This member of the British Royal Family has a vital message if we are to save the planet

H.R.H. The Prince of Wales told the World Economic Forum on Wednesday afternoon that the one critical lesson we have to learn from the climate crisis "is that nature is not a separate asset class."

"Nature is, in fact, the lifeblood of our financial markets and, as such, we must rapidly realign our own economy to mimic nature's economy and work in harmony with it," H.R.H explained.

Humanity's greatest ever threat

Prince Charles couldn't have been clearer on the extent of the challenge.

"Global warming, climate change and the devastating loss of biodiversity are the greatest threats humanity has ever faced," he said.

To secure our future, we need to evolve our economic models, and so in Davos, H.R.H. launched his Sustainable Markets initative.

Sustainable markets

The initiative aims to put people and planet at the top of global value creation, to generate long-term value through the balance of natural, social, human and financial capital.

It means putting genuine sustainability at the centre of our business models, our analysis, our decisions and our actions, H.R.H. explained.

It will be his focus for 2020 and beyond, he added.

The time to act is now

Prince Charles concluded by asking the audience: "do we want to go down in history as the people who did nothing to bring the world back from the brink? In time to restore the balance when we could have done?"

He went on to explain that everything he has tried to do and urge over the previous 50 years has been with "our children and grandchildren in mind because I did not want to be accused by them of doing nothing except prevaricate and deny the problem."

But he said, that's exactly what leaders are being accused of.

"We simply cannot waste anymore time ... the time to act is now."