Mobilizing Private Finance for Nature

Abstract

This paper argues that governments and regulators, supported by financial institutions and multilateral development banks (MDBs), hold the key to mobilizing private finance at the scale needed to transform the way we build, produce, and consume in order to protect nature while fostering sustainable poverty reduction. The analysis looks at two key approaches to mobilizing private finance for biodiversity. First, it assesses opportunities for ‘financing green,’ that is, the financing of projects that contribute—or intend to contribute— to the conservation, restoration, and sustainable use of biodiversity and its services to people. Second, it looks at ‘greening finance,’ that is, directing financial flows away from projects with negative impact on biodiversity and ecosystems to projects that mitigate negative impact, or pursue positive environmental impact as a co-benefit. Despite growing innovation in both categories, significant challenges to scaling up private finance remain. These include policies that exacerbate the underpricing of biodiversity; lack of data, measurement, and reporting standards; and issues with biodiversity investment opportunities, which tend to be small scale and noncommercial—making private sector financing a challenge.