Nature based solutions do more than mitigate carbon. They can enhance biodiversity, protect water sources, protect communities from landslides, and improve health. Now more than ever, we must understand how financial infrastructure and policies can be reimagined to effectively support these solutions.
Our team worked with the Climate Champions team to explore current solutions. The below series overviews nature-based solutions in different contexts to understand how financial models and mechanisms can most effectively protect people, economies, and ecosystems from the impacts of climate change.
What’s in the report?
Main page: Greening private finance for nature-based solutions
Kuali Fund: A blended finance solution
Living Amazon Mechanism: Agribusiness receivables certificate
Connecting the nature and climate agendas
For a long time, conversations around climate and those around nature were seen as separate, even though they are deeply connected. However, this perception has started to change, especially after the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The framework is nature’s Paris Agreement. It highlights the critical role nature and biodiversity play in climate resilience.
But recognizing this connection is just the first step. The real challenge is to turn this into action, particularly when it comes to financing nature-based solutions where many challenges make it difficult to act at scale and speed.
The power of nature-based solutions
While it’s still early days for large-scale financing for nature-based solutions, there is already progress. In fact, a recent study projected that investing in nature-positive policies could create twenty million jobs, with many new opportunities emerging in rural areas. Nature-based solutions offer countless benefits. They support communities, protect biodiversity, and mitigate the impacts of climate change while generating economic returns.
However, the full scale of their impact is still underestimated. A clear hurdle is the lack of good data and metrics. Creating global standards and improving data access can allow investors to understand their full value and to scale the solutions that work.
Another challenge is that many governments and financial institutions don’t yet have the tools or knowledge they need to effectively implement, scale, and monitor nature-based solutions. But efforts like those explored in the case studies on the Kuali Fund and the Living Amazon Mechanism’s Enabling Conditions Facility can fill this gap.
In partnership with the Climate Champions team, our center developed a series of case studies that underline the critical role of financial institutions in nature-based solutions. Each study overviews the powerful ways that different organizations have collaborated with the private financial sector through innovative financial instruments, taxonomies, and investments. By showcasing these successful projects, we hope to inspire more action and investment toward creating a future that’s more resilient and in harmony with nature.
Read the case studies
Many existing solutions already align with the Sharm El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda. The agenda examines impacts and opportunities holistically. It outlines key recommendations for entire systems—ranging from agricultural systems to infrastructure—to map a clear way forward. The below case studies share effective examples of financing for the nature-based solutions. The agenda recognizes finance as the key enabler to scale solutions, and the below case studies show how this approach is possible.
This fund provides €300 million to support smallholder farmers and small businesses to help them become climate-resilient while also aiming to cut carbon emissions.
This project focuses on protecting the Amazon rainforest by helping local communities build sustainable supply chains, promoting both conservation and economic growth.
The Sharm-El Sheikh Adaptation Agenda aims to create a more climate resilient world by 2030, and identifies nature-based solutions as a critical part of these efforts and climate goals.
