經濟增長註定要破壞維持地球生命運轉的自然系統？不一定！成功的實踐將證明，投資和經營農業資產不僅是可能的，也是可以產生收益的。請看詳細報導↓↓↓
大自然常常被視為是無價的，在現有金融體系和計算方法框架下，其價值無法直接用數字來衡量。但毫無疑問，大自然的內在、非經濟價值，卻時刻與全球經濟相互交織、密不可分。
Nature is often seen as something priceless, its worth beyond quantification. While there’s no doubt that nature has an intrinsic, non-economic value, it’s just as true that it is deeply intertwined with the global economy.
地球自然系統為不斷增長的人口提供至關重要的潔淨空氣、水、食物、纖維和其他資源。
Earth’s natural systems provide vital clean air, water, food, fiber and other resources for an ever-increasing human population.
人類與自然之間的聯結不斷深入：氣候變化導致自然災害日益嚴重和頻繁。
And the connections go much deeper of course: climate change has exacerbated natural disasters.
比如近來在澳大利亞和美國西部發生的特大火災，以一種悲劇性方式證明了我們與自然界的聯繫是多麼緊密，如果我們不能處理好這種關係，將會遭受到怎樣的痛苦。
Like the recent mega-fires inAustraliaand the American West, tragically demonstrating how incredibly interconnected we are with the natural world, and how we suffer when we fail to take care of it.
大自然常被認為是一種經濟的「外部性」——沒有定價主體、無法全面估值；然而隨著人類的發展，我們讓自然付出的代價，往往就是讓社會付出的代價。
Nature is too often considered an economic "externality"—not priced or fully valued—and ignored on the balance sheet, usually at nature's and, eventually, society's expense.
那麼這是否意味著，經濟增長註定要破壞維持地球生命運轉的自然系統？不一定。
Does this mean that economic growth is doomed to undermine the natural systems that comprise our planetary life support system? Not necessarily.
正如人類積極應對新冠肺炎疫情的表現一樣，我們有能力迅速改變行為習慣和社交習慣，在短期內緩和甚至一定程度上抑制了新冠肺炎這個難以想像的威脅。
Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have shown humanity’s capacity to rapidly change our behavior in order to mitigate an unimaginable threat.
人類這一無以倫比的能力帶來了希望：在地球所面臨的其他挑戰上，我們也可以這樣做。
That offers hope that we can do the same with other challenges facing the planet.
我們必須重建固有的金融體系，將「自然收益」設計成為新體系的重要指標，使用金融工具來引領自然與社會的融合，長期、可持續地惠及人類和自然本身。
But doing so will require us to recreate our financial systems so that they value nature’s benefits and lead to long-term sustainable outcomes for people and nature.
我們採取措施的速度與規模必須與水資源短缺、氣候變化等這樣大規模全球環境問題相稱。
And we must do so at a pace and scale commensurate with massive global environmental problems like water scarcity and climate change.
機構投資者是解決方案的一部分
Institutional investors are part of the solution
近年來，隨著環境、社會和治理（ESG）在企業發展中倍受重視，ESG實踐與ESG投資持續增長，為支持自然界的民間融資開闢了新來源，但這還不夠。
While the growth of environmental, social and governance (ESG) funds and impact investing in recent years has unlocked new sources of private finance that supports the natural world, it’s still not enough.
如果我們想要大規模地進行金融服務改革，保險公司、銀行或類似的大型機構投資者必須參與進來。
We need institional investors—large organizations like insurance companies and banks—on board if we want large-scale reformation of financial services.
當今，機構投資者共同管理著全球約88萬億美元資產中的絕大部分。相比之下，全球性環境保護慈善基金的規模只是滄海一粟。
Institutional investors collectively oversee the bulk of some US$88 trillion of global assets under management.
然而這筆數目驚人的資金並未充分釋放潛力，它應當也完全有能力用來應對前所未有的環境可持續性挑戰。
That is a staggering amount of money and underutilized potential to address environmental sustainability challenges at unprecedented scales and speeds—global philanthropic funding for the environment is a drop in the bucket by comparison.
環保組織可以成為變革推動者
Environmental organizations can be change agents
但僅憑這類資本，還不足以在速度和規模上創造有意義的變革。
But this type of capital alone is not sufficient to create meaningful change.
主流金融市場的轉變需要深入而持久的推進，推進的過程應當設立嚴格、科學的目標並進行環環相扣的衡量。
The transformation of the mainstream financial markets needs to be deep and durable, and measured against rigorous scientific goals.
幾十年來，大自然保護協會（TNC）一直嘗試利用其科學專長影響大型私營企業，提高其環境友好實踐能力，例如先正達和陶氏化學等。
TNC has for decades sought to leverage its scientific expertise to influence the private sector to improve practices at large corporations such as Syngenta and Dow Chemical.
我們確定了自然保護者和機構投資者之間有效合作所需的五個基本要素。
We identify five foundational elements required for effective collaborations between conservationists and institutional investors.
1 以科學和證據為引領
1. Lead with science and evidence.
科學和循證決策是世界領先的非營利性環保組織的核心宗旨。
Science- and evidence-based decision-making are core tenets of the world’s leading environmental nonprofit organizations.
這一決策方式可以用來嚴格量化自然資源的價值，幫助建立更有效預測人類和自然需求的模型。
This kind of decision-making can be used to rigorously quantify the value of nature’s resources, and contribute to models that better predict the needs of people and nature.
此外，非營利性組織往往處於數據應用的前沿，如遙感圖像、公民科學和機器學習。
Furthermore, nonprofits are often at the leading frontiers of new forms of data collection and analysis, such as remote sensing imagery, citizen science and machine learning.
所有這些都可以驗證和提供對環境影響和風險的新見解，並提供新的商業和投資機會。
All of which can validate and provide fresh insights into environmental impacts and risks and inform new business and investment opportunities.
2 形成投資案例
2. Make the investment case
雙方合作取得進展的一個關鍵指標，是機構投資者在多大程度上將環境影響和風險納入其決策之中。
A key indicator of progress is the extent to which institutional investors incorporate environmental impacts and risks into their decisions.
全球最大的資產管理公司貝萊德集團向客戶宣布，將把環境可持續性作為投資組合建設和風險管理的一個組成部分。
The letter sent by BlackRock—the world’s largest asset manager—to its clients announcing it would make environmental sustainability integral to investment portfolio construction and risk management.
由於機構投資者承擔使利潤最大化的信託責任，我們必須證明：如何在不損害投資者回報的情況下達成環保成效。
Since institutional investors have a fiduciary obligation to maximize profit, it is imperative that we demonstrate how environmental impact can be achieved without compromising investor returns.
如果我們要求投資者放棄投資收益而將資金用於單向的慈善事業，將無法引發肩負客戶受託責任的主流投資者的興趣。
If we ask investors to trade off financial returns for doing good, we will not be able to mobilize mainstream investors who must fulfill their fiduciary duties to clients.
3 設立遠大目標
3. Aim high
缺乏足夠的雄心壯志也會有風險。聯合國政府間氣候變化專門委員會的最新報告指出，人類有大約10年的時間來應對氣候危機。
There is a risk in not being ambitious enough. The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that humans have about a decade to address the climate crisis.
這對於其他許多環境議題來說也是關鍵的10年。時間不等人，像平常一樣按部就班無法完成此項艱巨任務。
This is a critical decade for a host of other environmental issues too. Business-as-usual is not getting the job done.
在歷史上曾被視為「黑天鵝」事件的特大火災、極端乾旱和大風暴現在已成為「新常態」。
The mega-fires, extreme droughts, and massive storms that have historically been treated as black swan events are the new normal.
這表明我們目前的方法和模型低估了環境相關的風險。
That means our current approaches and models are underestimating environment-related risk.
我們需要開展大範圍的工作，加速創新，並在潛在利益證明合理的情況下承擔經審慎考慮的重大風險。
We need to be working at immense scale, innovating rapidly and taking appropriately considered but significant risk when the potential benefits justify it.
4 建立深厚的信任
4. Build deep trust
投資者和自然保護者有著不同的決策方式、方法、價值觀和組織文化。
Investors and conservationists have different ways of making decisions, methodologies, values, and organizational cultures.
這些差異可能是合作的重大障礙，克服這些障礙需要建立深厚的信任，才能最終實現真正的夥伴關係。
These differences can be significant barriers to collaboration and overcoming them requires building deep trust to ultimately achieve true partnership.
建立信任需要花時間強化聯繫，認清各自優勢，這對夥伴關係至關重要，嚴格評估彼此分析方法的差異和理由，並創建一種「通用語言」來描述收益與風險。
Building trust requires taking the time to forge relationships, to recognize each other’s strengths that are essential to the partnership, to rigorously evaluate the differences in and rationale for each others』 analytical approaches, and to create a common language for describing benefits and risks.
彼此信任和真正的夥伴關係並不需要在所有問題上達成一致，
Trust and true partnership do not require agreement on all issues.
但必須克服跨文化和知識儲備上的差異，共同創造富於創新精神的、通常是跨越多個學科的對於挑戰性問題的解決辦法。
They must, however, be based on a commitment to work across cultures and knowledge bases to create innovative, often multi-disciplinary, solutions to challenging problems.
同樣重要的，是建立投資者對產品「功效」的信任——這需要嚴格的監測和評估方案，這將使雙方能夠確保合作成效高於行業平均水平。
It is equally important to build investors』 trust in the efficacy of the product—this requires rigorous monitoring and evaluation protocols, which will allow the partners to ensure results are above the industry’s average.
5 持續實施政策影響和其他保護策略
5. Keep working on policy and other conservation strategies
環保組織應努力理解並加強影響環境市場運作和解決市場失靈的政策和法律框架。
Environmental organizations should be working to understand and strengthen the policy and legal frameworks that influence how environmental markets operate and address market failures.
與此同時，機構投資者應分享不同政策是如何影響決策以及是如何創造或消除障礙的。
At the same time, institutional investors should share how various policies impact their decision-making and create or remove barriers.
解決同一問題的不同實體間進行更多的溝通，將是找到有效解決辦法的關鍵。
More communication between entities that see different sides of the same issue will be key for coming up with effective solutions.
關鍵的十年
The critical decade
我們正處於環境保護的關鍵十年。我們需要即刻行動起來，引導、激勵創新資本的力量注入自然保護事業；
We are in a critical decade for the environment. We need action now—and we need new sources of capital to fund that action.
我們需要影響主流商業投資部門重視自然的價值，更好地服務於全人類和我們賴以生存的星球；
By using the deep scientific expertise of environmental organizations, we can influence the mainstream investment sector to value nature.
我們亦需要共同努力，為人類和地球創造一個更加光明、更加安全的未來。
Doing so will make that sector work better for all of humanity, and for the planet on which we rely.
來源：經濟日報·外企頭條工作室 朱琳（本文圖片由大自然保護協會提供）
原標題：《「經濟增長」與「保護自然」不可兼得？不一定！》
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