Innovative initiatives for biodiversity financing

The need to end biodiversity loss has now made the challenge of preserving biodiversity a leading environmental concern at the international level. France is one of the countries committed to this collective movement. Yet as the financial means required to succeed far exceed currently available resources, we need to find innovative financing initiatives.

This study was commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development and identifies twenty types of initiatives that could both leverage new sources of funding for conservation and restoration of ecosystems and contribute to reducing financing needs by reducing pressure on biodiversity. By combining criteria linked to technical, social and political feasibility as well as positive impact on biodiversity and fundraising potential, the study has selected three groups of initiatives worthy of particular interest:

• green markets and making biodiversity central to global value chains can be a catalyst in the transition towards sustainable patterns of production and consumption;
• converting subsidies that harm biodiversity has a significant fundraising potential and contributes to the requirement of making sustainable development public policies coherent;
• promoting a form of superoffsets is a way of strengthening the financial contribution of biodiversity offsetting at the international level through compulsory financial transfers aimed at funding priority conservation areas internationnaly.