Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the unique biodiversity loss challenges facing each sector of the economy, including those which go beyond deforestation; and if he will make it his policy to issue guidance on sectoral pathways to a nature positive economy.

The Government has committed to leave the environment in a better state than we found it, and recognises the unique biodiversity loss challenges faced by every sector of our economy.

Through the Environment Act, the Government is introducing a statutory cycle of monitoring, planning and reporting on Environmental Improvement Plans (EIPs). The Outcome Indicator Framework provides one method of reporting on the progress of the EIP. The Framework draws together a comprehensive suite of measures which collectively describe environmental change as it relates to the ten goals of the 25 Year Environment Plan (which will become the first EIP).

The Government has introduced a significant number of policies across the economy to support sectors to recover nature, from biodiversity net gain to environmental land management schemes. In 2018 the Green Book incorporated reference to natural capital for the first time. The 2020 version of the Green Book incorporated as its supplementary guidance Defra's 'Enabling a Natural Capital Approach' (ENCA) which provides further data, guidance, and tools to support policymakers in every Government Department on how to consider natural capital in all decision-making.

In our 2019 Green Finance Strategy, the government committed to transforming the frameworks for financial decision making. This includes supporting the finance sector to develop the tools and skills to price climate and biodiversity risk into financial models. As part of the strategy, we set a clear expectation for the finance sector to implement the recommendations of the global Taskforce on Climate related Finance Disclosures, to ensure that risks are properly understood. We also committed to catalyse international action on nature-related financial disclosures.

Since the publication of the Strategy, we have increased our ambition and accelerated the pace including the Chancellor's announcement in November 2020 setting a timetable for climate disclosures to become mandatory by 2024 and through the launch of a global market-led Taskforce on Nature Related Disclosures. The Chancellor also announced plans to legislate to create a Green Taxonomy, to provide clear guidelines to investors on the sectors, technologies and activities that can be considered compatible with the transition to a nature-positive economy in line with our long-term environmental policies. As part of the Strategy, we also set up a Green Finance Institute in partnership with the City of London to support and leverage the skills in our world leading financial sector.