New nature investment coalition inspired by pension-backed initiative | News

A new nature-focused investment coalition that aims to replicate the success of a pension fund-backed climate initiative has been launched.

Led by the World Climate Foundation, the Nature Investment Coalition (NIC) is a global program aimed at closing the financing gap for nature-based solutions to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.

The project aims to replicate the progress made by the Foundation’s existing programme, Climate Investment Coalition (CIC), a public-private initiative which in 2021 facilitated a total commitment of €120 billion from 42 pension funds in the Nordic countries, the Faroe Islands and the UK to invest in climate solutions by 2030.

The launch of the NIC coincided with the CIC’s announcement of its intention to expand globally.

“To put humanity on a path to a net-zero emissions future by 2030, we need to see an explosion in financing for innovative climate solutions,” said Jens Nielsen, CEO of the World Climate Foundation.

The CIC, established by the pension industry and the Danish government, was launched by former long-time PKA leader Peter Damgaard Jensen and Danish Minister of Climate, Energy and Utilities Dan Jørgensen at the COP25 conference in Madrid.

CIC’s main donors are the statutory pension fund ATP (DKK 710 billion, or EUR 95.2 billion), PKA (DKK 400 billion, or EUR 400 billion) and PensionDanmark (DKK 330 billion).

Coalition for Nature

Speaking to IPE, CIC President Damgaard Jensen said that while investments in nature will be an important part of climate adaptation, they do not have the same clear revenue streams as their climate counterparts, such as wind farms or solar energy investments.

For asset owners to have the confidence to engage in NIC, Damgaard Jensen stressed the importance of nature-related government policies.

One example is the implementation of the EU Deforestation-Free Products Regulation (EUDR), which Damgaard Jensen says acts as a signal to asset owners interested in engaging in nature-based investments.

“We don’t have many different assets in nature today that could be invested. However, we didn’t have many climate investment opportunities in 2015 either,” Damgaard Jensen told IPE.

Recognizing the key role of the private sector in increasing finance for nature, the NIC initiative will seek to establish public-private partnerships between finance, business and government to drive investment in ecosystem protection and restoration.

Its goal is to mobilize “tens of billions” of private sector commitments to nature-based investments by 2030.

The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that global financial flows for nature-based solutions need to triple to around €501 billion per year by 2030 to meet the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The International Energy Agency estimates that global investment in clean energy needs to triple to €3.7 trillion per year by 2030 to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Both the CIC and the NIC aim to secure and announce new financial commitments from cross-sector partners in the run-up to and beyond COP29 in Azerbaijan and COP30 in Brazil.

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