The hottest new green business venture: Investing in biodiversity. As the market for environmentally-friendly investing grows at an exponential pace, fund managers have recently discovered the potential benefits of jumping into biodiversity funds, a long-overlooked corner of green finance, Bloomberg reports. UK’s Aviva Plc has set up a natural-capital equity fund to invest in companies such as plant-based protein company Beyond Meat Inc, while Jupiter Asset Management has added new multi-asset ecology funds to its series. The market for biodiversity investments could grow by more than 2,000%, according to the Paulson Institute, which estimates that the field could reach as much as USD 93 bn by 2030, up from about USD 4 bn in 2019. With around 50% of the world’s economy derived from biological resources, according to estimates by the World Economic Forum, investors are realizing the importance of actively seeking funds that protect our ecosystems —.the destruction of our natural resources would not just result in a climate disaster, it would lead to massive financial losses.

Which countries should adopt central bank-backed digital currencies? Nine out of ten central banks surveyed (pdf) by the Bank for International Settlements are exploring central bank-backed digital currencies (CBDCs). As the demand for physical cash continues to dwindle, with banknote shares in POS transactions shrinking to 11% in North America, 19% in the Asia-Pacific and 27% in Europe, developed countries are steadily investing in CBDCs.

The question remains: which countries should adopt CBDCs and which can go without? The survey notes that countries with sturdy payment structures, a variety of noncash options, and whose currencies garner the local population’s trust, such as Poland, will probably have no need of CBDCs. Nations like Peru, who have underlying problems with their retail financial system, may be fertile grounds for CBDCs, something that the Peruvian central bank noted in the survey that payment flows could be enhanced by the introduction of a CBDC. Bloomberg also has the story.