Produced with support from the UNEP Principles of Sustainable Insurance (PIS) and the involvement of 18 companies, Insuring a nature-positive future details 7 steps that insurers can take to avoid insuring high impact hydropower projects.

Insurance companies act as risk managers, insurers, and investors, and provide support for the development of hydropower projects in all three of these roles. Insurers, therefore, play a key role in facilitating the hydropower sector and their support will be critical to combatting harmful hydropower projects.

If all the planned high impact projects go ahead, they will reduce climate resilience, speed up the loss of freshwater biodiversity and undermine efforts to secure a nature-positive future.

Fortunately, we can now meet global climate and energy goals without high impact hydropower - by investing in the right renewables in the right places (A Brighter Future: Tackling the climate crisis while protecting nature - WWF/TNC). Helping to accelerate this renewable revolution is one of the 7 steps that insurers can take.

WWF sees this new guide - which was developed with inputs and feedback from the insurance sector, including interviews with insurers and 18 companies taking part in an online survey - as the start of a dialogue with the sector to raise its understanding of the risks associated with hydropower and the need to apply a very careful screening to hydropower projects to disadvantage and discourage the high impact ones.

Because this will help to stabilize the climate and boost biodiversity.

Report by WWF