Innovative Finance for Nature and People: Opportunities and Challenges for Biodiversity-Positive Carbon Credits and Nature Certificates

Concerted efforts are required to close the significant gap in global biodiversity financing and the need to substantially and progressively, increase the level of financial investments from all sources, including public, private, domestic, and international. A range of innovative financing instruments are being deployed in both developed and developing countries, including efforts supporting forest dwellers, payments for ecosystem services (PES), blended finance, debt-for-nature swaps and other debt instruments, carbon markets and the emerging concept of nature certificates. This report presents the state-of-play, diagnostics, and recommendations for unlocking new financial resources for the conservation, sustainable use and restoration of biodiversity in a socially inclusive manner, with a focus on two emerging instruments: biodiversity-positive carbon credits and nature certificates.