Forest loss and land degradation are increasingly becoming a critical driver of biodiversity loss and account for a significant proportion of global CO₂ emissions. The Glasgow Leaders' Declaration on Forests and Land Use (2021, endorsed by 145 countries) emphasizes that halting and reversing forest loss and land degradation by 2030 is essential to achieving global climate, biodiversity, and sustainable development goals. This issue also poses reputational, legal, market, and systemic risks for companies, as well as potential financial risks for investors.

Therefore, this initiative will prioritize addressing this key driver of biodiversity loss as an urgent first step. Multiple interventions are required from all stakeholders to successfully decouple economic activities from deforestation, land conversion, and associated human rights violations. These interventions include, but are not limited to, the adoption and implementation of supportive public policies.

Spring’s engagement strategy focuses on investor-company interactions to encourage comprehensive and effective policymaking aligned with long-term investor expectations. Well-designed and implemented public policies are more likely to address nature loss at the necessary speed and scale. Corporate responsibility in political engagement can help achieve such public policies.

Spring plans to engage companies that have influence over public policies shaping land-use dynamics in key regions, whether through direct political engagement or indirectly through membership in or affiliations with industry associations, think tanks, and similar organizations.

Spring is a natural stewardship initiative launched by UNPRI that brings together institutional investors to leverage their influence toward halting and reversing global biodiversity loss by 2030. The initiative enables PRI signatories to engage with influential companies on their impacts and dependencies on nature across operations and supply chains, as well as their policy engagement. PRI signatories can join Spring as Participants – who steward target companies on biodiversity issues – or as Endorsers who publicly support the initiative’s goals and strategy. Currently, 198 PRI signatories have joined Spring and endorsed its objectives.