Fidelity International has outlined its commitment to integrating nature in its sustainable investments and stewardship processes with the launch of its Nature Roadmap.
It follows the firm’s initiative as a foundation member and signatory of the Finance for Biodiversity pledge, which aims to protect and restore biodiversity.
Fidelity described its Nature Roadmap as a “step further” in its commitment to addressing nature loss. It lists a range of actions, including ensuring robust governance and oversight of sustainability related issues, including nature; integrating nature in its proprietary ESG tools, including its ESG ratings, sustainable development goals tool and climate rating, as well as leveraging external tools and data to enhance the integration of nature-related impacts, dependencies and associated risks and opportunities.
In addition, it sets out Fidelity’s commitment to integrating nature in its stewardship and voting activities and ensuring nature is embedded in its sustainable investing framework as well as policy engagement and system-wide stewardship.
At COP26, Fidelity signed the Financial Sector Commitment Letter on Eliminating Commodity-Driven Deforestation, designed to use best efforts towards the goal of eliminating forest-risk agricultural commodity-driven deforestation activities in investment strategies by 2025 via engagement and stewardship.
Fidelity said the Nature Roadmap articulates the company’s approach, including its expectations of exposed investee companies and its escalation approach where companies do not meet expectations.
From 2024, Fidelity will begin to vote against companies in high-risk sectors that do not meet its minimum standards of deforestation-related practices and disclosure.
Jenn-Hui Tan, chief sustainability officer at Fidelity International, says: “The loss of natural capital is a systematic risk to capital markets, and as such, prioritising and contributing to the health and preservation of our biodiversity and ecosystems is essential.
“The launch of our Nature Roadmap, along with the application of our deforestation voting principles and guidelines, demonstrates our commitment to natural capital conservation, setting out the approach we have chosen and articulating the broad range of tools we have at our disposal to integrate nature in our investment and stewardship processes.”
Tan said the firm wants to make a difference by working with the industry through system-wide stewardship, “helping to shape an enabling policy and regulatory environment which places a fair value on natural capital and the ecosystem services from which we all benefit.”
