Deadline: 14-May-23
Submissions are now being accepted for the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BES) Scenarios Modelling Challenge.
The Swiss Re Foundation, EY, AXA Research Fund and WWF call for BES scenarios which aim to be scientifically robust and at the same time practically implementable by governments and can support identifying expected hot spots of negative impacts of BES loss. The scenarios should also be usable for corporate and business risk identification and risk assessment.
Robust biodiversity data and granular scenarios essentially support the formation of evidence and data-based, biodiversity-respecting pathways towards resilience and sustainability. Basically, the ambition relates to the different IPCC RCPs (Representative Concentration Pathways) and SSPs (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways) global warming scenarios, IPCC emission scenarios and IPBES SSPs.
BES scenarios may help the international community better explore where investments in biodiversity will increase resilience towards nature-based protection against natural catastrophes. They would be especially beneficial for low- and middle-income economies, which depend more on biodiversity and ecosystem services than more diversified, service-sector, high-income economies.
Project Components and Key Success Factors
- As a basis for the modelling, the call follows all IPBES nature’s contributions to people (NCP) and is based on, but not limited, to the SRI BES index (which has applied 10 of the 17 NCPs). They can cluster the NCPs into four groups: Agriculture & Forestry (food provision, timber production, soil fertility, pollination, habitat intactness), Nature & Health (habitat intactness, local air & climate regulation), Natural Catastrophes (coastal protection, erosion control, inland flood control) and Water as a stand-alone (quality, security).
- BES scenario models
- BES underpin all SDGs. The aim of the BES scenarios is to make a significant, highly meaningful contribution to increasing the world’s resilience, based on the modelling expertise of the groups expected to be funded.
- The scenarios will help support governments, eg by identifying early on where biodiversity decline can cause a substantial decrease in GDP, and will provide further risk insights to corporates. Since low- and low-middle income economies are less diversified, some of them depend more on biodiversity.
- Consequently, scenarios with the future look on biodiversity will help steer economic policy and BES loss adaptation and mitigation policy. This will support monitoring of geographies where economic activity heavily depends on BES and, for example, enable early identification of potential supply chain interruptions that may arise due to BES shortages.
- Modelling scope
- Three periods: ca. 5‒7 years (by 2030), ca. 7‒15 years (by 2040), >15 years (by 2050)
- Scenarios narrative proposed by Swiss Re Institute Explorative R&D (for applicants’ aspiration):
- BAU, or business as usual (existing patterns extrapolated), with some green leaders (who have narrow power to change)
- GGT, or green global transition, and widescale transitional change
- IST, or critical infrastructure supply and security go first
- IRP, or ignorant regress and populism
- wild cards, or extreme consequences, eg simulate if climate change impact is stronger and faster than expected and then interacts with other environmental, socio-economic and technological drivers
- Fit key data points to the four scenarios; develop data for wild cards
- Audience-specific opportunity and threat development: what emerges within which future for whom. Whom means:
- local to regional to national governments: strategy and planning authorities, policy-making
- rural/urban inhabitants classified by socio-economic variables
- most important corporates active at the location in any sector (importance: size in relation to revenue => tax and number of workers)
- transmission mechanism facilitation: financial sector
- Shared Socioeconomic Pathways:
- with the vision of reversing the decline of nature under the assumption that threat drivers lead to scenarios; strategic questions and activities to be developed to mitigate the detrimental effects
- strategic actions to be taken within the current situation to lead from scenario A to scenario B
- Methodological lenses
- Purpose:
- Knowledge generation (enhance knowledge about impacts of gradual decline and up to forward-looking views on potential local to regional tipping points)
- Input into decision support (for livelihoods, planners, businesses)
- Develop an open access / global common data set to use the findings as well as to allow other stakeholders to contribute to the scenario thinking (trigger productive and critical dialogue essential for decision-making and transparency)
- Address multiple agendas (Paris agreement, COP 15 Montreal, SDGs)
- Carve out consequences of the scenarios and their impact on nature and economics for BES loss mitigation and adaptation
- Consider high spatial granularity needs
- Purpose:
Benefit
- They aim to fund a minimum of three to a maximum of five institutions globally for two years with a grant of maximum USD 100000 each, all of which will be considered award-winning.
Eligibility Criteria
- Groups from academia will be invited to respond to the challenge presented here and to work on BES scenarios. The expected use of the scientific work is to build the BES scenarios to be globally and locally relevant for livelihood management, regional and national policy-making and corporate strategic and operational planning (license to operate, reputational license).
- With the call for grant proposals for BES scenarios, the Swiss Re Foundation and EY, AXA Research Fund and WWF will call for BES scenarios which identify the expected hot spots of negative impacts of BES loss and are:
- scientifically outstanding,
- practically implementable by governments,
- usable for risk identification and risk assessment by corporates and
- sources of guidance as where to invest in nature in an ecologically friendly and economically efficient way.
Selection Criteria
The proposals will be reviewed by an independent jury that will propose to the steering committee, comprised of one representative from each funding partner, whom to fund. All the proposals will be evaluated based on selection criteria that is open to be refined but sure to include:
- Geographic coverage
- Thematic coverage
- Granularity of the model
- Modelling scope
- Skills in the team
For more information, visit Swiss Re Foundation.