A Market Review of Nature-Based Solutions (NbS): An Emerging Institutional Asset Class

This report has conducted a global literature review of investments and desktop research to identify global examples of repayable investment into NbS to: Map completed investments into NbS to determine market trends; Analyse common NbS business models and investment structures to identify existing and emerging opportunities for investors; Determine key barriers to investment and recommendations for institutional investors and policymakers in the UK and Europe to support the acceleration and scaling of investment into NbS; An estimated $845 billion of annual investment is required to safeguard the natural environment, but current annual spending is only around $134 billion.3 This annual investment need of over $700 billion cannot be met by public and philanthropic funding alone. As of 2019, only $20.75 billion of private capital is estimated to have flowed into nature-positive activity and conservation investments.4 Existing levels of private investment must be dramatically scaled in order to meet the conservation funding gap. Summary of findings: There are significant numbers of NbS projects operating on ‘commercial’ rather than philanthropic terms; There are investible income models for NbS projects, with stacking of revenues increasingly being used to deliver more investment-ready transactions; As an early-stage market, there remains complexity to work through and barriers to unlock to achieve scale.