Building the Infrastructure for Nature Bonds – Official Launch of the Nature Bonds Initiative
Global bond markets are among the most powerful capital allocation mechanisms ever built. But nature has yet to meaningfully access them. The Nature Bonds Initiative seeks to enable that: by establishing the standards, verification frameworks, and pipelines that make Nature Bonds credible, comparable, and investable at scale.
Following keynotes from EPFL’s Prof. JP Danthine (ex-SNB) and ICMA’s Simone Utermarck, a panel of nature bond market participants will discuss how to lift the obstacles to scaling the nature bond market.
Framing
This section provides context for the event to ensure all participants, regardless of prior knowledge, are equipped to engage with the discussion.
For the last decade, climate bonds have been successful in helping to provide financing for projects aligned with the Paris Agreement. With the onset of the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework, we need a new class of financial instruments: nature bonds. However, creating this market requires standards, taxonomies and issuance frameworks. It requires an entire ecosystem of players to be grown: nature-positive project developers, asset owners, investment banks, government agencies and second-opinion providers need to cooperate to make sure nature becomes an investment opportunity worth restoring. At the event, the Nature Bond Initiative (planned as a Foundation) will be formally launched.
