In This Month's Newsletter:
Nature loss risks 12% reduction in UK GDP
Our response to GFI's report, released today
Sea the Value endorsed as UN Ocean Decade Action
Our work with Plymouth Marine Laboratory and partners
Welcoming Graham Pattle
Senior Consultant joins to work on chemicals policy
GFI: Damage to nature could reduce UK GDP by up to 12%
Today, the Green Finance Institute are launching their first-of-its-kind Nature-related Risk Quantification Report. The report finds that damage to the natural environment is already slowing the UK economy and could lead to an estimated 12% reduction to GDP in the years ahead: an impact greater than the both the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The report includes a comprehensive nature-related risks inventory, breaking down the risks to specific ecosystem services, and provides recommendations for government and financial institutions. You can view the report here.
eftec CEO, Ece, provided the following comment to GFI ahead of the launch:
“This work is a stark reminder that nature is the foundation of our economy. Despite the risks that nature degradation poses, GDP still does not account for this. We urgently need to start using alternative ways of measuring the success of our economy. If we think of what GDP doesn’t measure, like the unwaged economy and health and wellbeing losses, we are looking at an even greater loss than the 12% the report quotes.
Policy makers should take this report seriously. Policies that continue to cause degradation and ignore its risks must be changed.
I hope the report also encourages businesses and their investors to uncover what costs they are needlessly incurring when they ignore their dependency on nature.”
Picture: Degrade peat in the Yorkshire Dales, Rob Fraser, somewhere-nowhere.com
Sea the Value Project Endorsed as UN Ocean Decade Project
We are proud to announce that the Sea the Value project, which we are part of in collaboration with Plymouth Marine Laboratory (project lead) and a cohort of partners, has become on the latest UN Ocean Decade Actions.
The United Nations Ocean Decade is a programme to encourage the creation and use of "the science we need for the ocean we want". It's mission is to create "transformative ocean science solutions for sustainable development, connecting people and our ocean."
Funded by UKRI, Sea the Value is developing novel and policy relevant ways of including pluralistic values for marine benefits in the development of finance mechanisms.
eftec’s contribution to the project is to lead the economic valuation of key ecosystem services provided by coastal habitats, focusing on carbon regulation, bioremediation, and biodiversity. The project will advise on best practice uses of these values across policy appraisal, accounting, and finance, and will demonstrate potential finance models and mechanisms to scale up marine restoration across the UK.
We are grateful for the international recognition of Sea the Value as an Ocean Decade Project and look forward to showcasing the project’s findings through the network when they are released in 2025. Sea the Value has just joined LinkedIn: follow their page for updates.
Graham Pattle joins eftec
This month our team grew further, as we welcomed Graham Pattle as a Senior Consultant. He will primarily support our chemicals policy services, growing the strength of our in-house chemicals expertise.
Graham is an expert in chemicals regulations and policy, having previously worked as a Senior Chemicals Policy Consultant at Ricardo Energy & Environment and as a consultant at Risk & Policy Analysts (RPA). His experience includes managing large scale projects and conducting impact assessments for public and private sector clients assessing proposed policy changes to the REACH and CLP Regulation. Graham also has extensive experience of performing analysis of alternatives for REACH Applications for Authorisation (AfA) and Risk Management Options Analysis (RMOA).
Welcome to the team, Graham!
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