This event, co-organized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Coalition for Private Investment in Conservation (CPIC), aims to (i) take stock of the state of practice globally regarding private financial sector engagement in nature financing, including through various collaborative partnerships, and (ii) focus in some depth on a few of the more mature and successful initiatives with a view to drawing lessons for future scale-up of such nature-related finance.

The event is designed to bring together four sets of actors – government leaders, philanthropists, multilateral development bank senior decision makers, and private financiers, to discuss how they can forge fruitful alliances to scale investments in nature-based solutions, including those aimed at tackling climate change while conserving and sustainably using biodiversity. These actors have distinct and mostly complementary roles to play in partnering on nature-positive investment scale-up. Governments have the incentive to promote such investments, insofar as they are the legal entities bound by international treaty agreements like the Convention on Biological Diversity. They control public finances, which can be used strategically to leverage private investment. To varying degrees and at varying costs they have access to sovereign debt markets, where they may decide to issue ‘nature’ bonds. Multilateral development banks can also raise capital through international markets on favourable terms, which can lower capital costs to sovereigns with access to their financing. Both these sources of capital can, through various ‘blended finance’ arrangements, leverage private investment, improving the risk-return profile for the latter. Finally, while philanthropies generally command smaller amounts of capital, they can direct their investments strategically to support early-stage, proof-of-concept, high-risk projects which private investors would mostly shun. A keynote address, responses and a set of panel presentations will deepen discussion of specific financing instruments and initiatives (with a particular focus on blue economy and oceans), problems encountered along the way, solutions found, results achieved, and challenges of scaling up and replication.

Agenda for the Session

Welcome remarks by: Vivek Bapat, Senior Vice President, Purpose and Sustainability Marketing and Solutions at SAP, and IUCN President Razan al Murbarak of the United Arab Emirates.

Keynote Address: Scaling Finance for Nature

• Mr Wilson Ervin, Former Vice Chairman, Credit Suisse [presented by Dr. John Tobin-de la Puente, Vice Chair, IUCN-US; Professor of Practice and Cornell University; co-founder CPIC)

Responses by:

• Ms. Jennifer Morris, CEO, The Nature Conservancy
• Dr Alvaro Lario, President, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
• HE Lee White, Director General, Ministry of Water, Forests, Sea and Environment, Republic of Gabon [invited]

Panel discussion on bundling, de-risking and scaling private conservation investment: opportunities for government, financial sector, philanthropies, and partnerships.

Moderator: Tracy Farrell, Director, North America Office, IUCN

• Defining a new natural asset class: Erin Summe, Director, Global Business Development, Intrinsic Exchange Group
• Pooling risk of nature-linked investments for institutional investors: Keith Tuffley, Vice Chairman, Global Co-Head Sustainability & Corporate Transactions, Citi
• Mobilising and deploying private finance for nature: Tanja Havemann, Co-Founder and Director, Clarmondial AG
• Tapping the sovereign bond market for nature: blue bonds in Seychelles, Belize and beyond: Slav Gatchev, Managing Director, Sustainable Debt, The Nature Conservancy
• Creating a pipeline of bankable nature-based solutions: Martin Stadelmann, Executive Director, Climate Investments, South Pole and CPIC
• Catalytic philanthropy: Hari Balasubramanian, Founding Managing Partner, EcoAdvisors

Questions & Answers Session

RSVP for even required to: david.oconnor@iucn.org; once confirmed you should receive an email with a QR code from SAP, the hosts. Please remember to bring a government-issued picture ID to the event (such as Passport or Drivers license).