A coalition of institutional investors managing more than $3 trillion in assets has urged governments to halt and reverse deforestation and ecosystem degradation by 2030. The call comes ahead of the U.N. climate conference in Brazil next month.
Around 30 investors, including Pictet Group and DNB Asset Management, have signed the Belém Investor Statement on Rainforests, which remains open for additional signatories until 1 November. The statement highlights growing concern among financial institutions about the economic and systemic risks posed by deforestation.
“As investors, we are increasingly concerned about the material financial risks that tropical deforestation and nature loss pose to our portfolios,” the group said.
The appeal follows a recent report showing that the world remains far from meeting its deforestation goals, with 8.1 million hectares—an area roughly the size of England—lost in 2024 due to agricultural expansion and forest fires.
Jan Erik Saugestad, CEO of Storebrand Asset Management, stressed the need for stronger policies and legal certainty to safeguard global markets. “Deforestation undermines the natural systems that global markets rely on—from climate regulation to food and water security,” he said.
The investor appeal comes amid policy tensions. Earlier this year, the European Union delayed implementation of its anti-deforestation law by a year following opposition from trading partners including Brazil, Indonesia, and the United States, who argued that compliance costs could harm exports.
Ingrid Tungen, head of deforestation-free markets at Rainforest Foundation Norway, noted that political resistance, particularly from U.S. President Donald Trump, has made coordinated environmental action more difficult. “Trump has made it more difficult for investors and managers to take climate and biodiversity into account in such a volatile market,” she said.
Tungen added that investors now see ignoring deforestation as a direct threat to markets and long-term profitability: “All the investors we are talking to think there is a huge risk in not taking deforestation and climate change into consideration—not just morally, but because it will harm the markets and their profits directly.”
