GFI Champions Investment Initiatives Aiming to Unlock $200 Million for Nature Restoration

In a bold move to bridge the yawning finance gap in global conservation efforts, the Revenues for Nature (R4N) project has thrown its support behind seven pioneering investment models, each designed to catalyze private sector capital and potentially unlock up to $200 million for nature restoration and biodiversity conservation.

The scale of the challenge is staggering: to meet international biodiversity targets, an additional $200 billion annually must be mobilized. Public funds and philanthropy, while critical, simply aren’t enough. The private sector is expected to step up its efforts. Yet, so far, its role has been hampered by one glaring issue: a lack of robust, scalable revenue models that make nature-positive investments financially viable.

Launched in March 2024, R4N is a joint initiative led by the Green Finance Institute in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) and the United Nations Development Programme’s Biodiversity Finance Initiative (UNDP BIOFIN). Its core mission? To test, validate, and scale investment frameworks that turn nature into a bankable asset class. From mitigation banking to ecosystem service payments, commodity chain financing, and beyond, the project is betting on innovation to change the game.

The First Seven: Ambitious Models with Global Reach

The initial cohort of R4N-backed initiatives is diverse in scope, geographically distributed, and ambitious in vision. Highlights include:

• 3Keel will scale its Landscape Enterprise Networks (LENs) model across Europe — a structure that aligns commercial investment with ecological outcomes.

• In Central America, the Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) will explore the feasibility of Habitat and Mitigation Banking. In this mechanism, developers fund conservation in exchange for offsets.

• A collaborative effort between UNEP FI and Brazilian cosmetics giant Natura aims to expand the Living Amazon Mechanism, directing capital to preserve the world’s largest rainforest.

• Lestari Capital will retool its Rimba Collective — initially rooted in the palm oil supply chain — for adoption in the fashion and textile industry.

• In Sri Lanka and Colombia, the UNDP BIOFIN will design and implement Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs that reward landowners and communities for their stewardship of nature.

• Finance Earth will lead the charge in the Maldives, applying a Fisheries Improvement Fund model to support small-scale fishing communities.

For each of these initiatives, R4N’s support goes far beyond funding. It includes crafting delivery roadmaps, performing in-depth policy and landscape analysis, identifying demand drivers, running pilot programs, structuring financial models, and facilitating capacity-building.

One standout model receiving R4N backing is the Rimba Collective, a coalition of major consumer goods firms with ties to the agricultural commodity sector, particularly in the palm oil industry. Its vision is transformative: to redesign value chains and embed sustainability at their core while restoring and protecting ecosystems and uplifting local communities.

Within just one year of full-scale operations, the Collective integrated 73,000 hectares of forest conservation efforts into its model. But this is only the beginning. The long-term ambition is audacious — to conserve and restore 550,000 hectares of tropical forest and directly benefit over 32,000 people across forest-dependent communities in Southeast Asia, all within the next three decades.