Keynote speech by Frank Elderson, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB and Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board of the ECB, at the ESCB Legal Conference 2024

Frankfurt am Main, 6 September 2024

As a lawyer, I am always glad to discuss the novel legal issues affecting the work of central banks and supervisors.

At last year’s conference I spoke to you about climate-related litigation and its impact on the financial sector.^[1] This year I want to talk about the risks that nature degradation poses to the economy and the financial sector.

As I have said before, assessing nature-related risk is not some kind of tree-hugging exercise. We are talking about material financial risks, which – like any other type of risk – must be assessed, analysed and managed.^[2]

Today, I want to focus on the legal implications of nature-related risk for our central banking and supervisory work. I will first outline the growing trend of nature-related litigation. Then I will look at how nature-related…