The Investor Participant Voices series highlights the expertise and experiences of Nature Action 100 Investor Participants.
Adam Kanzer is Head of Stewardship for the Americas at BNP Paribas Asset Management, and a member of the Nature Action 100 Launching Investor Group. Below, Kanzer answers questions about his firm’s experience conducting nature-related engagements with companies in the pharmaceuticals sector.
Why do you think companies in the pharma sector specifically should prioritize their nature action?
Nature loss is a public health crisis. When ecosystems become less resilient, pathogens gain a foothold. A recent meta-analysis of nearly 1,000 studies found that climate change, biodiversity loss, and the spread of invasive species are making infectious diseases more dangerous to people, animals, and plants – these results were consistent across the globe. Scientists have made a powerful case for additional work on the intersections between biosphere integrity and public health.
Protecting nature is fully aligned with protecting public health and is, therefore, the business of the pharmaceutical industry.
Beyond public health risks, further degradation to the world’s natural ecosystems presents material financial risks to pharmaceuticals companies. Although the industry is significantly less dependent upon nature for R&D than it once was, pharmaceutical sourcing and manufacturing operations both impact and depend upon nature, and nature still likely holds untapped benefits for public health. To mitigate risks, it is critical for companies to reduce their negative impacts on biodiversity to better protect the future viability of their business and long-term value.
Reversing nature loss should therefore be a top priority for pharmaceutical companies and their investors. At BNPP, we work with companies to address their nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities to protect our future portfolio value and help build a more resilient sector.
What challenges have you experienced engaging companies in the pharma sector and how have you overcome them?
Obviously, investors are not microbiologists, and meaningful engagement on scientific issues can be challenging. For example, we have been engaging pharmaceutical companies since 2021 on the use of horseshoe crab blood – which is commonly used in vaccines and other injectable drugs and medical devices to test for potentially deadly contamination. The widespread use of horseshoe crab blood has contributed to a severe decline in their populations, threatening entire ecosystems that depend upon them, including a range of shorebirds. Despite the availability of synthetic alternatives that are approved for use by regulators, the industry has been slow to act. We’re helping companies recognize the strong business case for transition by asking them whether an unexpected shock to horseshoe crab populations could have a material impact on their ability to launch and produce their next ground-breaking injectable product.
We initially had some difficulty getting companies to respond to our inquiries. We heard from several that we were the first investors to ask about this issue, and so companies were unprepared to respond. In some cases, the technical experts were not authorized to speak with investors. We decided the industry needed a safe space to work through this, so we brought the issue to the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI), which works with 80 companies in the sector to identify and address sustainability issues within their supply chains. PSCI agreed to form an industry working group, which produced a position paper on the use of horseshoe crabs and published a report in 2025 on its members’ use of HSC-derived reagents. PSCI’s work puts us in a much stronger position to advance this issue.
To promote action, investors can partner with industry groups like PSCI and reach out to outside experts. In addition to in-house investment team expertise and contacts we’ve made within companies, members of the Horseshoe Crab Recovery Coalition have been instrumental in educating us. We don’t need to be scientists to effectively raise this issue when we have industry leaders and outside experts who are so generous with their time and knowledge.
Have you had any “wins” engaging companies in the pharma sector?
We consider PSCI’s work on this issue – catalyzed by our outreach and engagement – to be a significant win.
For the past few years, we’ve partnered with an NGO and local scientists to bring pharmaceutical companies to the shore of the Delaware Bay – the home of the largest horseshoe crab population in the world – to learn more about the issue and, perhaps most importantly, to experience the annual horseshoe crab spawn and shorebird migration for themselves. Last year, two company representatives reported that our first event inspired them to do more on this issue. We’re also very pleased by progress at Amgen, which has begun publishing progress reports on its efforts to phase out the use of horseshoe crab-derived reagents in favor of synthetic alternatives, in response to our engagement.
In 2024, the companies that supply horseshoe crab blood to the healthcare sector issued a first of its kind joint statement, promoting the safety and efficacy of their synthetic products. The letter cited our engagement, which the suppliers believe has helped to increase interest in their synthetic products, as well as Nature Action 100.
What can Nature Action 100 Investor Participants learn from your experience in moving the sector forward?
Pharmaceutical companies will always tell you that patient safety comes first, so it is important to begin by reinforcing the alignment between reversing nature loss and protecting public health. Nature loss puts patients at risk. The work of Nature Action 100 is aligned with their long-term agenda and corporate mission. Reversing nature loss isn’t a “nice to have” kind of commitment – it is deeply integrated with public health and the history and resilience of pharmaceutical research and development.
We’ve also learned that there are groups of pharmaceutical companies, including PSCI, that are actively working on sustainability issues – tapping into these networks and their expertise can help us to accelerate progress more quickly than going company by company.
As is true for most sustainability engagements, it is very important to find ways to include the company’s technical experts in your conversations. In many cases, they will be the first ones to fully grasp the science behind your points and their long-term implications. Don’t always assume the board of directors needs to be involved. A company’s decision to transition its endotoxin testing methods, for example, may be made by microbiologists and internal safety review committees. These issues may never make it to the C-suite or the board. You can lose a lot of time seeking to persuade executives that sit outside the relevant decision-making processes.
Adam Kanzer is Head of Stewardship, Americas at BNP Paribas Asset Management. He leads the firm’s stewardship activities in the region, including direct corporate engagement and proxy voting, working with policymakers on key issues relating to sustainable finance and investment, and representing BNPP AM in key investor ESG networks. Adam joined us in 2018 and is based in New York.