24/05/2022 - ABN Amro Bank NV: ABN AMRO's impact on Biodiversity

Sustainability is core to our purpose 'Banking for better, for generations to come'. As a bank, we can make impact in this area. For example, sustainability features regularly in the dialogue we have with our clients. Supporting them in their transition to becoming more sustainable is a key pillar of our strategy and at the same time brings many business opportunities. With our activities, we can contribute to the creation or depletion of different forms of value. We believe, therefore, that measuring our impact is essential to the way we create long-term value for our stakeholders. We want to be transparent about our impact.

Biodiversity underpins human welfare and is one of the most important sustainability topics the world must improve on according to the World Economic Forum which has made it one of its key topics in the coming years. Parallels can be drawn between loss of biodiversity and climate change, but biodiversity is even more complex because of the multitude

of drivers involved. Further loss of biodiversity will threaten our ability to survive as a society, and obviously ABN AMRO is part of this society. With that, considering sustainability is core to our purpose, biodiversity loss is therefore a topic we should take into account as ABN AMRO. We want to gain a better understanding of our impact on biodiversity, and this publication is a step in creating such understanding.

In our impact report, we presented general data on our impact on biodiversity over 2021. This publication will, based on the same 2021 data and impact methodology, give further insight in our biodiversity impact and its causes. We distinguish between the impact resulting from our own business operations and the impact resulting from our lending and investment activities.

In the years ahead, ABN AMRO will continue to actively support the transition of our clients to a better, more sustainable society.

Robert Swaak

CEO of ABN AMRO Bank N.V

Introduction

This publication is about biodiversity and why it is important to ABN AMRO. First, we will look briefly at what exactly biodiversity is and highlight a few recent developments that have contributed towards increasing public awareness of biodiversity. Then we will provide insight into the biodiversity impact of our bank's activities, using the same methodology that we applied in our Impact Report. In that report, we briefly discussed biodiversity to illustrate how our impact methodology works. In this publication, we will take a closer look at our biodiversity impact and its causes.

The methodology we apply allows us to explore the biodiversity issue in more detail, for example which countries have the greatest biodiversity impact and which sectors are involved. We go on to focus specifically on our own portfolio, showing where in the portfolio the impact occurs, and which sectors are most influential. Finally, we report on the first steps our bank is taking in this area, describing

1. number of client-related projects with a strong biodiversity component.

What is biodiversity?

For this publication we will follow the UN Convention on Biological Diversity of 1992 (OECD, n.d.), which defines biodiversity as "the variability among living organisms from all sources, including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems, and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems."

Biodiversity refers to the variety of living species in any given area, be that planet Earth, a continent or even our own garden. The health of an ecosystem is largely determined by biodiversity. It is not only the sum of all ecosystems, species and genetic material

• it represents the variability within and among them. Enhancing biodiversity is therefore vital to safeguarding our future and protecting the planet.

Why it is relevant now

The decline of biodiversity has rapidly emerged as an area of concern for governments, businesses and organisations around the globe. And yet biodiversity

• and specifically the loss of biodiversity - is largely uncharted territory for the financial sector. This will

Ursula von der Leyen

President of the European Commission

from speach on the 'one planet summit 2021':

"This is about sustainable development. Because thriving biodiversity can ensure access to food, water and energy for billions of people. This is about equality. Because we know that the effects of nature loss disproportionately affect poorer and indigenous communities. This is about our security. Because conflicts explode when more people grapple for less natural resources; and this is about our quality of life. Because we need nature in our lives for our physical and mental health."

change, however, as biodiversity climbs the national and international policy agendas over the coming years. The European Green Deal and agreements under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity are examples of what is to come.

In its Global Risks Landscape2022, the World Economic Forum identified the most severe risks on a global scale over the next 10 years and named biodiversity loss the third most potentially damaging risk. In 2020, a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) index

of animal life showed that the populations of almost 4,400 monitored mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish had declined by 68 percent (on average) since 1970.

Ecologists from Wageningen Universityhave warned that roughly 70 percent of plants and insects, and

40 percent of bird species have disappeared or are at risk of disappearing from the Netherlands. Wildlife populations in the Netherlands have halved in the last 30 years, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

It can be argued that this loss of biodiversity directly undermines more than half of the UN's Sustainable

Read more about the bee decrease and its effect on Dutch agriculture here

Development Goals, in particular those related to health, water, hunger, poverty, land and oceans. According to the Dutch central bank(DNB) and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), biodiversity loss is considered "one of the greatest risks to society and the economy."

There is also a link with climate change. The IPCC(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) stated in its most recent report that climate change, biodiversity conservation, disaster risk and economic development are closely related. Biodiversity loss is accelerated by climate change, while loss of biodiversity itself, in turn, accelerates climate change. This also means that measures to protect biodiversity may also mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Why it is relevant for ABN AMRO

Biodiversity has been on our radar for some time now. We held our first stakeholder dialogue on biodiversity in 2017, and a second one in 2020. One of the outcomes of these stakeholder dialogues was the need felt by stakeholders for more quantitative substantiation of our biodiversity impact. This publication is a first step towards meeting that need. Furthermore, to make our analyses more detailed and useful for daily decisionmaking , we participate in initiatives like the Partnership for Biodiversity Accounting Financials (PBAF)and the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge.

Koos Biesmeijer

Professor of Natural Capital at Leiden University

Scientific Director Naturalis

Biodiversity Centre

Biodiversity adds more value to our economies than our combined GDPs. It is a source of food and materials, regulator of climate, water and air quality and provider of human well-being. The financial sector has great responsibility and the position to both limit the loss of biodiversity and mobilize nature's services for the future. It is great to see that biodiversity and natural capital appear high on the agendas of financial institutions such as ABN AMRO.