The UK’s financial investment portfolio is dependent upon nature and therefore at risk from its decline. This decline is itself driven by economic activity. However, the extent to which different sectors of the UK’s financial investment portfolio are dependent on nature - and at risk from nature's decline - is unclear. In this report we summarise our analysis which starts to tackle these unknowns. 

This document outlines the analysis that we have undertaken within this project and presents our key findings. We end with recommendations for the following key reader groups: staff at the Bank of England, policy makers within the UK government and staff working within commercial banks and insurers. A more detailed methodology and further contextual information can be found in the Annexes.

The analysis is discussed in two parts. First, it uses the ENCORE (Exploring Natural Capital Opportunities, Risks and Exposure) knowledge base to assess where material dependencies lie in the exposures of UK banks and insurers. This first section is non-spatial and looks at the UK exposures as a whole. It then uses other datasets to add a spatial component and look at the nature risks arising from these dependencies on nature, based on the state of nature in countries where the UK has strong upstream financial exposures.

The analysis feeds into a final, combined report that has been compiled by the Green Finance Institute. That summary document summarizes the whole of this project, including work by the University of Oxford, University of Reading, and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.