Interview with Frank Elderson, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB and Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board of the ECB, conducted by Martin Arnold on 1 June 2023

8 June 2023

Why is the ECB concerned about the risks of biodiversity loss?

To pursue price stability, we need to understand the economy. We need to understand how economic trends and shocks affect the effectiveness of our monetary policy transmission. This is nothing new. We look at trends like demographics, globalisation, innovation and digitalisation. We’ve always done this and now we understand that climate change and crucially also biodiversity belong in that list of things that affect the economy. In my view, if we did not take climate, environment, biodiversity and nature-related aspects into account, we would be failing to deliver on our mandate. 

Is there a particular reason to be looking at this now?

We should avoid doing too little, too late. With climate, we now understand that higher temperatures can lead to…