A new report from ShareAction reveals that halting and reversing biodiversity loss will require a drastic reduction in agrochemical use. To accomplish this goal, the nonprofit urges the financial sector to reevaluate their investment practices in pesticide companies.
Roughly 4 million tonnes of pesticides are used annually each year—up 80 percent since 1990—according to the latest Pesticide Atlas jointly produced by Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Friends of the Earth Europe, Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz, and PAN Europe.
The growing reliance on pesticides is driving biodiversity decline worldwide. “Over 40 percent of all insect species are now threatened with extinction, farmland birds in Europe are at historically low numbers, and freshwater ecosystems across the planet are contaminated and suffer from the ongoing impacts of pesticide residues,” the ShareAction report states.
The organization, which helps mobilize investors to tackle pressing environmental issues, highlights the critical role the financial sector must play in curbing pesticide use.
“Just six companies—BASF, Bayer, Corteva, FMC Corporation, Syngenta, and UPL—dominate 70 percent of global pesticide sales,” Eve Gleeson, Research Manager for Biodiversity at ShareAction and author of the report tells Food Tank. “These companies have thousands of shareholders, while dozens of banks provide them with debt through loans. As the owners and financiers of the industry’s largest players, investors can and must push these companies to address their impacts on biodiversity.”
The report outlines several steps that investors can take to protect the environment, including developing or expanding assessment practices to understand how their investment practices affect biodiversity. Investors can also engage proactively with policymakers to advocate for improvements to pesticide regulation and expand engagement with pesticide companies in their portfolio to better monitor their practices and progress.
“By highlighting how pesticide use is driving biodiversity loss, and the role finance plays in enabling the pesticides industry, we hope that financial institutions will be mobilized to start demanding change from the companies they invest in,” Gleeson states.
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