And do it via profit-seeking corporations.
Now that BlackRock's Larry "Tokenized Inc." Fink is interim Co-Chairman of the WEF (along with Hoffmann-LaRoche heir André Hoffmann [he's got a daytime job, he's doin' alright: vice-chairman of Roche Holding AG])
From the World Economic Forum, September 2025:
Finance Solutions for Nature: Pathways to Returns and Outcomes
Forward
In recent years, nature finance has moved from the margins of sustainable investing into a critical area of focus for investors, corporates and policy-makers alike. Growing scientific clarity on the material risks of biodiversity and nature loss, coupled with greater momentum towards global nature goals through the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), has led to the emergence of a dynamic set of financial innovations for nature. Yet markets still struggle to consistently reward positive nature outcomes.Unlike climate finance, which has advanced significantly through decades of policy alignment and standardization, nature’s challenges are starker – it remains underpriced, undervalued and underfinanced.
The landscape of nature finance is rapidly evolving. From sovereign debt instruments and blended capital platforms to biodiversity credits and emerging asset classes, a growing range of mechanisms is being deployed to fund, finance and de-risk nature-positive action. These span both concessional and returns-seeking capital, involve public and private actors, and are designed for multiple purposes – from funding high-integrity conservation to building regenerative business models. This diversity is a strength, but it also presents a challenge: stakeholders must now evaluate this ever-expanding toolkit to select and scale up the most fit-for-purpose solutions.
This report aims to support that effort. We examine the financial mechanisms that enable specific projects or nature-positive interventions – the transaction structures and capital flows that can unlock investment at scale. The goal is to provide a practical framework to help institutional investors, banks, asset managers and development actors identify the right finance solutions for the right context and strengthen the enabling environment around them. This report is the work of a productive collaboration between the Global Future Council on Natural Capital and The Nature Markets and Biodiversity Credits Initiative that is supported by McKinsey & Company.
Achieving a nature-positive economy requires coordinated action. We hope this work contributes to the shared effort required to build financial systems that value, steward and regenerate the natural world.
Executive summary
Ten finance solutions can mainstream nature in capital markets........Ten priority financial solutions can be considered for their ability to deliver nature outcomes – at sufficient scale, with investable returns:
1. Sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs): Commercial bonds tying coupon rates to nature-related targets for corporates or governments. To scale up, SLBs need stronger triggers, clearer metrics and closer alignment between issuers and investors.
2. Thematic (or use-of-proceeds) bonds: Bonds with proceeds earmarked for nature projects. Scaling-up requires clearer guidance and aggregation to improve outcomes for issuers and investors.
3. Sustainability-linked loans (SLLs): Flexible debt, linking interest rates to nature-related targets. SLLs need simpler verification, standardized metrics and stronger triggers to drive nature-positive lending.
4. Thematic (or use-of-proceeds) loans: Loans for specific nature-related projects. Greater clarity on taxonomies and aggregation is needed to enhance capital flows.
5. Impact funds: Funds investing in nature- positive outcomes, often accepting higher risk or longer pathways to returns. Scaling- up requires a stronger pipeline of investable projects and better governance.
6. Natural asset companies (NACs): Publicly and privately listed companies that convert the full economic value of nature into financial flows via equity models. NACs hold significant potential but need more transactions for price discovery and replicable investment blueprints.
7. Environmental credits: Tradeable certificates for verified environmental benefits, used in compliance or voluntary markets. Scaling-up needs integrity principles, unified standards and stronger local community engagement.
8. Debt-for-nature swaps (DNS): Mechanisms to restructure sovereign debt in exchange for conservation or restoration commitments, with investable components including bonds and loans. DNS need better governance and standardization, plus an expanded pipeline of eligible debt to deliver conservation funding.
9. Payments for ecosystem services (PES): Contracts rewarding conservation for specific ecosystem services, driven by the public sector. Private sector schemes require longer contracts, aggregation and supply chain integration to scale up.
10. Internal nature pricing (INP): Unexplored, voluntary shadow pricing or fee-based tools to incentivize nature-positive performance in companies or across investment portfolios, similar to internal carbon pricing (ICP)....
....MUCH MORE (51 page PDF)
Here's BlackRock:
"Our approach to engagement on natural capital"
If interested see September 1's "Understanding the New Paradigm of Natural Capital Investment"
Possibly also of interest:
"The future has become a financial fetish, sliced into probable outcomes to be calculated and bet upon"
You say that like its a bad thing...."Technocrats Won’t Solve the Climate Crisis" (but will make a ton of money in the attempt)
This is happening right now and it is big, big money. Come get you some....
And from September 2022 a heads-up on what was just around the corner:
Big Money Financial Engineering: Saving The Planet By Securitizing Earth
This is happening right now and if you want in on the action you have to know the game is being played.A couple posts from October 2021 set the stage:
- In Case You Missed It: "NYSE’s new investment vehicle—‘natural asset companies’—will tap into ESG fever"
- Using spatial finance for sustainable development
Which were followed by "What's The Ocean Worth: Putting A Price On Natural Assets"
And here's John Bellamy Foster, Editor of Monthly Review magazine and Professor at the University of Oregon being interviewed on this very topic.
From Monthly Review, July 12:
The capitalist solution to ‘save’ the planet: make it an asset class & sell it
Securitize The Earth: Oil Trader Mercuria Creates A "Nature-Based" Investment Platform
And many many more. [search blog box, upper left]
