Title: A Growing Problem: Why investors must engage with the pesticides industry
Pesticides are fuelling the global biodiversity crisis. But investors can push the industry to transform, helping reverse the decline in pollinators and other species and prevent pollution. This new briefing from ShareAction highlights why pesticide companies, and their investors, must urgently address the agrichemical industry’s contribution to biodiversity loss. Over 2,000 investors hold shares in at least one of the five largest public pesticide companies, and dozens of large banks regularly provide and facilitate debt financing to these companies. In this briefing, ShareAction present recommendations on how investors can push for urgent changes in the pesticides industry. For example, investors should develop or expand their assessment practices to understand how their investments in the pesticides industry impact biodiversity and develop a strategy to address these impacts. Investors should also engage with policymakers, either individually or through collaborative engagements, to encourage regulation of the pesticides industry as part of a wider strategy to drive forward biodiversity-related regulation. Investors should also develop or expand existing biodiversity strategies and stewardship policies to include robust engagement with pesticide companies in their portfolio. Investors should build escalation policies into these strategies and disclose all engagement outcomes. These actions should be accompanied by bold stewardship practices across the food and agriculture sector to help drive systemic change. Download the full briefing here
