started to whistle once more, and to juggle with the hatchet, making it fly in the air, and grabbing it before it touched the ground. He did that a few times, before the hatchet flew one last time, and got stuck in one of the tree branches. The whistle guy seemed sad, and started to jump, in the hope of grabbing the hatchet back. But it didn't work. And then suddenly, a light bulb appeared above his head. He visibly had an idea. He approached the base of the tree, and started to shake it, so the hatchet would fall. Surprisingly, it worked. The hatchet fell, and got stuck in the whistle guy's head. The music stopped, the moment the hatchet struck his head, and a very realistic bone breaking sound could be heard. The whistle guy was expressionless. His eyes were completely empty. The scene was particularly disturbing and unexpected. I was just waiting for him to pull it out, as if nothing happened. It was a cartoon after all, and the characters never get hurt for real. But instead, a stream of blood started from the top of his skull, where the hatchet was. I was shaking with fear. It all seemed so unbelievable. The character was still not moving, only gazing into the blue. The blood quickly covered his whole face. Then he started to smile. The large grin on his face made him even more terrifying than he was already. After a few seconds, he finally moved. He grabbed the hatchet with his hand, and yanked it out. The sound it made was horrible. The music started again, as soon as the hatchet was out. But the music was different. It was dark, and scary. The whistle guy didn't seem to care about the tree anymore, and was staring at the hatchet he was holding. The hatchet was covered in blood. The more he stared at it, the wider his grin became. He started to walk, and more blood started to pour from the top of his head. His smile and his eyes were terrifying. A little whirlwind had appeared in his eyes, and was whirling faster and faster. And the blood on his teeth made it merely unbearable to look at. Again, he started to whistle the same melody. Not far from him, I could now see another character.  He came toward the whistle guy smiling. The whistle guy just lifted the hand, with the hatchet above his head, and struck the other character on the shoulder. The other character started to scream in a macabre way. But the whistle guy didn't flinch, and continued to strike his body again, and again, until only a pile of flesh and bone was left. He left the other character on the floor, and started to walk again. Another character, a woman his time, came across the whistle guy, and as soon as she saw the pile of flesh, she started to run in the other direction. The whistle guy didn't try to chase after her. He simply threw his hatchet with all his strength, and it struck the lady in the back. She fell, screaming for someone to help. But it was in vain. The whistle guy grabbed his hatchet back, and then struck the lady multiple times, just as he did to the previous character. The whistle guy went on for minutes, killing everyone he came across. When he was not whistling, that disturbing grin was on his face. He looked completely deranged. And then he suddenly stopped. All I could see was his back. He was completely still. Slowly he started to turn his head towards the screen, and with every inch, a terrible bone tracking sound could be heard, as if he was breaking his neck in the process. Little by little, his face became more visible. It was as if he was staring right through me, the little whirlwinds in his eyes, turning at incredible speed. He was smiling at me too. Then he put his finger on his lips, still looking straight at me, and said, After that, everything went black. No more sound, no more images. The video was over. The tape came out of the VCR by itself. I just sat there for 10 long minutes. I didn't know what to do. I was petrified, and in total disbelief. What just happened? It felt like the whistle guy could see me behind the screen, and that what he just gave me was a warning. I couldn't think straight. But I was tired, so I took the tape, and hid it in the cupboard that was nearby. Then I lay on the couch, and fell asleep instantly. During my short sleep, I had weird nightmares. I could see him, the whistle guy, watching me sleep. In the nightmare, I couldn't move. It was like sleep paralysis. His body was hunched over me, his head above mine, the same grin he had in the video, still on his face. His hatchet was also back in his skull, and drops of blood were falling on me. He was so close, I could see my reflection in his eyes. He then grabbed the handle of the hatchet, and started to take it out very slowly. The sound it made gave me goosebumps, but I still couldn't move. I was now covered in his blood. Then when he finally took it out, he lifted it above his head. And at the moment I should have received a fatal stroke, he smiled wider, and put his finger on his lips, and said, I woke up, panting and sweating, and my heart raced in my chest. I sat down on the couch, wondering if all of it was true. But there was no blood around me. No whistle by. I was alone, and it was still dark outside. I checked my watch, and it was only 6 am. I looked at the VCR, and remembered I have the tape in the cupboard. I grabbed it and went upstairs, and threw it in the attic. I've never been back up there since. In the days following that incident, everything got worse, and worse. I had given hallucinations, that gave me nausea and vertigo. At least, I liked to think it was only hallucinations. I could see the whistle guy everywhere, while I was watching TV. But he only appeared in cartoons. The first time I saw him, it was in an episode of The Simpsons. He was in the opening credits, waiting in front of the family house, holding his hatchet, ready to strike Homer, as he got out of the car. I'd linked for one second, and he wasn't there anymore. The next time was during a Family Die episode, again, during the opening credits. He was at the top of the stairs, where the family dances. He was also dancing, the hatchet buried in his head. He stayed visible for longer than before. And worse, he was still staring right at me. Every time, he seemed a little closer. After a while, I resigned myself to not watch cartoons anymore, because he was indeed getting closer, and closer, and now all I could see was his whirlwind eyes looking through my soul. I was tempted to show the video to other people, just to verify that I was not going completely crazy. Isn't that what Boris was trying to do? But I don't know, I had the feeling I shouldn't. I started to ask myself questions. Why did Boris bring the tape to school? Why was he talking about it so much? Was he trying to infect us with the whistle guy too? And if it was the case, why would he do that? The days kept getting worse and worse. Now when I was going for a walk in broad daylight, I could hear his whistle behind me. My nights were filled with gruesome nightmares. And when I woke up, I would hear him hushing me from under the bed. I never dared to try and look under, I just knew he was there waiting for me. I went online to try to find information on him, but I couldn't find anything. I was expecting that result. It was like, apart from Boris and I, nobody had heard of him. I was at a loss, I just accepted my situation. I just felt that talking about it would make it worse, so I decided to bear all of it by myself. One night, I was getting back from work in my car, I heard a quiet whistling sound, coming from the back seat. I didn't dare to look in the rear view mirror immediately. But after a few minutes, curiosity won over my fear. I checked, but there was nothing. Nothing on the back seat. He was on the passenger seat. I slammed on the brakes, as he reached for me with his hands. And I left the car, as he opened his mouth, and let out a deafening scream. I fell backwards in the middle of the street, and I saw the passenger door open. He was whistling. He appeared slowly and came my way, happily whistling, the hatchet visible in his hand. The headlights of my car shone on his face, the same terrifying face I had seen so many times. Then he stopped. I pushed myself backwards, the surface of the road catching my clothes, and his throat started to make the same sound as in the cartoon. His scary eyes stared into mine.  Actually, we were both still. After several minutes, that seemed like an eternity, his head started to inflate more and more, until it reached an inordinate size, going way above the top of the car. It sounded like thousands of balloons being inflated at the same time. Under the pressure, his eyes popped out of their sockets. The wound on his head never poured that much blood. It was squirting everywhere. The headlights were covered in it, giving a gloomy reddish light, and because of that, the scene was even more disturbing. Without warning, he ran towards me with impressive speed. Just before his body touched mine, his head exploded in a deafening roar. I felt pieces of his skull touching my face and body. I panicked, got up, and skirted to the car. I was so stressed, that I could not get hold of the keys, still on the ignition to start the engine. I wanted to leave as soon as possible. I had blood in my eyes, I could barely see what was happening in front of me. I was finally able to find the keys, and turn them quickly to start the car. Just before pressing the accelerator, I could see the whistle guy still standing, ax in hand. His head was slowly inflating again. But before he could do anything else, I sped off, crushing the accelerator pedal, and drove as fast as possible to my house. The blood had completely disappeared. It was as if none of it had happened. I could not sleep that night, because he was there again. I could hear him whistling outside in the garden. I did not tell you much about my girlfriend, but you have to know, that I did not tell her anything. She found my behavior very strange that week, even though I tried to hide my emotions as much as possible. Sleeping on the couch did not help. I was afraid to tell her about it, because she never heard him whistling. She didn't see it, when he appeared in the cartoons. I was afraid that if I told her about it, she too would end up seeing him and be tortured by his presence. I heard it again and saw it a few times after that. But that's not even the worst of it. The worst is what I am becoming little by little. Just like him, I whistle, without even realizing it. I hear him more, and more often, nearly every day. Sometimes I see him staring out the window, when I go home, on the road, or when I take a shower. I know I am doomed. But what I'm sure of is that I shouldn't share this tape. That's why, one morning, I went up to the edit to get it and destroy it. But it was no longer there. I was sure that I threw it there. I immediately questioned my girlfriend to see if she had seen it, on the pretext that it was a video of me as a child that I had found, while cleaning the attic, but nothing came of it. She assured me that she had not touched it. I knew why it disappeared. I knew the whistle guy was keeping it with him. He had given it to Boris, because he was on the verge of death, and the fact that he shared it would have been beneficial to the whistle guy. But before anyone could watch the video, he hanged himself. It was too late. But the whistle guy is now at my place. This monster had succeeded. And he knows that I would never ever share this video with others. I suppose it only post on the inevitable, like in the movie, The Ring, but I would still prefer to die first, than to do that to others. Here I end a day, a smile frozen on my face, that I cannot remove. The muscles of my cheeks are sore, but I had to tell you all of that before I left. I wrote a farewell letter to my family, my friends, without mentioning the whistle guy ones. I do not want them to start looking for this tape. This post that I write has a purpose. It is necessary that a maximum number of people outside of my peer group are warned. The tape has disappeared, but I'm sure the whistle guy dropped it off somewhere else. If one day, you see a tape called, Whistle Guy's Day, do not touch it, even if you want to try to destroy it. And under no circumstances, should you try to watch it, otherwise the whistle guy will be chasing you. As I write this, I feel his breath on my neck. I know he's behind me. My lips keep stretching in a horrible grid. I know why the whistle guy was asking me to shut up now, telling me to... Shhhh. On the one hand, it allowed him to torture me, as he pleased. But on the other, if I had talked about it, he would have started all over again with someone else. But he'll have to wait a long time now, because when I tie the rope that is next to me around my neck, he won't be able to act for a long time. Once more, I beg you, if you find this videotape, never ever watch it. Because the whistle guy can be everywhere. This tape can fall into anyone's hands. I was able to hold it for a while, but it will eventually come out of the shadows again. And if that is the case, if you find on it, it will catch you too. And you will live forever in the nightmare of this cursed cartoon.


This study investigated the risk factors for musculoskeletal injuries in SMEs in Bogotá, Colombia. The results showed that the most common risk factors were flexion and lateralization of the neck and trunk, repetitive movements, flexion slash extension of upper extremities, and sudden changes in posture. Additionally, there was a strong correlation between the responses given by the workers on the Nordic questionnaire and those obtained from the Ariba method. This article was authored by Emil C. Rocio Medina.


Hello and welcome everybody. I will let everybody to keep filtering through but thank you very much for joining us at our Let's Discuss Nature with Climate Engagement Guide webinar. We're really delighted to see all of you here today. My name is Dr Nina Sieger and I'm the Director for the Centre for Sustainable Finance at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. I will take you through a gender for today's webinar, explain how we're going to run the whole thing, but first let me say that this session will be recorded and we will email the recording around as well as post it on our social media channels so that everybody can see and hear what the engagement guide is all about. We will also have a Q&A session at the end of it but you're very welcome to keep popping the questions into the chat throughout and then we will just collate and choose some of them to answer. What we're going to do today is I will take you through a little introduction to the Centre for Sustainable Finance with NCISL and what we do. Then Sarah Taffey will take you through the webinar on through the engagement guide and then we're going to have a panel discussion on what's currently happening in the area and how can engagement guide be used today. So without further ado, if I tell you a little bit about the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, we are a department within the University of Cambridge but a slightly funky one in the sense that we do things that most departments do such as education and research with a slight twist. We teach post graduates and professionals mostly and all of our foresight, all of our research is either practitioner driven or is answering particular practically relevant questions in the area of sustainability. But we do some things that are less typical for a university department in the sense that we have our own accelerator within the innovation pillar. But also we have a convening arm, which means that, for example, within the Centre for Sustainable Finance, we work with over 60 large financial firms across three leadership platforms. These are the banking environment initiative where we work with banks, the investment leaders group where we work with investment managers and asset owners and climate wise, which is our insurance platform. Across those, we do fundamentally two things. Number one, drive sustainability into financial decisions. And number two, think through the financial system as a whole and how we can change it in order to finance a more sustainable economy as a whole. And in that second goal, we also work with financial supervisors, financial regulators, central banks and policy makers around the world. We work at the intersection of climate, nature and social issues. And from that perspective, with our leadership groups, as well as with central banks and financial supervisors, we create tools, we work on co-creating research. If I could have the next slide, please. So if we think about our work today, we've been working on nature and financial materiality of nature for a number of years. And we've taken nature on a journey from why should we be worried about biodiversity loss and land degradation to creating a handbook for how nature related financial risks are material within financial portfolios, to thinking through some of the use cases of how financial institutions are seeing that financial materiality coming through. But also thinking through actually how do we bring nature engagement together with climate? So thinking through the intersection between climate and nature and helping financial firms create this process in a single integrated fashion. And really, that's where the roots for the engagement guide are coming from. And that's where what we're going to be talking for most of today. So at this point in time, if I pass the virtual mic to Sara Tafik, who's our nature finance lead for Banks and Investment Manager's asset owners, and she'll take you through our work on the engagement guide. Perfect. Thank you, Nina. Awesome. Just wanted to check that you guys can hear me okay. We can. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. So if we begin with the why now of the guide, there are really three motivating factors to that. Firstly, nature is not in a great state. The Stockholm Resilience Center released their 2023 updates recently. And within that six planetary boundaries are now transgressed, which includes biogeochemical flows, fresh water change, land system change, biosphere integrity, climate change and novel entities. And pressure is increasing on all boundary processes except ozone depletion. And this is up from four in 2015 and two in 2009. The second motivating factor, which is the impact of this loss of nature is the economic risk and opportunity. The S&P Sustainable One conducted an analysis on the S&P 1200 index and found that 85% of the companies have significant dependence on nature in their direct operations. And this does not include the companies within the value chain outside of the direct operations. On a more optimistic note, however, the World Economic Forum estimates $10.1 trillion in economic activity and 400 million new jobs in nature protection and restoration. The third motivating factor is the growth in regulations. In December of last year, we saw the signing of the Global Biodiversity Framework, which calls for the effective conservation management and restoration of at least 30% of the world's lands in landwaters, coastal areas and oceans by 2030. Last week, we saw the European Council reach a provisional political agreement on a regulation on nature restoration. So the proposal aims to put measures in place to restore at least 20% of the EU's land and sea areas by 2030 and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050. TNFD launched in September at New York Climate Week and has seen over 50,000 downloads since then. SBTN is a collaboration of organizations working together to equip companies as well as cities with the guidance to set science-based targets for all of Earth's systems. Initial guidance is live and full guidance is set to release the start of next year. So this really details the why now of the guide. The guide itself is really focused on empowering the client-facing staff of banks and investment managers to support their portfolio clients and investee companies to act on the opportunities, on the risks, and on the compliance demands that are associated with both nature and climate. So the target audience, as I've mentioned, is the frontline staff of banks and asset managers. Specifically, that's the relationship managers of banks and the portfolio managers and analysts of investment managers. And the rationale behind these roles is because they're really the connection point between the real economy and the financial economy. Relationship managers are the hub to the wider banking services and focus on expanding and retaining existing relationships. Portfolio managers and analysts are investing asset owners' wealth and capital and monitoring and assessing the market to maximize returns. The question then becomes how can these individuals, the portfolio managers and relationship managers, use action on climate towards action on nature? Financial institutions have begun to mainstream climate-related risks and opportunities across their business following the recognition of climate-related risks and increased regulation on climate-related reporting and disclosures. This includes involving climate change and their engagement with clients and portfolio companies as part of climate strategies that were informed by stress testing efforts, scenario analysis and assessments. So when conducting climate assessments, corporations and financial institutions both are understanding the immediate impacts of changing temperatures and weather patterns, understanding that they cause things like heat waves and droughts, growing intensity of weather events and ecosystem disruption due to habitats being impacted by these changing weather patterns. And in doing so, this is demonstrating how climate stability can impact access to nature and natural resources, things like the reliability of water, of air quality, the ability for commodities to grow and the resilience of the ecosystems that those commodities grow with them. This then demonstrates the business implication for the client or for the portfolio company of a changing climate. Therefore, action on nature is already happening through action on climate and I will detail this further here in the next slide. So as I've mentioned, climate assessments have become more mainstreamed and they've allowed us to understand how greenhouse gas emissions will alter the stability of the climate. Specifically, these assessments provide a better understanding of how the ecosystem services that are core to a business process may be affected if that climate stability changes. As you can see in the green box here, these are the ecosystem services or dependencies and this includes things like water security and quality, air quality and local climate, goods provisions or the ability for goods to grow from the earth, habitat intactness or the quality of the habitat for those goods to grow within and then the hazard regulation which would be the natural resilience of an area to natural disasters. However, this is not painting a full picture of the business's relationship with nature. It's giving an immediate, it's giving, sorry, a first view of the relationship with nature but in order to have a full understanding of a corporation or a business's process, its relationship with nature, we need to explore the other four nature loss drivers, as you can see in the blue boxes here below. So that includes land and sea use change. So changes in the use or management of land by humans. This may lead to a change in the quality or extent of natural habitat which has knock on effects for ecosystem services. Deforestation would be a good example here. Over exploitation of natural resources which is using natural resources or harvesting species from the wild at rates faster than they can recover. Pollution is the introduction of materials into the environment that harm nature that can be within the air, water and or land. And invasive species are species whose introduction by humans threatens biodiversity. And very interestingly, IPEBS just put a report a month ago that found the economic cost of invasive alien species exceeded $423 billion in 2019. So we've now detailed what is the business case. We've explored how climate and nature are connected in hopefully a simple way. The question then becomes how do we then utilize engagement to help with the nature loss crisis? So in this guidebook, engagement is not narrowly defined around a reputational challenge but rather is about the core business of the portfolio client or investee company and specifically how it is impacted by or contributes to nature loss. So engagement as a concept is therefore better conceived of as engagement on material commercial issues, in this case the dual nature and climate crisis that touches all of the ways the financier and the financed company interact. For banks, this includes exploring new financial products, exploring the refinancing of existing products to support the client in their nature positive journey, and really creating a point of collaboration and trust between the bank and the portfolio client in their transition into the nature positive economy. For investment managers, this includes utilizing share ownership through intentional activism and leveraging voting rights to steer the investee company towards nature protection and restoration. And this also includes fulfilling the asset owner's requirement on how capital is allocated. For both banks and investment managers, this includes the various material risks and opportunities emerging which may be driven by regulatory or political changes or more broadly emerging research and approaches within their sector of the portfolio client or investee company. So we've now detailed the business case for action, the connection of climate and nature and what engagement means, which is how this is presented in the guide. So before the reader really lands here, which is the heart of the guide, the engagement wheel, they will have read through those other three sections. So as you can see here, this is really the how do we create action around climate and nature. And this engagement wheel presents a five phase approach to integrate nature into existing engagements on climate. For each phase, the guide provides details of the context and target outcomes of that phase with helpful resources, guiding questions and ideas to support the portfolio manager or the relationship manager with the research and preparation efforts. Set the scene in the top right hand corner here is focused on opening the dialogue by expanding climate related conversations to include nature and establishing yourself and the financial institution as a close partner in your client or investee's nature positive journey. The black text that you're seeing here are phase activities within that wider phase. Assess focuses on the assessment of your client or investments current position on nature and ambitions for the future. Design is not about creating but supporting the client or investment to design a clear transition plan highlighting the financial implications for nature and climate related impacts. Support focuses on the structuring of solutions, financing or otherwise that support the nature positive transition of your client or investment. And the review stage is focused on monitoring progress, supporting your portfolio client and investee company and furthering the nature positive agenda within your organization. It's important to note that this model does sorry I'm just coming over a head cold. Sorry hopefully you can hear me okay now. So it's important to note this model does not need to start at set the scene nor does it need to follow each stage in this order that I presented because nature is showing up in various stages of the engagement cycle. We've tried to design it in a way that supports that so the suggestion from us is to use this relative to where sorry excuse me where your client is in their nature positive journey. So to give you an idea of what this looks like an example an example of what this looks like in practice sorry within the assess phase 2.2 is the phase activity and it's around assessing your portfolio client or investee company's current position on nature and ambition for the future. So how can you best prepare start interacting with your client or investment on their strategy towards nature and this can include asking these types of questions. So has your company considered how the decline in biodiversity might impact the future of business? Does your company have targets related to nature protection and restoration? Do you have a biodiversity strategy and if not what might it take to get that happening? Sorry just jumped a slide there. And then resources to help support doing that which you can see here. So what does this mean for portfolio managers and relationship managers this we've designed it for immediate use we've done it with the understanding that you don't need to be an expert in nature to help support and in doing so you can really help build strength and trust with your investing. What does this mean for banks and investment managers? Again it's building trust it's about reconciling emerging material portfolio risks and ultimately future proofing portfolios to insurance resilience and longevity and with that I will wrap up the presentation apologies that my speaking got a bit stumbled there with this coal that's hanging on but I'm going to pass it back over to Nina for the panel discussion. Thank you. Thank you very much and Sarah will be back with us to answer any questions in the Q&A right at the very end but at this point in time let me introduce our wonderful panel. We have three distinguished panelists we've got Claire Albarn who's an engagement specialist at Rubico joining us we've got Christoph Baumann who's a deputy head strategy division and an envoy for sustainable finance at the state secretariat for international finance in Switzerland as well as Oliver Withers who's head of biodiversity at standard charters. Thank you very much for joining us today and thank you very much for having this conversation with us. So my first question is a rather evident one so when you look at the let's discuss nature with climate engagement guide which parts what bits of it do you find particularly insightful particularly useful and so if we do just around and if I start with Claire. Yes sure hello everyone and thank you very much for having me. I think part of well coming from the engagement and the investment side and having started at some point as well on the biodiversity engagements as well as on the climate engagements which came before that I think the key part about the guide that adds value to me also when I sympathize with other peers that are coming into this debate is the achievability it brings through so really the lens of using what is already there as an entry point the whole discussion about climate change and making sure that you're building on top of that and I think one if really narrowing it down to one particular part of the guide for me the second or not sure if it's a second part but the assess section of this has really I think put forward quite clear questions of how everyone could just really plug out some of these questions of like how are your operations impacted by certain climate change scenarios which are interlinked with biodiversity or how are your biodiversity practices following into your climate strategy and which is just very easily to take out and apply to any of the engagement strategies that are already in place. Thanks Claire. Christa. Thanks so much for having me on this panel. So I would start with that I think when discussing it with many ambitious financial institutions they're looking to the the leading research facilities and leading universities for guidance and usually when you look at the policy papers that come out of there there's a huge gap from these policy papers to the day-to-day job of a financial institution advisor a client advisor and it's for a typical ESG manager a CSR manager at these financial institutions it's hard to bridge this gap themselves so it's absolutely I'm delighted to have now a guide from a university from a leading university that's really directly applicable to these client advisors and that's so timely on this nature topic. What I also love is this process orientation that it really goes through the different relationship stages a client advisor has with their clients starting from the setting the scene and then assessing the client situation designing a plan and then supporting the client with a financial plan or with with other activities and in the end to review again I think that's exactly the way client advisors look at their relationship as well and lastly I absolutely love the framing so putting it not just as another topic to look at but combining it with clients so with a process with a topic they're already very much engaged with with their clients to combine it with climate is I think very important given the interconnectedness of the both of the topics thanks. Absolutely thanks Christopher it's just one more way to start filtering nature into exactly that conversation Oliver. Yeah thanks very much for having me I mean just to build off both Christoph and Claire's points there I think that one really great piece that comes out of the whole whole report is this idea that you're not starting from scratch you've already started on this journey you just didn't realize it and I think that that makes it a lot easier for people to realize they're actually in the journey and don't have to start it so I think that that's a critical tone throughout the the paper I think also a really really important thing from my perspective is is the underpinning of of opportunities throughout the paper right is that we often talk about the risk and and trying to quantify the risk but we actually we need action and I think that that's the really critical part of that paper as well is that it underpins through all of the sections is this ultimately we get to action and I think for for the bankers for for nature for our clients that's what everyone is actually looking for so I think it's a really good guidance and and to Claire's point a relatively soft entry point into what is a potentially complex topic and I think the the thinking through this was as well is that effectively it's combating a little bit of the narrative that nature is so complicated and so complex and we'll just get to it at some point in the near future once we've dealt with climate which is precisely not what we want everybody to do so it's just bringing people in showing what they're already doing in this space so let me just kind of dig a little bit deeper on what you are already doing and how you're using this if I go to Claire and ask her about how are you giving us maybe some examples of how that nature engagement is already happening today and how it can be actioned today yeah happy to share a little and there's also an example of exactly that in in the report for those that haven't looked at it yet I think at Rubiko we have the privilege to have had resources to work on especially the nature aspect of this debate where I'm working on for quite a long time so it started off with I think many debates around palm oil already more than 10 years ago and this is really built up on that expertise on an ongoing basis so that I think now three years ago we launched and dedicated engagement program to speak to our investing companies about the topic of deforestation and Sarah had mentioned it briefly before deforestation is and the overall the land use change especially in the agricultural sector is a huge contributor to carbon emissions so the carbon stored in trees and in soil as it's being tilted or cut down for to make space for agriculture is releasing an enormous amount of carbon dioxide which is contributing to climate change so from and even if we started off by talking looking at it from these companies are destroying part of very critical ecosystems at the basis of it it was from the beginning also a very strong climate discussion and so now we've spoken to some I think we've had in scope around 12 companies in the agricultural sector about coming from or working around some of the key forest risk commodities so that includes from beef and soy to timber kakao and natural rubber and we've asked or we've been talking to them about exactly these challenges that they've had in addressing some of these key emissions and in getting to really stop or prove that there is no deforestation or land conversion in their supply chains so to frame it off we've set very clear ambitions as as we often like to do we want companies to not have any deforestation very clear policies show very strong traceability systems and monitoring systems but also what Oliver mentioned before and what I think the guide puts out nicely is this whole space of opportunity and I think also in the global in the global discussion it's coming out a lot more this topic about restoration and not just becoming nature neutral but really contributing to this narrative of nature positivity so that was also a big part of these discussions that we've had and I think so overall throughout these past three years if I may reflect a bit on them there's been an extreme shift I think also in the awareness of these companies that we've been talking to about how they go about the nature and the natural capital that they are relying on so much and this has moved from for instance barely having a deforestation policy to now having very clear commitments to by 2025 not have any deforestation in the supply chain a lot driven of course also by regulation all from in the beginning when we asked do you have have you conducted a biodiversity impact assessment getting the response no what is this and why do you want this to actually now piloting the TNFD so there's been an incredible shift in mentality and I think a very big part of that has come from exactly this nexus between biodiversity and climate where for instance the science space targets initiative included in their flags or the forest land agriculture guidance very clear requirements if you want to have your climate strategy for certain sectors especially the agricultural sectors approved by our initiative you have to showcase no conversion and and certain really land and biodiversity related initiatives and so just to very briefly round this off and kind of go back onto this opportunity space I think one very positive example that we highlight in the report as well is our dialogue with the Kakar sector which wasn't necessarily escalated I think it was a very harmonious sector because the sector from the beginning realized how critical it is that they act on protecting the land that they're sourcing from and also empower the small holders that they're sourcing from so for those that are not familiar with the supply chains coming a lot from Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire where there's many relatively poor farming families so it's really about creating these opportunities and it's shifted from really avoiding the worst to so no deforestation creating traceability to now having said first target it's about restoration really trying to scale this we're not there yet and there's still many many things to watch out for perhaps we can get back to that in a future question but I think it really showcased how even an economic incentive can be created through that and really support also the livelihoods of the small farmers on the ground so I think that's a really beautiful example of how from a problem solving combining it with climate it can really turn into an opportunity and it also quite nicely demonstrates the the positive spiral that you can have because you do go you start kind of relatively basic and then you cycle through into more interesting incentives potentially and just you weren't talking about science-based targets you were talking about TNFD and that brings me really neatly onto my question to Christoph can you talk us through a little bit what you're seeing happening in the policy space that is enabling action on nature and how that's integrated with climate absolutely very happy to do so and I'll mention the current initiatives current dynamics but also where I think the road should go from here I think they're very exciting dynamics going on so obviously mentioned already TNFD the launch this autumn it's now absolutely crucial that we get the first disclosures going from corporates on a voluntary basis I do believe that over time you'll see more and more regulators picking up on it as well I would hope that ISSP rather soon decides on building nature standards very closely based on the TNFD not that we kind of create a parallel world there I think tremendous work has been done on TNFD so that's certainly something that we will be pushing for in the various international fora we are a part of and the other thing from a disclosure perspective we should really push towards is having kind of the net zero data public utility equivalent in nature to really have a public utility of free and accessible data on the nature side for corporates to build their transition plans on over time we might still be a bit on the early side on that but it's important to really build this up early on as well and I do think that there's a shake up similar to Paris with the could mean Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework with Goldee and Target 14 so aligning the financial flows with the with the biodiversity goal similar to 2.1c in the Paris Agreement and that really shakes up so I think one of the key next steps will be to find a common understanding at least from a methodological perspective of what it does it mean to be aligned so similar to for instance what PACTA does with the climate alignment tests that Switzerland and many other countries have been running each couple of years with the market I do think we should go into a world where we do something similar that also on the nature side to get an understanding where is the where is the financial market moving on in terms of the alignment now the other side of the coin which is very interrelated is the macro potential risks that are stemming from biodiversity I think the NGFS the network for green financial system has done tremendous work over the last year or two and will increase its work on this front as well I think there's an emerging consensus that it can have macro potential risks and the more this becomes a consensus the more this nature topic will be part of the financial stability board and then it's at the attention of regulators and central bankers and that will be absolute key and I'm quite optimistic also with the G20 presidencies ahead of us in Brazil and South Africa that nature both the risk and the the alignment side will have quite some some time in on the agenda to discuss I'm very hopeful on that side I do believe that a company or a financial institution that is building climate transition plans and more and more are doing so we shouldn't end up in a world where there's a transition plan for climate and a separate one in the independent of it on nature so we do we should look for any initiative that's working on transition plans so the TPT in the UK or hopefully the Isis B will provide further guidance on transition plans the science-based targets initiative there we have the science-based targets network so we should find ways to marry these two topics together and so that there's one comprehensive environmental transition plan that would be my goal for now with Switzerland we've been early supporters on this topic we we've helped develop on core one of the alignment tool and risk tools we've been early support of the NFT and we now really try to also switch the narrative as Oliver mentioned but also a Claire before to the opportunity side so we don't want to wait until there's a global consensus on it's a huge risk we need to address it we see already a business opportunity and we want to really have the framework conditions there that the financial institutions who are active on this front and hopefully also have a competitive advantage so from this angle we had recently a nature finance route table and we'll have with the members of the round table very close engagement of next months to find ways to really position ourselves and also always with the back in the background the idea when we get the opportunity sites when we get them convinced that it's an opportunity it's clear that we can only achieve this opportunity if we if we do credible actions so it it's kind of like pulls and with it all the work on nature alignment and on risk mitigation and I'm very very excited about that thanks so much thanks Christoph and kind of talking about what good looks like is also I think quite important actually this again brings me super neatly to the question to my question for Oliver because Oliver's been working on creating nature positive assets and can you talk us through you know what those are and what the opportunities for integrating nature and climate looks like yeah certainly Nina I mean listen I think and you guys do this excellently at the the beginning of the report actually we don't have a standardized definition for nature positive yet there are various initiatives underway to to try and give us a standardized definition but crudely as it stands today the way to look at it is one are their transactions where we can actually see a clear delivery of biodiversity or nature outcomes right so fairly net positive overall I think and again all credit to to the report for highlighting the second component of this which is nature positive also incorporates reducing drivers of biodiversity loss and I think that sometimes in the market that can be the the least sexy of the two options and you know I have spent an inordinate amount of my time trying to work on the the sexy innovative stuff that generates you know net positive biodiversity and nature outcomes and I can tell you they are they are very time consuming and just picking up on Claire's point you know specifically on highlighting agric and then you drill down you get into palm oil biodiversity and nature or context specific right whereas climate and carbon is very often just seen as a commoditized thing right so immediately you've got those two worlds almost colliding to a certain extent and you know today our most monetizable opportunity to bring these two themes together is is still carbon right now need us to say this has been a particularly tough year for carbon markets and there are obviously a number of challenges with that market however practically that is still today where we see an ability as a bank and a financial institution to really deploy money at scale into nature conservation we've also seen in the development of those carbon markets right the slow recognition of it's not just about carbon credits it's about the quality of those carbon credits right so slowly we have introduced this this lens attached to biodiversity or nature but also very importantly social considerations right so that in many circumstances let's be blunt is actually making doing carbon projects more challenging because there are more complexities there's more dynamic movement around this topic of nature and social that now needs to be factored in but as it stands today carbon really is a huge huge opportunity for us when we look at nature-based solutions to really get money into the field and deliver impact and that really Nina builds on the a line you used around best practice right we we we really need to be supporting those those carbon nature-based solution projects that adhere to best practice right because the harsh reality is that a plantation of a single monoculture species like eucalyptus that is not helping nature right let's be very clear about that so there is a massive opportunity for us to really ramp up the quality of of our carbon markets I also think you know coming out of the the global biodiversity framework when we look at for example our targets around restoring 30% protecting 30% critically within that protecting 30% is this recognition of other effective area-based conservation measures right so OECMs and I think that we're really only starting to scratch the surface around how nature-based carbon projects can actually represent OECMs if managed according to best practices and very importantly that those projects can in fact contribute to us and sovereigns achieving the 30 by 30 targets and goals just want to pick up on kind of some of the comments you know Christoph made another thing that we are waiting for as a sector quite frankly is the global biodiversity framework was only adopted in December last year right it's going to take time for the implications of that to trickle down the system from a policy perspective right and not everyone is as efficient should we say as Switzerland at getting going on this so you know for us particularly and some of the markets that we operate this is going to be a long journey right and so we also need to acknowledge that as we see that policy get introduced to get alignment with the global biodiversity framework that will create opportunities in and of itself right and I think that financial institutions should be very very alive to that as much as you know the carbon stuff is really exciting and can get money moving today there is obviously this emerging topic of biodiversity or nature credits right and and this really points to an important point for me which is just because a carbon credit is not being generated doesn't mean that there is no climate mitigation or adaptation value it you know it just might mean that it's not feasible to run a carbon project on that landscape or that intervention right so for example we worked previously on some outcomes based financing mechanisms one being a rhino bond where we are seeing money go into rhino conservation rhino conservation means conserving an entire ecosystem that ecosystem is a carbon sink right we're not trying to sell carbon credits off the back of that but there is a huge climate benefit right so I think critically we also need to realize that the climate benefit is not always measured by carbon right and I think that we've seen huge success if you look at for example some of the debt swaps that have been done none of them are measuring carbon output or trying to sell carbon off the back of them but interventions to conserve the ocean we know are good for climate so I think this nature credit or biodiversity credit piece coming through is going to offer some real opportunities to get that overlap again and then the third piece which you know I'm particularly interested in is adaptation right and again we've we've heard a lot of talk about nature based solutions for adaptation we still haven't really cracked being able to monetize that properly but there are pilots underway around sort of resilience credits etc so I think that that that is going to offer a significant opportunity going forward that adaptation piece also circles back very nicely to the risk component right nature has a role to play in de-risking assets and that's why you're seeing the insurance sector really leading on a number of these initiatives so I think there's a lot of opportunity emerging there but I just want to highlight again all of that stuff is great and really really important and it's important that we're restoring landscapes and doing these sexy innovative deals but let's not forget the fundamentals which is we've got a real opportunity to reduce drivers of biodiversity loss right and when we look at having to bend the curve of biodiversity loss that is a critical component of that journey now again going back to my opening comments one of the beauties of the report is this idea that hey guys you're not starting from scratch you're already on this journey this is another really fantastic thing when we look at reducing drivers of biodiversity loss if we pick on for example sustainability linked loans or bonds there have been numerous transactions across the market where we see KPIs that are actually reducing drivers of biodiversity loss again it highlights this this over overarching narrative guys you've already been working on this you're already doing opportunities that are moving the dial on biodiversity right we're not starting from scratch we just need to scale up and amplify so like I say for me that that's that kind of nature positive asset class there is the sexy innovative stuff where we're trying to generate you know net positive results at the end of the day but let's not forget we have a huge role to play in reducing drivers of biodiversity loss and that is something that our clients ultimately usually have control over that's a really good way to actually lead me to one more question to all of you which we're going to answer in one minute intervals before we open up to the questions from the audience so you have right now a captive audience ahead of you in front of you of corporates and financiers and a couple of policymakers so if you're sending them home today what is it that you want them to do today to drive us onto this journey Claire one minute okay I'll be fast um I think really taking from the guide the opportunity that has been stressed now a couple of times of exploring where can nature be introduced into the dialogues of the initiatives and conversations that are already happening and this can be in just introducing one question in the discussion with an investing company about their biodiversity footprint and how this is linking to their overall climate strategy because as Oliver mentioned before there's a lot of carbon also stored in these biodiversity rich ecosystems for instance or whether it is about rethinking how an investor is voting on a certain shareholder proposal around biodiversity which can be very small triggers which can have an immense impact especially in these sectors that are often forgotten in the climate or not forgotten but less looked at in the climate debates as often that in especially in the food and agri sector a lot of their missions on the scope three bucket and can be very much related to these biodiversity loss drivers I'll pass it on to someone else fantastic so what are you doing on nature adding one more question in into the engagement Krista very shortly and report along tnft those that have already done it have found it easier than than they thought given that it looks daunting from start so please reduce so please try it out doesn't need to be perfect from the start I think the expectation is really a learning curve there as well should get better from year to year do so with a double materiality thanks and remember how less than perfect the first climate reports were for TCFD and I have a couple of those in my back catalogue and they were not beautiful at all very qualitative but it was a start and some still are spot on your Oliver I mean listen from from my perspective it's it's all about the end game which is action and so for me it's always a question of how do we get to action we need understanding you know everyone is on a different journey and and starting at a different baseline before you even get to understanding you need to you need awareness so for some people on this call this is potentially your first step into the world of nature and biodiversity you know you know really delve into the awareness of what is a broad topic but a really fascinating topic and a critical topic for our economies and for our livelihoods and then you know really look for those deep dives into understanding and you know Nina just to applaud you guys for the work that you are doing because that is really driving a lot of the awareness and understanding which ultimately enables action but let's keep focused on the end goal which is action so listen to the webinars and read the report is on what Oliver was trying to tell you all right now if I bring Sarah back on the camera and I believe we've got our first question which is a question that everybody asks the second we talk about climate or nature or anything like that please can you tell us a little more about nature related data and how important it is to the methods and any particular good or bad examples I suspect Christoph is going to ride in with the net republic data utility answer potentially maybe I think I'm not qualified to answer that I'm policymaker we're very shallow so I'll leave it at to the practitioners all right Oliver Claire I'm happy to to give my view on this I mean listen I the data is not not great and it's not perfect right let's admit that from the start but we can't let perfect be the enemy of good or progress here there's enough data for you to start this journey also I think one of the kind of critical messages across the sector is focus on materiality right that's not trying to boil the ocean if you are looking for perfect data and you think you're going to do this across your whole portfolio and get a perfect response I've got bad news for you that's not coming anytime soon and probably you are going to wrap yourself up in all sorts of contorted kind of descriptions and designs trying to make sense of it all but there is enough data that's out there for you to start looking at certain sectors certain geographies and starting to get a feel for where your materiality is once you've got a feel for where that materiality is it can lead you down into kind of some some deeper rabbit holes where you start finding perhaps some of the data that you're looking for I also think it's worth really highlighting that you know yes there might be data challenges today doesn't compare to the data challenges three years or five years or ten years ago so this space is rapidly rapidly evolving and at some point I think well actually the discussion will be there's too much data we need consolidation I don't think we're quite there yet but I think that's the direction of travel and perhaps also if I can jump in and come a bit from how can we create a bit more data I think also the investment sector there can play a very critical role and it really should be an incentive to go out to speak to the companies and ask them to publish very clear and meaningful KPIs or metrics such as on the one hand I think what we're looking a lot at is the exposure to certain pro to certain commodities for instance especially as it comes to these I think the easy the easier example often the deforestation or the forest risk related commodities or the extent to which they're recycling certain products or trying to reduce the intensity or the pressure on these ecosystems so there's definitely metrics out there already that's just not one very clear framework to encompass them all and I think also looking at the work that we've been doing we've taken it step by step and have tried to for instance focus on one commodity first on there where there is a lot of data already so I think the journey for started with palm well now it's going into the other different commodities and really looking again at this exposure of the materiality and how they are managing this so here also a lot of the certifications come in and play a very important role so this external verification of certain data points whether that is an FSC certification or whether it is the percentage of verified deforestation free commodity sourced there's definitely ways to increase this and perhaps to round off I think there's also an important role from the finance sector to speak to our data providers and encourage them to or share what we're looking for to integrate this more and more and actually kind of maybe if I add on to this so if you're just starting on this journey and you want to do a strategic review of your portfolio and where their dependencies lie if you don't have location specific data you can use Encore you can use Encore to help you understand where the biggest problems in your portfolio might be even without location specific as long you have a subsector and a sectoral split and from then on you can start digging deeper if you do have location data then you're way ahead of everybody else you can go and look at WWF biodiversity risk filter tool because that will enable you to have a slightly more advanced approach on this but there are methodologies out there there is data out there that can be used and there are certainly things that can be done today when you are back at your desk in trying to understand where those dependencies lie and kind of target yourself into it we had another question on the correlation between just transition and biodiversity and how an engagement can include both considerations who wants to jump on that perhaps I can give it a start especially and again coming back to my engagements around deforestation and I know they're coming from a very particular angle but if I go back to the Kakao example that I was mentioning some of these supply chains are extremely dependent on small holders and it's very important that the social considerations are taking into account one very quick and easy answer for some of these commodities could be from the investor angle or from the top to just move out of certain risk high risk areas whereas this is a very of course potentially in some sectors an easier answer it also has quite a lot of implications for the people that are staying behind so I think there's a very big and important responsibility of companies to make sure that they're not just shifting away and turning a blind eye on the problem but actually lifting up and working collaboratively with peers but also with governments to solve this issue so for instance in the Kakao supply chain we've seen that especially in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire there has been a lot of dialogue with the governments to create more traceability to create a national traceability system as well as of course there's been the ongoing discussion around living incomes for these farmers and how can we incentivise and also just make sure that the farmers on the ground are maintained and are not incentivised to actually deforest so I think there's a very important aspect of this just transition that comes very clearly into into this sector as well. If I may jump in here as well and both both on climate and biodiversity when you talk about the just transition it's important to note we are currently not on a just trajectory and because we now transition we might leave this just trajectory and end up in an unjust world no if we continue this path of climate change of global warming if we continue this path of with loss of biodiversity usually those that are most affected are those are the poorest countries and the poorest within a country and so it we will actively by transitioning we will contribute heavily towards the equality or fight mitigating some of the inequality issues that we're currently on the path of realising obviously this also means that when transitioning there's many stakeholders to include as well many opportunities to generate as well to maximise the positive impact on on this front. We have one minute left and there are two questions on increasing the bankability or the investability of nature positive assets as well as the strategies and mechanisms that can be employed to scale up the use of blended finance or this is a both massive questions but if anybody has a 30 second answer and given that Oliver's been quiet I'm going to go to him for a 30 second answer on that. Yeah so listen I mean I think that on the blended finance side we are seeing an emergence of a number of providers looking at this I think that you know this can come in the form of guarantees political risk insurance concessional capital this historically has been the domain certainly from a biodiversity and nature perspective of really the large conservation NGOs I think that highlighting this this nexus of social climate and nature is actually now effectively unlocking more capital right because actually a number of the interventions that we're looking at as they're kind of articulated in her example there are social benefits their climate benefits and their nature benefits right and so I think that what we're seeing is is slowly a tearing down of those silos right and actually a blending of the blended finance that's available which is increasing the scale and also allowing us to look at solutions that are at a landscape level instead of just very focused on a particular topic and I think that that's really powerful so I do think the blended finance land landscape is evolving rapidly I think that some of the reformation you're seeing within some of the the multilateral development banks is is going to feed into this as well I mean listen let's be clear wars globally do not help public coffers you know so that also has a negative impact on the amount of blended finance that's available but I do think that this landscape is improving quite dramatically in terms of of kind of more products and how do we scale these products up I think I just want to reiterate this point that you know carbon by itself is commoditized globally again I'll pick on Claire's example the solutions are context specific we got to get our hands dirty and we got to get into the field because that's where the solutions are needed and that's how we should be designing the solutions so it I'm afraid it doesn't lend itself to faster replicational scaling but I think this this you know African saying if you want to go fast go alone if you want to go far go together so I think we need to demonstrate some patience as a sector that not necessarily these deals are going to be done very quickly but the impact will will last much longer and on exactly that point of collaboration it's on my turn to say thank you very much to all of our wonderful panelists to Christoph to Claire and to Oliver for coming to discuss the guide with us to all of the rest of you we have also just published a piece of work on how to drive finance towards the climate nature nexus in emerging markets and developing economies imaginatively titled everything everywhere all at once so go have a look at that it's got lots on solutions we will be continuing to work at the intersection of climate and nature will be doing nature use cases within the insurance sector and we will also be doing a lot more work on how to finance nature within the kind of the banking and investment sector thank you very much for listening to us do send us questions if you've got any questions and the email address is going to go into the chat it's csfatcisl.cam.ac.uk and thank you for joining us at our webinar


In some financial scenarios, several parties are involved in making payments to various individuals. Done correctly, this is legal. To analyze this, we use a bottom-line approach. The source of the money doesn't matter. All that matters is the money paid out or received by an investor. Now, it's useful to imagine that there is some meta-bank that receives all contributions and disperses all payments. So, for example, John, Charles, and Bernie agree on the following set of payments. John will pay Charles $1,000 now. Charles will pay John $500 in a year and Bernie $1,000 in a year. Bernie will pay John $800 in two years. Find the annual yield of all three investors and, importantly, interpret your findings. Now, we might want to make the following observation. Bernie's payment to John at t equals 2 is the final payment, and so we can assume it closes all of our accounts. So, we only need to know what happens up until time t equals 2. So, let's consider. At t equals 0, John paid Charles $1,000, but the destination is irrelevant. At t equals 1, John received $500 from Charles, but the source is irrelevant. And at t equals 2, John received an additional $800 from Bernie, and again, the source is irrelevant. So, we'll view money John pays as positive, he's putting money into this meta-bank, and money John receives as negative, he's withdrawing money from the meta-bank. So, this allows us to write John's equation of value, which will be... Now, this expression 1 plus i shows up all the time, so we'll let x be equal to 1 plus i, which gives us a quadratic equation, and solving that quadratic equation gives us, which has positive solution, and so, because x is equal to 1 plus i, we can solve this for our interest rate, which will be... Now, let's consider Charles. Charles had a transaction at t equals 0 when he received $1,000 from John, and t equals 1 when he paid $500 to John and $1,000 to Bernie. Since he received $1,000, this should be recorded as a negative contribution. It's a withdrawal from the meta-bank. Since he paid $500 plus $1,500, this should be recorded as a positive contribution. And note at this point there are no further transactions that Charles was involved in, so we can assume a $0 transaction at t equals 2, which closes the account. And so this gives Charles's equation of value, and again, letting x be equal to 1 plus i gives us the quadratic equation. Solving gives us x equals 0, which is unrealistic, and x equals 1.5, and so we find our interest rate is 50%. And finally, Bernie had transactions at t equals 1 of $1,000, a payment from Charles, so that's a withdrawal and negative amount, and $800, a payment to John, so his equation of value will be... and again, letting x equals 1 plus i gives for an interest rate of negative 20%. Huh. And it's worth noting that the three rates mean very different things, so consider John's rate of 17.87%. He initially paid $1,000, and again, it's helpful to think about some meta-bank as receiving and dispersing all amounts, so this is a deposit to the meta-bank. He later received $500 in one year and $800 in two years, and this would happen if the meta-bank paid 17.87% annual interest, and in John's case, he got back more than he put in. Bonus. So the interest of 17.87% represents a gain for John. Now, consider Charles's rate of 50%. Charles initially received $1,000 from the meta-bank, but in return, he paid back $500 plus $1,500 a year later. So in Charles's case, he paid more than he got out, so the interest rate of 50% is actually a loss for Charles. And Bernie's case is the most peculiar. Bernie received $1,000 at t equals 1 and paid out $800 at t equals 2, and this is an interest rate of negative 20%, but the reason that the interest rate is negative is that we assume the payout of $800 closed the account. The $1,000 he received shrank in value to $800, but that $200 loss was actually kept by Bernie, so even though the interest rate is negative, it's a gain. And this leads to the following conundrum. John's interest rate is positive and this is good for him. Charles' interest rate is positive, but this is bad for him. Bernie's interest rate is negative, but this is a good thing. And so the important question to ask is, why did this happen? We might look at it as follows. Note that John initially deposited money to the meta-bank, so earning a positive rate of interest means that his deposits became more valuable and he was able to withdraw more than he put in. But Charles received money, so he started with the negative balance at the meta-bank. And a positive rate of interest means that his negative balance grew even more negative, which is bad for him. Bernie also received money, but the negative rate of interest on the negative balance actually reduced the amount, so at the end he owed less. Thank you.