Case studies

The world’s researchers have been working to understand and solve societal challenges such as biodiversity loss and climate change for decades. However, decision makers in government, NGOs and business need to have this information available to them in the format they need and at the moment that they are making critical policy choices.

The Agile Initiative at the Oxford Martin School aims to put this essential knowledge in their hands, and revolutionise how world-class, high-impact research supports policymaking.

Financial institutions are increasingly aware of and interested in biodiversity- and nature- risks and opportunities, but such attempts have often been hindered by incomplete, incomparable and unreliable environment, social and governance (ESG) disclosure and scores.

Importantly, existing ESG disclosure and scores tend to put great emphasis on emissions and climate-change, but fall short of comprehensively incorporating the location-specificity and breadth of nature and biodiversity concerns, especially in addressing nature recovery and entire-ecosystem uplift. Unlike emissions reduction, the assessment of such outcomes is multifaceted and are highly location specific. This in turn requires both geographically expansive but granular data to aid meaningful, impactful financial decision-making to ensure financial flows are aligned with nature outcomes, as well as to support nature-positive investments.

There is widespread and growing recognition of the value of biodiversity – its inherent value, its economic value, and its potential value in combatting climate change through Nature-based Solutions (NbS). The Oxford Martin Programme on Biodiversity and Society aims to harness this recognition, and the drive to ‘build back better’ from the COVID-19 pandemic, to support systemic change towards a more sustainable relationship between humanity and our planet, and to mobilise financial resources at scale for its protection and recovery.

Drawing expertise from across the University in ecology, finance and economics, social sciences, human wellbeing, cultural values, AI, machine learning, satellite-based monitoring, and other disciplines and by working closely with stakeholders the programme aims to address wide-ranging challenges to move towards stemming the tide of biodiversity loss, and developing opportunities for biodiversity recovery, globally.