Montreal will play host to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) COP15 this week, with the focus on protecting and restoring nature. The team from Pollination will be on the ground alongside our project partners to accelerate the transition to a net zero, nature positive future.

The Pollination delegation will include Managing Director Dr Helen Crowley, Founder and Chair Tony O’Sullivan, Senior Advisor Elizabeth Littlefield, Executive Director Dr Carter Ingram, Director Laura Waterford, Executive Director Nick Anstett as well as Jane Hutchinson, CEO and Kirsty Galloway McLean, Executive Director from the Pollination Foundation. They will be participating in the following events and more.

For further information or to connect with the team at COP15, please contact Suzanne.Blake@pollinationgroup.com

Business for Nature: Reforming by redirecting all environmentally harmful subsidies for a Nature Positive future

9 December, 10.15-11.30, The Auditorium, Place Québec

The session aims to:

– Explore how to rethink and reform subsidies that are harmful to biodiversity and, where possible, to redirect them towards nature positive outcomes.

– Identify practical next steps and roles, including Target 18 in the Global Biodiversity Framework, radical collaboration and ensuring people’s livelihoods are not negatively impacted.

– Expand on the role of subsidy reform in broader resource mobilisation.

Pollination Managing Director Helen Crowley will join an expert panel.

Pollination Foundation: Ampliseed Indigenous Networking Dinner

10 December, 19.45-22.00; Les Pyrenees

Join us over dinner as we build connections between Indigenous networks, share approaches to decolonising conservation models, and promote opportunities for Indigenous exchange.

Hosted by Sam Murray, IDA with Alto Mayo and RRI

For more information, please contact: kirsty.mclean@pollinationgroup.com

WEF: Financing nature through high integrity biodiversity credits markets

11 December, 13.30-14.30, Nature Positive Pavilion, Large room 

This session focuses on biodiversity credits as an innovative way to mobilise capital for biodiversity conservation and restoration, discussing the key dynamics of this market and the critical elements needed for it to deliver positive outcomes for nature and the communities that care for it. 

Panelists:

Dr Helen Crowley, Pollination Managing Director

Akanksha Khatri, Head of Nature Action Agenda, World Economic Forum’s Platform for Global Public Goods

GEF

11 December, 15.00-16.00, GEF/GCF Pavilion

How partnerships, collaborations through multistakeholder platforms, or private sector commodity initiatives etc can help drive change at the sectoral/system level and deliver ghg reductions and enhanced resilience. 

Moderator: Dr Helen Crowley

Pollination Foundation: Nature Markets Dinner

11 December,  18.30-21.30

Join us over dinner as we consider emerging nature markets, discuss approaches to governance and integrity, consider impacts of supply and demand dynamics, and share pilot projects and opportunities.

Hosted by Jane Hutchinson, Pollination Foundation Co-CEO with LandScale, FTA, Boreal & IDA

For more information, please contact: kirsty.mclean@pollinationgroup.com

Nature Positive: How does support and funding that puts culture at the front of conservation activities create enduring resilient ecosystems?

12 December, 17.00-18.00; Nature Positive Pavilion (2nd floor of the Palais),  Room 220B (Small Room)

Stories from the front line. Join us as we share case studies and lessons on how taking a rights-based, people-centred approach to supporting landscape-scale projects can foster unique interactions between communities, economies and environments that build enduring conservation outcomes.

To register: https://ampliseed.org/login

Finance Montreal and EY: A Climate Nature Nexus: Finance and the Nature-based Transition

13 December, 15.30-17.00, Le Westin

Given the interconnectedness between climate and the biosphere, there is an opportunity to tackle the two crises -climate change and nature loss- together, yet the responses to these two challenges are often implemented in isolation. Awareness of biodiversity values and climate as an accelerator of nature degradation is not currently adequately accounted for or reflected in market externalities.

As net zero and climate adaptation strategies are developed, preservation and effective use of nature needs to be at the heart of the solution. An ambitious Global Biodiversity Framework, one that effectively links the two global challenges, can play a role in scaling  private finance to address both climate and biodiversity.

Join us for a panel discussion to explore the role of private finance —and disclosure — in a nature-based transition.

Panelists:

Tony O’Sullivan, Founder and Chair, Pollination & Chair, SMI NCIA

Jingdong Hua, Vice-Chair, ISSB

Dr. Rebecca Heaton, Director of Environmental Sustainability, Lloyds Banking Group

Anne Dekker, Vice President, Environment, BHP

David Craig, Co-Chair, TNFD

To register

Pollination Foundation: Donors Dinner

13 December, 18.30-21.30, Osco!

Join us as we bring together values aligned donors and partner organisations to reflect on what we are hearing at COP 15 over dinner.

Hosted by Mel Macleod, BHPF with Amazon Business Alliance

For more information, please contact: kirsty.mclean@pollinationgroup.com

CBD/UN: Developing nature-positive pathways to align financial flows – building on synergies with net zero pathways

14 December, 15.30-16.30, Room 210A in Blue Zone 

A discussion between financial institutions and organizations active in the space of sustainability in finance, on how to use the 2050 vision and goals, and 2030 targets of the post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, to define pathways for organizations to contribute to reversing biodiversity loss and achieve a common vision of living in harmony with nature by 2050. This session will explore synergies between climate action and nature action, and reflect upon how experience from “net zero” climate pathways may provide a basis for developing “nature positive” pathways for mainstreaming of biodiversity, financial flows alignment, and resources mobilization. 

Panelists:

Joy Williams, Executive Director, North America, Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ)

Valérie-Noëlle Kodjo Diop,  Director, Director of Innovation and Sustainable Development, West African Development Bank

Elizabeth Littlefield, Pollination Senior Advisor

Mourad Wahba, UNDP Special Advisor to the Administrator and Officer in Charge of the United Nations’ Capital Development Fund (UNCDF)

FinDev Canada and Pollination: The Role of Business for Biodiversity

15 December, 16.00-17.00

Centre Phi, 315 Rue Saint-Paul Ouest Montréal, QC H2Y 2A3

COP 15 highlights the critical opportunity for businesses and investors to contribute to a nature-positive future. The private sector must engage and demonstrate support for an ambitious and actionable pathway forward. But what does this actually mean? Private sector actors are diverse and so it follows that goals and actions on biodiversity and nature-based solutions will vary. This event will bring together FinDev Canada, Pollination, EcoEnterprises Fund and the Africa Forestry Fund for a thoughtful and engaging discussion on how the private sector can contribute to biodiversity and nature-based solutions to address challenges facing emerging and developing markets.

Moderator: Helen Crowley, Pollination Managing Director

Panelists:

Lori Kerr, CEO, FinDev Canada,

Elizabeth Littlefield, Pollination Senior Advisor

George McPherson, Managing Director at Africa Forestry Fund

Tammy E. Newmark, CEO and Managing Partner at EcoEnterprises Fund

Catherine Stewart, Canada’s Ambassador for Climate Change at Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)