Robert Alexandre-Poujade, ESG Analyst, BNP Paribas Asset Management
Recognising the potential for exposure, and an opportunity to mitigate risk, at BNP Paribas Asset Management (‘BNPP AM’) we have begun to actively map natural capital dependencies across our portfolios. This exercise is helping us to identify investment hotspots which provide us with a better assessment of potential risks and opportunities, which can then be shared with clients and other stakeholders, building trust and resilience.
BNPP AM has the ultimate objective of limiting its natural capital footprint, but is aware that it is too early to measure all the impact drivers and/or dependencies across all of its investment portfolios.
Since the publication of its case study on water at the beginning of the year, BNPP AM continues to actively map its natural capital dependencies in order to determine any investment hotspots, which can then be shared with clients and other stakeholders.
To illustrate this, seafood sourcing is one of the areas that has recently been examined by BNPP AM’s ESG analysts. BNPP AM firmly believes that this mapping will further strengthen company ESG analysis, enabling a better assessment of risks and opportunities, raise portfolio manager awareness and improve decision-making.
This year, BNPP AM has started piloting new methodological tools to assess its impact on biodiversity. This will almost certainly take some time, but is nonetheless a crucial step towards one day being able to set any biodiversity protection objective.
BNPP AM aims to contribute to global efforts to preserve water, protect forests, improve soil quality, reduce waste or improve air quality. But given the lack of maturity in terms of data and analytical methods in those areas, it remains challenging to assess the performance of companies in our investment portfolios.
This is why as investor, BNPP AM continues to work towards better engagement with companies on improving disclosure on natural capital impact drivers and dependencies. BNPP AM wants to be at the forefront of this, with the help of actors such as the Natural Capital Coalition.
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