Biodiversity Safeguards in International Infrastructure Finance: The Case of China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Investment in infrastructure is booming globally, increasingly imperilling biodiversity in fragile ecosystems. Safeguards required by investors can help avoid and mitigate the biodiversity impact of infrastructure projects. This study examines benchmark biodiversity safeguards of multi-lateral development banks (MDBs) and uses them as a yardstick to assess the safeguards of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the largest infrastructure initiative in history. The assessment is expected to reveal significant gaps in the biodiversity impact mitigation requirements being currently applied to the BRI. By exposing the inadequacies of the existing system, the study makes the case for an overarching set of biodiversity safeguards for the BRI, based on international best practice.

Funding:  RTP scholarship
Advisors: Prof Martine Maron, Dr Alexander Lechner