biodiversity finance

Crédit Agricole has announced the creation of a new division dedicated to natural capital finance and investment. The move signals the French bank's push into financing tied to biodiversity and nature-related assets, an emerging area as investors and regulators increasingly focus on environmental impact beyond carbon. Details on the unit's size, mandate and leadership were not immediately provided in initial reports.

A Paraguayan enterprise is exploring new models of conservation finance in the Atlantic Forest, examining whether protecting one of South America's most threatened forests can generate its own funding. The initiative, highlighted by BirdLife International, points to enterprise-based approaches as a possible answer to chronic underfunding of biodiversity protection in the region.

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific is highlighting the need to build a sustainable finance ecosystem across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. The initiative focuses on addressing nature-related financial risks, such as biodiversity loss and environmental degradation, while also unlocking investment opportunities in green and nature-positive sectors to support long-term economic resilience in the region.

The Cali Fund has been set up to mobilise biodiversity finance by ensuring fair benefit-sharing from the use of nature's genetic data. Industries that draw on digital sequence information from plants, animals and other organisms would contribute funds that flow back to conservation and to communities stewarding biodiversity. Supporters frame it as a test of whether commercial users of genetic resources will pay their share for nature.