Finance Solutions for Nature: Pathways to Returns and Outcomes
Nature is rapidly emerging as a strategic investment frontier and more institutional capital is flowing into new business models. This report provides a practical framework to help institutional investors, banks, asset managers and development actors identify the right finance solutions to unlock investment in nature.
Report link: World Economic Forum (2025)
Nature is rapidly emerging as a strategic investment frontier and more institutional capital is flowing into new business models. This report, led by the World Economic Forum (WEF), provides a practical framework to help institutional investors, banks, asset managers and development actors identify the right finance solutions to unlock investment in nature.
Markets still struggle to consistently reward positive nature outcomes. Unlike climate finance, which has advanced rapidly through decades of policy alignment, nature’s challenges are starker – it remains underpriced, undervalued and under-financed. This report consolidates guidance on 37 financial solutions to mobilize capital for nature and focuses on 10 priority financial solutions ready to deliver nature outcomes at sufficient scale – with investable returns.
A lone mangrove tree near the Red Sea. World Economic Forum (WEF)
Nature finance will not scale up through one “perfect” solution. A flexible toolkit that deploys a wide spread of solutions is essential to shift markets. Moving from a fragmented landscape of transactions to mature global markets will depend on scaling-up the best of both worlds: the familiarity and liquidity of general-purpose finance combined with the outcome credibility of nature-specific models that deliver positive results for ecosystems.
One of the 10 priority solutions identified was contributed by the Nature Data Lab team, focusing on 'Internal Nature Pricing' – a concept could help companies fast track an internal benchmarking system for nature impacts in a given sector, based upon the intensity of nature impacts attributed more broadly to that sector. This would enable companies to implement something like an "internal nature tax" (comparable to the Internal Carbon Price) to drive environmentally friendly practices and procurement policies.
Contributing authors: Shivin Kohli (WEF), Alessandro Valentini WEF), Martina Beshparova (McKinsey), Oisín Campbell (McKinsey), Christoph Weigl (McKinsey)