BlackRock to offer Natural History Museum’s BII index to investors
BlackRock has partnered with the Natural History Museum in London to make the museum’s Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) available to investors in select BlackRock funds and to interested portfolio managers.
The data, which is developed by museum researchers, is widely recognised as one of the most scientifically robust ways to model biodiversity health and is emerging as a critical dataset for quantifying local ecosystem health to inform nature-aware investment decisions.
BlackRock will use the dataset to build a signal for the BlackRock Sustainable Investing Intelligence (BSI Intel) platform, which manages $125bn in strategies. BSI Intel utilises data science and forward-looking indicators to identify companies that could benefit from sustainability dynamics that may not be fully priced in.
The museum’s BII tracks how biodiversity is affected by human activities, including land-use change and intensification of urban heat island effects using global data across more than 76,000 species and 50,000 locations.
Chris Kaminker, head of sustainable investment research and analytics for BSI Intel at BlackRock, said: “We are delighted to announce the integration of this important financially material dataset into our offering to continue to better serve our clients in meeting their sustainability-related investment decisions.”
Dr Doug Gurr, director of the Natural History Museum, said: “This landmark collaboration with BlackRock marks a new chapter in our efforts to advance awareness of biodiversity loss. As part of that, it is vital to equip investors with the tools to better understand and measure the financially material impacts on nature.
“We believe this initiative has the potential to accelerate the mobilisation of finance towards addressing biodiversity challenges.”
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