Within WWF’s Water Stewardship work, Financials is a grouping that includes any organisation that is involved in the finance sector. This can include Banks (including Central, Retail, Commercial, Credit Unions, Investment, Development Banks), Diversified Financials and Insurance and integrates with the work done by our Finance Practice. 

While financial institutions have a very small direct use of water, they exert a large influence on water impacts through their investment decisions. Water risk and opportunity affects value, and value is indeed a material issue to shareholders. As investors increasingly recognize that the financial impacts of climate are often manifest through water, which drowns and dries assets, financiers are waking up to both the challenges and opportunities relating to water. If we are to tackle the world’s water challenges, then mobilizing capital is at the heart of driving the change.

WWF has been working with the Financial sector on water challenges for years. This transformational work has ranged from supporting partners assess water risk in their portfolios and shaping credible water strategies, to developing pipelines of bankable projects and advocating for stronger reporting and disclosure metrics and data. WWF works with both private and public sector finance entities on water issues, and has been tied into regulatory and voluntary efforts on disclosure (e.g., CDP, GRI, CSRD, etc.)

Of particular note, WWF has been central in the development and operation of funds such as the Dutch Fund for Climate and Development (DFCD) - a multi-partner initiative to deploy more than a half a billion euros to create positive impacts on water, climate and biodiversity. 

Notable WWF transformational corporate partnerships within this sector include:

• British International Investments (BII)
• Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (KfW - DEG)
• Nedbank
• Sanlam