Nature on the Hunt for Investors

Costs amounting to an estimated 300-400 billion US dollars are incurred every year in the global protection of biodiversity and the ecosystems of our planet. Market-based financing mechanisms from the private finance sector have great potential where the conservation of nature is concerned, but they remain underdeveloped.

The idea is simple. Capital is invested in an ecosystem in order to generate one or several cash flows. This structure permits the underlying natural capital to be protected in the long term while at the same time providing the investor with a financial return. Market-based mechanisms applied to date have primarily been based on strategies directly associated with an ecosystem – e.g. compensation payments – or on indirect approaches, such as the certification of sustainably produced goods from a particular ecosystem.

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