Research Associate - Nature ; x2

About Global Canopy

Global Canopy is a data-driven not for profit delivering real transparency and accountability for market impacts on nature and people. Our special focus is on ending deforestation – an essential step in achieving urgent global goals on climate, nature and human rights.

Our platforms, data and insights are relied upon by Fortune 500 companies, major financial institutions, national and regional governments, and some of the most effective campaigning organisations worldwide.

We work globally, with a focus on both forested regions (particularly across Latin America and South East Asia), and major consumer and financial markets (with a focus on Europe, the US, Singapore and China).

Shifting financial flows from enabling nature destruction towards activities that credibly support nature protection and restoration is crucial.

Global Canopy is working to enable the mobilisation of investment at scale into activities that deliver positive outcomes for nature and people, and to reverse the current imbalance, where financial flows to nature-destroying activities sit at USD7 trillion while financial flows towards Nature-based Solutions remain at USD
230 billion. Turning this tide requires both reducing financial flows to nature-negative activities and significantly scaling up finance for activities that deliver for nature and people.

Many investors lack clarity on how to make this shift. Building on the success of The Little Book of Nature Business, Global Canopy is developing a Nature-Positive Transitions programme that will deliver the evidence, analysis, innovation and energy to mobilise investors, especially asset owners, to support this financial shift.

We are a new, exciting and extremely ambitious programme within Global Canopy and we work closely with likeminded partners, including Oxford University, UNEP Finance Initiative, and UNEP’s State of Finance for Nature initiative.

We also work closely with other teams across Global Canopy, bringing the organisation’s longstanding expertise and market-leading data for finance and corporate supply chains, and nature, deforestation and human rights impacts.

Our very first project under the Nature-Positive Programme, in partnership with the Nature Positive Hub at the University of Oxford, focuses on building the data infrastructure to enable credibility and comparability in assessing nature-related opportunities. To ensure we deliver the data infrastructure that enables credibility and comparability across emerging nature investing opportunities for the financial sector, we are establishing a data infrastructure workstream to define the criteria to assess the potential nature contributions from these opportunities, their risk-adjusted returns, their investability potential and how they can match the mandates of diverse asset owners.

We are seeking two Research Associates with demonstrably strong research and analytical skills and experience in the fields of nature or biodiversity finance who will directly contribute to this data infrastructure workstream.

Research and database development (70%)

• Work with partners and colleagues to define methodologies, relevant frameworks, and criteria for assessing the contribution to nature and the risk-adjusted returns of nature-investing opportunities, with a focus on scaling these opportunities.
• Work with colleagues and partners to design and develop a data repository of nature-related investment opportunities, defining the models, schemas and conventions that enable multiple researchers to record opportunities consistently and comparably.
• Identify and map nature-related investment opportunities across sectors against the defined criteria.
• Conduct interviews with potential investees and investors (including asset owners) for selected nature-related investment opportunities.
• Manage delivery of research in line with project timetable, ensuring alignment with the overall project ambition and strategic direction.

Content and engagement (20%)

• Draft case studies and reports, synthesising the analysis and lessons from the project with the Nature Finance…