Nature Finance and Biodiversity Credits: A Private Sector Roadmap to Finance and Act on Nature
In December 2022, 196 parties committed to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 when they signed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). Achieving this goal is vital for human well-being and economic prosperity and requires governments to develop ambitious nature-related policies. At the same time, since the GBF's adoption, opportunities for nature-positive interventions and innovative financing instruments have grown exponentially.
In December 2022, 196 parties committed to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 when they signed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). Achieving this goal is vital for human well-being and economic prosperity and requires governments to develop ambitious nature-related policies. At the same time, since the GBF's adoption, opportunities for nature-positive interventions and innovative financing instruments have grown exponentially.
Despite private financing rising to over $102 billion in 2023, a $700 billion annual gap remains to adequately fund nature. Moving from intention to action requires businesses to define nature-positive strategies that align conservation with financial performance. To complement that, companies can develop nature finance action plans to operationalize the strategy, defining and prioritising actions based on nature and financial upsides, selecting robust metrics to quantify outcomes, procuring nature financing mechanisms with the highest integrity and ensuring transparent communication along the way.
This report aims to offer guidance on how to develop and implement these strategies and plans, using as a practical example one of the emerging instruments with great potential to fund conservation and drive systemic change: biodiversity credits.