A new United Nations Environment Programme report, State of Finance for Nature (SNF), warns the global economy is spending roughly 30 times more on activities that destroy nature than on protecting it. The authors estimate about US$7.3 trillion of current global investments harm ecosystems — funding high-emission energy infrastructure, pollution-intensive manufacturing and other practices that degrade biodiversity and natural capital. By contrast, nature-positive investments totaled only about US$220 billion in 2023.
Two-thirds of damaging finance comes from private sources concentrated in utilities, industry, energy and materials. The remainder is public spending, including government subsidies that support fossil fuels, intensive agriculture, transport and construction. UNEP highlights that these flows are depleting “our collective nature bank”: nearly half the global economy depends materially on nature, while wildlife populations have fallen by an estimated 73% since 1970, weakening ecosystem services such as pollination, clean water and soil fertility.
UNEP executive director Inger Andersen framed the choice starkly: following the money reveals the scale of the challenge — countries and companies can either invest in nature’s destruction or power its recovery.
The SNF’s central prescription is to redirect finance into nature-based solutions (NbS). NbS are investments that both limit climate change and restore ecosystems — for example, reforestation for carbon sequestration, sustainable land management to halt soil degradation, and restoration of wetlands to improve water quality. The report estimates NbS could deliver as much as US$30 in benefits for every US$1 invested.
To meet the Global Biodiversity Framework goals adopted by the UN in 2022 — halting and reversing nature loss by 2030 and achieving full recovery by 2050 — the report sets concrete targets. NbS investments need to grow roughly 2.5 times to reach US$571 billion per year by 2030. At the same time, harmful investments and subsidies must be phased out or repurposed toward restoration and sustainable alternatives.
Private finance accounted for a small share of nature-positive funding in 2023, but the report notes growing activity in biodiversity offsets: 37 countries now legally require some form of biodiversity compensation for certain developments. Authors caution that offsets can risk legitimizing harm, but they also acknowledge such mechanisms currently help compensate damage that would otherwise go unaddressed.
SNF urges governments, businesses and financiers to embed nature into decision-making across sectors and to unlock a multitrillion-dollar “nature transition economy.” Corporations can lower costs and increase resilience by adopting resource-efficient, regenerative and circular business models. Opportunities extend beyond forestry and agriculture to innovative products that harness natural processes — for example, bacteria-infused concrete that self-heals cracks by precipitating limestone, extending building lifespans and cutting construction emissions.
Practical actions highlighted include greening cities to reduce urban heat islands, incorporating roadside vegetation and wildlife corridors into transport planning, switching to emissions-negative building materials, and scaling regenerative agriculture to rebuild soil health and biodiversity rather than relying on chemical-intensive industrial systems.
Public spending trends in 2023 were mixed: funding for biodiversity and landscape protection rose 11%, while spending on sustainable agriculture, forestry and fishing fell. Overall, nature-positive public spending remains small relative to environmentally harmful subsidies, which SNF estimates exceed US$2 trillion annually.
The report lays out a roadmap for repurposing harmful finance, scaling NbS, and integrating nature into policy and corporate decisions — steps the authors say are essential to support a durable recovery of ecosystems and the economies that depend on them.