As we mark Earth Day, attention is increasingly turning to the practical steps needed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. While global commitments are in place, translating them into actionable and scalable solutions remains a key challenge. In particular, mobilising finance for nature, and ensuring that it is effectively deployed, will be essential to meeting international targets and safeguarding the ecosystem services that underpin economic activity.
Under the UN’s Global Biodiversity Framework, states must mobilise at least $200 billion in nature finance per year by 2030. In a context where 19% to 36% of the EU’s gross value added is highly dependent on ecosystem services, it is critical to find the instruments that can help meet the funding targets.
The consideration for nature is now becoming common practice for the largest corporates. 75% of European banks have quantitative approaches to assess nature-related risks as part of their materiality assessment and biodiversity loss is the second largest long-term risk according to decision-makers. Yet, moving towards the implementation of nature-related concerns remains a challenge. From finance origination to monitoring, governments and public banks are challenged with a dilemma: what is a fair balance between comprehensiveness and feasibility?
At Trinomics, our Green Finance and Environment practices focus on developing concrete solutions for addressing this challenge. Our team of environmental experts and finance specialists work on reconciling the complexity of nature with the pragmatism of finance, through:
- Frameworks focused on the financial implications of nature-related risks. We have supported the European Commission in developing a flexible methodology to assess and manage nature-related financial risk. Based on our work for governments and corporates on resilience plans, we believe that it is critical to offer flexible frameworks that can fit institutions’ specificities and international standards. We have thus developed a framework that provides operational solutions to financial institutions, whether to identify their riskiest sectoral portfolios or to meet their TNFD commitments.
- Templates for planning the nature transition. We have supported WWF, TNFD and GFANZ in the development of a template for nature transition plans. The template is accompanied by guidance for supervisors and considers the interlinkages with existing climate standards and nature frameworks. It offers a practical solution for entities that wish to strengthen their transition plan under the CSRD.
- Financial instruments and tools adapted to the specificities of nature. Investments in nature differ from climate finance in terms of externalities, timespans, and co-benefits, thus calling for tailored tracking systems. Building on our long-standing experience with green taxonomies, our team has co-developed a taxonomy for nature-positive investments for a collective of multilateral development banks led by the IDB. We are currently helping the European Investment Bank in identifying financial instruments that reflect the long-term, hard-to-measure, smaller-ticket nature of biodiversity finance. Recognising the need for more innovative solutions, our team is also leading the European Commission’s strategic assessment on nature credits. This work includes an international mapping of crediting practices, modelling of supply and demand of nature credits, and the provision of concrete options for developing a nature market that reflects European strengths and needs.
- Monitoring of the impacts of financial institutions on nature. We have supported the Dutch development institution FMO in tracking assessing and evaluating the impact of their portfolios on biodiversity objectives. Our work concluded that measurement is the central challenge: no single indicator can fully capture biodiversity impact. Instead, customised indicator sets, tailored to location and activity type, are the way forward. We also mapped the financing landscape, identifying blended finance, biodiversity credits, and technical assistance as the key mechanisms for making nature-positive investment commercially viable at scale. The findings are now feeding directly into FMO’s strategy and future investment decisions.
We strongly believe that impactful solutions are those that recognise both planetary boundaries and our clients’ culture. This Earth Day, we highlight our continued commitment to delivering the results that fit your organisation.
