The document provides an overview of global biodiversity finance, estimating it at USD 78-91 billion annually while highlighting that governments allocate significantly more towards harmful activities. It discusses innovative approaches for scaling up biodiversity finance such as green budgeting, biodiversity tagging in budgets, and the establishment of frameworks like the Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) to enhance tracking and reporting. Key recommendations include improving assessment of public and private finance flows and promoting responsible business conduct aligned with environmental goals.

1. FINANCING FOR NATURAL
CAPITAL
The Global Biodiversity Finance Overview
Katia Karousakis
Biodiversity, Land Use and Ecosystems (BLUE) programme
Climate, Biodiversity and Water Division
Environment Directorate, OECD
OECD GGSD – Securing Natural Capital, 24-26 November 2020.

2. OECD estimates biodiversity finance at USD 78-91 bn/yr
PUBLIC DOMESTIC PRIVATEPUBLIC INTERNATIONAL
Source: OECD (2020), A Comprehensive Overview of Global Biodiversity Finance
67.8
USD bn/yr
3.9-9.3
USD bn/yr
6.6-13.6
USD bn/yr
81 governments
(2015-2017 data)
Source: CBD, BIOFIN, COFOG
and other
Bi/multi-lateral ODA and
non-concessional flows
(2015-2017 data)
Source: OECD CRS
Sustainable commodities,
philanthropy, PES, others
(2015-2017 data)
Source: multiple sources

3. Governments spend much more on harmful activities
78-91
USD billion
~500
USD billion
ANNUAL BIODIVERSITY
FINANCE FROM ALL
SOURCES
ANNUAL GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
POTENTIALLY HARMFUL TO
BIODIVERSITY
vs
Source: OECD (2020), A Comprehensive Overview of Global Biodiversity Finance
OECD (2019), Biodiversity: Finance and the Economic and Business Case for Action

4. Scaling up finance for biodiversity and natural
capital
• Green Budgeting (public)
• Economic instruments (public and private)
• Task-force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures - TNFD
• OECD Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct
• Biodiversity is an environmental objective in the EU Taxonomy of
sustainable investment

5. Green Budgeting
• OECD Paris Collaborative on Green Budgeting established in 2017
• Objective is to align public budget with environmental goals
• From biodiversity perspective, important to understand how much
finance is allocated to protect biodiversity and how much is harmful
to biodiversity (via budgetary and fiscal policies)
• Examples:
• EU biodiversity tagging in budget
• France
• Ireland
• Mexico

6. Tracking biodiversity-relevant economic instruments and
the finance they generate (Aichi Target 3)
0
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2020
Numberofcountries
Number of countries with biodiversity-relevant taxes

7. TNFD and RBC
• Work underway to develop a TNFD (similar to TCFD for climate)
• Informal Working Group and Technical Expert Group established in
September 2019
• Scoping issues being considered include: impacts, dependencies and risks;
type of finance; and data
• OECD tools and instruments on RBC provide guidance for
businesses to consider environmental and social responsibility
• OECD Guidelines for MNEs include government back recommendations
(almost 50 governments globally) on all areas of business risk and
responsibility
• OECD supply chain due diligence guidance provides recommendations for
companies (including investors) on how to put RBC into practice through risk
based due diligence

8. Improve assessment, tracking and reporting of
biodiversity finance flows
Source: OECD (2020), A Comprehensive Overview of Global Biodiversity Finance
• Encourage Parties to report data to CBD financial reporting framework by category (rather than total
domestic finance) and provide information on underlying methodology
• Develop and agree on an internationally harmonised approach for assessing and tracking public
biodiversity finance, building on existing frameworks and classification systems (e.g. CEPA and
CReMA)
• Increase national-level efforts to identify, assess and track biodiversity harmful public expenditure
• Establish a common framework to assess and track private finance for biodiversity (akin to OECD
Research Collaborative on Tracking Private Climate Finance and drawing from insights from
Sustainable Taxonomies)

9. oe.cd/biodiv-fin-report oe.cd/bio-fin-econ-case4actionoe.cd/biodiversity-finance
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