Glossary
Definitions & Key Concepts
Biodiversity funding
Biodiversity financing can be defined as expenditures that contribute to biodiversity conservation, restoration or sustainable use, whether by directly targeting these objectives or by having positive effects on them (“nature-positive”). Source: EU Briefing
Private funding sources
The private sector also provides funding through philanthropy, contributions to non-governmental organisations, market-based instruments, green bonds and other channels, although biodiversity finance is still less developed than climate finance. Source: EU Briefing
Public funding sources
Public domestic expenditures, mainly from government budgets (including from the EU and its Member States), represent the majority of biodiversity financing. Since a large part of the world’s biodiversity is located in developing or emerging countries, international financial flows such as official development assistance (ODA) also play a crucial role, including to help leverage domestic funding. Source: EU Briefing
Tax Incentivizing
Transformative change includes integrating the value of nature in production systems as well as decision-making. In order to shift the tax burden from labour to pollution, under-priced resources and other externalities, the EU is promoting tax systems and pricing that reflect environmental costs, such as biodiversity loss, via ‘user pays’ and ‘polluter pays’ principles. Biodiversity considerations are being integrated in decision-making via methods such as life-cycle analyses and natural capital accounting to measure the environmental footprint of products and organisations. (EU policies addressing indirect drivers of biodiversity loss.)
Current State & Trends
Biodiversity Finance Gap
The Biodiversity Finance Gap — the difference between the financial resources needed to conserve and sustainably manage biodiversity and the funds currently available — is one of the most pressing challenges in global conservation. Estimates suggest that closing this gap requires hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Although no less than US$143 billion is spent on biodiversity every year globally, this is far below the estimated US$824 billion needed to protect and restore nature. BIOFIN is working to close this gap. Source: BIOFIN
EU funding: 2014-2020 Budget
During the 2014-2020 period, the EU budget dedicated EUR 85 billion to combatting biodiversity loss, or 8% of the EU long-term budget, the multi-annual financial framework (MFF). This reflects contributions from a range of EU programmes across different policy areas, including notably a significant contribution from the common agricultural policy (CAP). Source
EU funding: EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030
The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 sets the following objectives:
- at least €20 billion a year should be unlocked for spending on nature. This will require mobilising private and public funding at national and EU level, including through a range of different programmes in the next long-term EU budget.
- as nature restoration will make a major contribution to climate objectives, a significant proportion of the EU budget dedicated to climate action will be invested on biodiversity and nature-based solutions.
- under InvestEU (the new EU investment programme for 2021-2027), a dedicated natural-capital and circular-economy initiative will be established to mobilise at least €10 billion over the next 10 years, based on public/private blended finance.
Harmful funding
Reducing the global financing gap will also require, more broadly, to channel overall public and private capital flows away from activities estimated to have negative impacts on biodiversity. This implies in particular the reform of government support, including subsidies, that is harmful to biodiversity, currently amounting to at least USD 800 billion per year according to recent estimates (see Publications on biodiversity financing). Source: EU Briefing
Regulatory Initiatives
Key Sources
The following reports and publications offer reliable, evidence-based information on biodiversity and can support both personal learning and the development of educational materials.
- The Little Book of Investing in Nature (AFD-2021)
- Biodiversity Finance Reference Guide (IFC-World Bank Group-2023)
- Finance and investment for biodiversity (OECD website-2025)
- Comprehensive Overview of Global Biodiversity Finance (OECD-2020)
- Finance for Biodiversity Foundation (Annual Report-2024)
