Within the Bio-Capital project, the Italian Sustainable Investment Forum (ItaSIF) is leading Work Package 2 (WP2), dedicated to mapping and assessing financial instruments , policy directions, and investment opportunities that support biodiversity protection and restoration across the project’s five Use Cases. WP2 explores the opportunities, challenges, barriers, and enabling factors within the current policy, financing, and investment landscape for addressing biodiversity loss and strengthening ecosystem resilience.

As the final stages of Bio-Capital will activate innovative sustainable finance solutions and integrate advanced geospatial analytics technologies to mobilise private capital, it was essential to establish from the outset a shared and robust knowledge base on the context in which the project operates.

The work on building a solid knowledge base started with an overview of the EU strategies, regulations and directives, international agreements, and global standards that shape the biodiversity investment landscape. The objectives set out in EU startegies  are implemented through different types of legal acts, some binding, others voluntary, some applicable to all Member States, others only to specific countries. For this reason, gaining a clear and structured understanding of both the European and national regulatory frameworks was a crucial first step.

Beyond regulation, the analysis also includes the identification of existing investment instruments, alternative funding mechanisms, and project pipelines capable of addressing biodiversity loss and supporting ecosystem restoration.

Overall, WP2 provides the theoretical basis for the development and implementation of biodiversity-friendly financial solutions and for engaging the investment community throughout the project’s lifecycle. This baseline work is essential for achieving Bio-Capital’s final objectives for two key reasons:

1. It highlights the direct connection  between the stability of natural ecosystems and the stability of economic systems.
2. It clarifies  which tools, methodologies, and approaches are already available to integrate biodiversity considerations into financial decision-making.

Biodiversity’s Economic Value

There is a clear and growing connection between ecological and economic stability. The loss of biodiversity increases the likelihood of extreme climate-related events and threatens food and water security. Habitat destruction and species decline reduce agricultural and fisheries productivity, generating direct economic impacts across multiple sectors. In fact, more than half of the world’s GDP (around $44 trillion) is closely tied to natural resources (WEF, 2020), and entire economic sectors directly rely on ecosystem services (for example, agriculture and the food industry, textiles, tourism, construction).

From a double materiality perspective, it is essential  to assess  both the risks stemming from the loss of biodiversity and the impacts of economic activities on ecosystems. These risks can be categorised similarly to climate risks: physical risks, arising  from  ecosystem degradation and the loss of essential services and transition risks linked to  regulatory changes, market shifts, technological developments, and evolving consumer expectations). These risks, in turn, can translate into  financial risks such as credit and counterparty, operational, market, and liquidity risks. Therefore, financial institutions must carefully evaluate and manage these risks, as highlighted by the Network for Greening the Financial System (NFGS).

Translating Biodiversity Priorities into Financial Practice

Achieving a global reversal of biodiversity loss by 2030 will require annual investments between $722 and $967 billion over the next decade. Yet the biodiversity finance gap, estimated at $700 billion per year, represents the shortfall in financial resources required to effectively protect and restore nature (UNEP, 2025). At the same time, public and private financial flows associated with environmentally harmful activities amount to nearly USD 7 trillion annually (UNEP, 2023). This contrast highlights the urgency of redirecting capital away from nature-negative activities and towards investments that protect and restore ecosystems.

As both an institution and a Bio-Capital partner, ITASIF’s role is to support financial market operators in their transition towards sustainable, biodiversity-positive investments. Our work therefore centers on highlighting the tools, methodologies, and approaches already available to integrate biodiversity considerations into financial strategies and products.

These include indicators to assess issuers’ transition plans; exclusions and disinvestment from sectors, companies and countries with the most harmful biodiversity impacts; green bonds and nature bonds  to finance ecosystem conservation and restoration projects; nature-related certificates and biodiversity credits to demonstrate measurable improvements; ad-hoc insurance solutions to mitigate physical and transition risks, leveraging nature-based solutions.

Stay tuned for the next phase of the project and follow Bio-Capital for upcoming insights, tools and results.

Biodiversity loss is accelerating — yet capital flows into nature remain slow, fragmented, and difficult to scale. While development banks, pension funds and institutional investors increasingly recognise ecological risk, the financial system itself is poorly equipped to deal with the complexity, locality and long time horizons of biodiversity. This tension formed the starting point of a recent BIO-CAPITAL Deep Dive, where Berat Efe Alkan (17s), Umut Gökcen Yilmaz (AIPA) and Tayfun Bashi (17s) explored how programmable finance could help close the gap between biodiversity needs and financial practice.

Why biodiversity doesn’t fit traditional finance

Unlike carbon, biodiversity cannot be reduced to a single metric. Impacts are highly context-specific, seasonal, and often slow to materialise. Verification is expensive, indicators are numerous, and standardisation remains difficult. From a financial perspective, this creates uncertainty around risk, performance and accountability.

As the speakers noted, the problem is not a lack of capital — but a lack of financial tools capable of handling complex, data-rich, multi-actor systems over long time horizons. Traditional financing models struggle to operate under these conditions.

What is programmable finance?

Programmable finance refers to financial flows that execute automatically once predefined and verified conditions are met. Unlike conventional digital banking — which mainly digitises existing processes — programmable finance embeds conditionality directly into financial logic. In practice, this means that:

• payments, interest rates or incentives change automatically
• decisions are triggered by verified data
• execution does not depend on manual reporting or discretionary approvals

The speakers illustrated this with a simple analogy: a smartwatch that adjusts insurance premiums automatically based on verified health data. Applied to biodiversity, the principle is the same — except the data comes from satellite observations, certification schemes, and environmental monitoring systems.

From data to financial action

A core requirement for programmable finance is trusted data infrastructure. The Deep Dive highlighted how geospatial data, telemetry systems, certification protocols and third-party verification can feed directly into smart financial contracts. Once agreed thresholds are reached — for example improvements in habitat quality, pollinator presence or regenerative practices — financial actions are triggered automatically. Conditionality becomes operational, not merely contractual.

Crucially, programmable finance is not limited to simple, peer-to-peer transactions. Its real potential emerges in complex supply chains, where multiple actors, data sources and environmental impacts interact. Here, machine learning and large-scale data processing allow financial logic to respond to indirect, cumulative and long-term effects.

Use cases: agriculture, supply chains and biodiversity credits

The session explored several illustrative scenarios. In agriculture, sustainability-linked loans could automatically adjust interest rates based on verified pollinator habitats or pesticide-free management. In supply chains, payments between producers, traders and brands could be triggered by verified reductions in water use or chemical inputs.

In biodiversity credit schemes, programmable finance could ensure that payments are released only when ecological outcomes are demonstrated — rather than upfront or based on projected impact. Across these contexts, the approach reduces risk for investors while increasing accountability for environmental performance.

Why this matters for BIO-CAPITAL

As with parametric insurance — another BIO-CAPITAL Deep Dive topic — programmable finance shifts the focus from compensation and promises to automatic, rule-based execution linked to real-world conditions. It offers a concrete mechanism to align financial systems with the realities of ecosystems: complex, data-rich and slow-moving.

Programmable finance will not replace all existing instruments. But as data quality, verification frameworks and digital infrastructure mature, it could become a critical building block for scaling outcome-based biodiversity finance — ensuring that money flows when, and only when, nature actually benefits.

How can biodiversity be measured, valued and financed on farms — in ways that work for farmers, policymakers and investors alike? This question was at the heart of the BIO-CAPITAL Technical Day on Biodiversity in Agriculture, held in Toulouse and organised by Agri Sud-Ouest Innovation as part of the BIO-CAPITAL Horizon Europe project.

Agri Sud-Ouest Innovation, one of the French partners in our project, regularly hosts its J-TECH event series. The last event on 4 December was devoted in detail to the topics covered by BIO-CAPITAL. The event brought together regional authorities, researchers, Earth observation experts, financial actors and practitioners for a full day of presentations, discussions and exchanges — highlighting both what already works in biodiversity remuneration, and what is still missing to scale it.

Setting the scene: BIO-CAPITAL and its objectives

The day opened with an overview of the BIO-CAPITAL project, presented by Romane Bizieau (Agri Sud-Ouest Innovation). BIO-CAPITAL aims to mobilise both public and private funding for biodiversity conservation and restoration by combining innovative financial mechanisms with satellite-based monitoring. Participants were introduced to the project’s use cases, ongoing work on biodiversity indicators, and the broader ambition to design credible frameworks for biodiversity certificates that can complement existing public instruments.

The regional context was then outlined by Natacha Racinais and Bénédicte Goffre from the Regional Biodiversity Agency (ARB) Occitanie. Their presentation highlighted the ecological pressures facing agriculture in the region — from habitat fragmentation and pesticide use to pollinator decline — alongside the diversity of public instruments already in place.

Measuring biodiversity on farms: ecology meets Earth observation

A central part of the Technical Day focused on how biodiversity can be measured at farm scale in a way that is both scientifically sound and operational. From an ecological perspective, Jean-Louis Hemptinne (ENSFEA) reminded participants that biodiversity is not simply about counting species, but about genetic diversity and ecological interactions that sustain ecosystem functioning and resilience. He emphasised the importance of landscape structure as a practical proxy for biodiversity outcomes: the share and distribution of (semi-)natural habitats, field morphology, crop rotations and agroforestry.

This ecological framing was complemented by a technical deep dive into remote sensing and indicators, presented by Harold Clenet (EarthDaily Agro) and Lisa Delvaux (UCLouvain). They demonstrated how satellite data can be used to map hedgerows, ponds, mowing frequency, bare soil and crop diversity, and how time series allow changes in practices to be tracked over time. The key message was clear: scalable biodiversity finance depends on robust proxy indicators, combining satellite data, administrative datasets and targeted field verification — rather than costly and incomplete biological inventories.

Financing biodiversity on farms: public schemes and private potential

The late-morning roundtable addressed one of the most practical questions of the day: how to finance biodiversity on farms. Romane Jubera (Agrosolutions) and Sylvie Jego (Agence de l’Eau Adour-Garonne) presented concrete examples of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) already operating at scale. These schemes remunerate farmers for biodiversity-friendly practices that go beyond legal requirements, using clearly defined indicators and transparent payment thresholds.

At the same time, Flore Bastelica (Carbone 4) discussed the emerging role of biodiversity certificates as a way to channel private finance into biodiversity outcomes. Unlike regulatory offsets, these certificates are conceived as voluntary contributions aligned with territorial strategies, designed to complement — not replace — public funding.

Farm representatives and advisers underlined the importance of economic viability, low transaction costs and simple frameworks, as well as the need to strengthen value chains that can sustain biodiversity-friendly practices beyond subsidies.

A shared takeaway from the day

Across presentations and discussions, a shared conclusion emerged: biodiversity remuneration already exists, but scaling it requires clearer frameworks, trusted measurement and stronger coordination between public and private actors.

This is precisely the space BIO-CAPITAL is working in — testing indicators, monitoring approaches and financing mechanisms that can make biodiversity funding more transparent, credible and accessible for farmers and investors alike: Biodiversity is not the cherry on the cake: it must become the main weave of agriculture.

The full recording of the Technical Day is available here (English subtitles available):
👉  www.youtube.com

How do we finance biodiversity protection without repeating the mistakes of carbon offset markets? That question shaped the fifth BIO-CAPITAL Deep Dive, where Flore Bastelica of Carbone 4 introduced a financial tool designed to bring credibility and transparency into nature restoration: Biodiversity Certificates.

Unlike traditional offset schemes — where environmental harm in one place is balanced by restoration in another — biodiversity certificates shift the focus from compensation to contribution. Instead of paying to cancel out damage, buyers support projects that create measurable, verified ecological gains: restored wetlands, richer soils, healthier pollinator habitats, resilient forests. For a certificate to be issued, those gains must be additional, durable, and scientifically documented — improvements that would not have happened without the payment behind them.

Developing a Protocol for Real-World Use

Bastelica explained that BIO-CAPITAL is now developing a shared protocol to make this possible across the project’s use cases, from grasslands and agroecological farms to river corridors and wetlands. The work involves iterative testing, alignment across partners, and constant feedback from practitioners on the ground. The goal is not just to generate certificates, but to make sure they are trusted.

Trust matters, because carbon markets have shown how quickly credibility can erode. Over-estimating results, failing to account for ecosystem leakage, ignoring local communities, or allowing credits to sit in opaque private registries have all harmed confidence in nature-based finance. To avoid those pitfalls, the Deep Dive highlighted safeguards: rigorous measurement methods, independent auditing, transparent registries, and local participation in governance. A certificate, in this design, becomes proof of something real — not a promise on paper.

Certificates, Not Credits

This is also why Bastelica advocates for using the term certificate over credit. Credits are often seen as a right to pollute; certificates signal a verified contribution to nature. They can stand on their own, or complement other instruments such as green bonds, payments for ecosystem services, or insurance schemes — acting as evidence that biodiversity gains have actually occurred.

Momentum for such mechanisms is growing. The European Commission’s Roadmap for Nature Credits (2024) calls for new tools that align investment, regulation and ecological science. Through its pilots, BIO-CAPITAL is helping shape what that future could look like: biodiversity outcomes that are measurable, verifiable, investment-ready — and worthy of public trust.

How can mainstream financial markets help regenerate ecosystems? In the fourth BIO-CAPITAL Deep Dive, Isabel Reuss of ITASIF made the case that bonds — one of the oldest and most conventional instruments in finance — may hold one of the most promising paths.

At their core, bonds are simple. Instead of taking a loan from a bank, governments, cities, companies or international institutions borrow money directly from investors. Those investors receive interest until the bond matures, and the issuer uses the capital to build roads, schools, infrastructure or innovation. Green bonds follow the same logic, but with a non-negotiable rule: the money must be spent on environmental projects.

In a market increasingly shaped by sustainability-minded investors, demand for these instruments has grown rapidly. They are regulated, widely understood, and highly liquid — a rare combination in the sustainability world. Yet despite their success, the share of green bonds dedicated to biodiversity is still surprisingly small.

Enter Nature Bonds

That is why the arrival of nature bonds in 2024 marks an important shift. They are not simply green bonds with a new label. To qualify, 100% of the proceeds must go into biodiversity-related activities, and the bonds must align with global frameworks such as the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. In practice, this means direct financing for forest restoration, coastal and river ecosystems, wetland buffers, pollinator corridors, or even renewable energy projects that include biodiversity-positive design.

Nature bonds also come with strict expectations: transparent reporting, impact monitoring, third-party verification. In a sector where the risk of greenwashing is real, credibility matters — and the structure of these bonds is designed to earn trust from both investors and the public.

What This Means for BIO-CAPITAL

For BIO-CAPITAL, this matters for a simple reason: scale. Many biodiversity initiatives are small, local, and fragmented. A single forest, a pilot wetland, a cluster of farms — meaningful, but difficult to attract major long-term investment. Bonds can change that. They make it possible to combine projects into larger portfolios, open them to pension funds and institutional investors, and deliver capital at the size nature restoration actually requires.

Within BIO-CAPITAL, green and nature bonds form part of a broader financial architecture, alongside Payments for Ecosystem Services, parametric insurance and Triple Capital Accounting. Together, these tools create something that biodiversity projects very rarely have: a financing backbone that can expand beyond pilot sites, operate across regions, and bring nature restoration into the centre of financial markets.

Biodiversity provides clean water, fertile soils, flood protection, pollination and carbon storage. Yet despite their importance, these ecosystem services rarely appear in financial systems. In BIO-CAPITAL’s Deep Dive #03, the AgroSolutions team — Romane Jubera, Gaëtan Leboucher, Gabrielle Gros-Chapelier and Lorette Lorand — explored how Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) can help change that.

PES schemes financially reward land managers for practices that sustain or enhance ecosystem services: planting hedgerows, restoring grasslands, reducing pesticide use, or protecting forests and wetlands. The principle is simple: those who benefit from nature contribute to those who protect it. Funding can come from public actors such as water agencies and ministries, from private companies like food processors or utilities, or through hybrid models that combine both.

Europe-Wide Lessons From Real PES Schemes

Payments may be tied directly to the actions farmers take, or to measured ecological outcomes. In Europe, most schemes still focus on practices rather than results, largely because biodiversity is complex and costly to quantify in a precise and verifiable way.

AgroSolutions examined 20 PES schemes from France, Denmark, the UK and beyond. Although their goals varied, many focused on improving water quality, regenerating soils, restoring wetlands, safeguarding forests, or supporting agroecological transitions. Financing structures ranged from water taxes to regional funds and private sector contributions. Contract durations were typically three to five years — long enough to test practices while allowing renewal and adaptation. Some schemes even combined multiple goals, linking biodiversity outcomes to carbon storage or soil health.

Challenges on the Ground – and What Works Better

However, PES projects face common obstacles: administrative complexity, difficulties in securing long-term funding, high monitoring costs, and limited uptake when incentives are too low. Successful models tend to reduce transaction costs, work with local cooperatives or authorities to build trust, combine public and private finance, focus on a small number of clearly defined ecosystem services and use digital monitoring tools (such as sensors or satellite data) to make verification more efficient. Multi-year commitments also help give farmers confidence to change their practices.

Within BIO-CAPITAL, PES does not stand alone. It connects directly to other financial mechanisms. In Triple Capital Accounting , PES revenue can be recorded as an investment in natural capital. Paired with parametric insurance, which provides rapid payouts if disasters damage restored areas, PES becomes part of a broader financial safety net. Together, these instruments create a system in which protecting nature is not just ecologically beneficial — but economically viable, stable and investable.

Imagine a company that reports a profit — but only because its activities depleted a wetland, polluted a river, or pushed soil beyond recovery. Traditional accounting would still call that “success,” because the only thing it measures is money.
In BIO-CAPITAL’s second Deep Dive, Diana Tomakh (GND Partners) introduced a framework that challenges this logic. Triple Capital Accounting asks a simple question with consequences: What if financial results also reflected the value of nature and communities?

From Single Capital to Three

Classic accounting sees only one kind of capital: financial. TCA adds two that have been invisible for decades: Natural capital — forests, soils, rivers, biodiversity, all the systems that make life possible, and Social capital — people’s wellbeing, local livelihoods, equity, safety, and the resilience of communities. Suddenly, a restored grassland, a wetland that prevents flooding, or a farm that stops relying on pesticides are no longer “externalities.” They become part of the value a company creates.

When a Forest Becomes a Line Item

Tomakh used concrete examples to show what this looks like in practice. A forest in the Alps isn’t just scenery — it captures carbon, prevents erosion, protects villages from landslides. In the UK, a wetland doesn’t simply store water — it prevents floods, filters pollutants, creates habitat. TCA measures those benefits and turns them into financial information.

The moment nature is quantified, it can enter the conversations where decisions are made: investments, risk models, project evaluation, and balance sheets. Or as Tomakh put it: “The language of business is finance. If we monetise biodiversity and social wellbeing, we bring them into boardrooms.”

A Bridge Between Ecology and Finance

And that is the point. Triple Capital Accounting is not about turning nature into numbers for fun — it’s about making ecological reality visible to an economic system that currently rewards destruction more easily than restoration.

Within BIO-CAPITAL, the framework connects scientific data with financial tools like payments for ecosystem services, insurance models, nature bonds and biodiversity certificates. It allows investors to see which projects genuinely regenerate ecosystems, and which only claim to.

When nature shows up in financial reporting, two things happen: it becomes comparable — and it becomes protectable.

The first BIO-CAPITAL Deep Dive opened with Ahmet Rasim Demirtaş of Agcurate BV, who offered a striking perspective on a financial tool not usually associated with ecology: insurance. But in a world of more frequent storms, droughts and floods, he argued, insurance can become a mechanism not just for compensation, but for conservation.

Traditional insurance waits for damage to occur and then sends assessors to calculate losses — a slow and often disputed process. Parametric insurance works differently. It relies on objective, measurable environmental data: rainfall below a certain level, wind above a threshold, rivers overtopping their banks. When the data crosses the trigger, the payout is automatic. No forms. No inspections. No delays.

From Climate Shocks to Safety Nets

Demirtaş described how this speed and transparency can make a crucial difference for nature. In Alpine forests, for example, a storm can wipe out trees that were storing carbon and generating revenue through carbon credits. A rapid insurance payout allows restoration to begin immediately, keeping the project viable. Farmers shifting to regenerative practices often face short-term yield losses; insurance can cushion that financial risk and give them confidence to stay the course. And in wetlands or grasslands, where floods can destroy years of ecological restoration, parametric payouts can finance repairs the moment water levels spike.

Within BIO-CAPITAL, parametric models are not viewed in isolation. They sit alongside other tools such as Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) and Triple Capital Accounting, creating a financial architecture designed to reward long-term stewardship while protecting projects against sudden shocks. Insurance becomes both an enabler — encouraging people to adopt nature-positive practices — and a safety net, ensuring those efforts aren’t wiped out in a single disaster.

From Coral Reefs to an Idea and Concept

What once sounded experimental is already becoming real. Coral reefs in Mexico are insured against hurricane damage; mangroves in the Caribbean are protected through parametric triggers linked to storm events; wetlands in China are covered against droughts, floods and wildfires. The idea is spreading: biodiversity is an asset, and like any asset, it can be protected.

Demirtaş’ message was direct: if we want nature-based solutions to scale, we must make them financially resilient. Parametric insurance does exactly that — turning environmental risk into measurable triggers, and ecological restoration into something investors can trust will endure.

The Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation Work Package of the project is about explaning BIO-CAPITAL, making its results accessible and usable.

BIO-CAPITAL is a project that brings together a wide range of expertise: finance, earth observation and remote sensing, policy, and environmental protection work. Its multidisciplinary nature requires constant internal exchange and a strong shared project vision. And bringing together very different methods and fields does not always make it easy to explain the project to the outside world with one voice. That is why BIO-CAPITAL has dedicated a separate work package to project communication and the preparation of project results for scientific, economic and social use. Our team at Oikoplus, a Vienna-based company that specializes in this area, has the exciting and challenging task of leading this work package.

When it comes to explaining a complex scientific project, it makes sense to develop a kind of narrative that allows people who are not experts in the field to understand the project. It’s about meaning-making. When I personally want to explain the BIO-CAPITAL project to someone I know, I sometimes use a metaphor. And that is the metaphor of a zoo.

Earth as a Zoo?

The mission statement of many botanical gardens and zoos is that they serve the study and conservation of plants, species and biodiversity. Let’s assume for now, that this self-perception is completely correct. At the zoo, you can study animals, and their behavior. Networks of zoos also serve to breed animals, including endangered species. In the controlled environments of zoos, animals can be cataloged, monitored, and observed. In nature, plants and species cannot be constantly monitored through the bars and glass panes of enclosures and cages, but through satellites and drones with geospatial sensor technology of all kinds.

This is where BIO-CAPITAL comes in. Technology-supported biodiversity monitoring thus follows the logic of the botanical/zoological garden, so to speak, and the growing amount of data on biodiversity turns habitats into such gardens, sort of. However, running a botanical garden or a zoo is a complex task from a micro-economical perspective. It requires resources, which are generated through entrance fees, donations, research grants, public money etc. Only if they manage to generate sufficient resources as market actors, they can fulfill their biodiversity conservation function.

Biodiversity provides a range of crucial ecosystem services, which makes the preservation of biodiversity a crucial necessaty. Since the negative effects of biodiversity loss are large and hardly manageable, the protection of biodiversity is a declared political goal. Nevertheless, Earth is experiencing a dramatic extinction of species and various ecosystems around the world are threatened by biodiversity loss, which is linked to the expansion of human settlements, intensive agricultural production styles and the exploitation of natural resources (IPBES, 2019).

One of the political paths taken to prevent biodiversity loss is the economic valorization of biodiversity. The underlying rationale: If the preservation of biodiversity is given a monetary value, and the destruction of biodiversity is given a price, then market forces can be used to protect biodiversity. However, if natural habitats are to be monitored by geospatial analytical technologies with regard to their biodiversity, this requires financial resources. That’s why BIO-CAPITAL not only seeks to measure biodiversity based on remote sensing, but also develops financial instruments linked to to monitoring. Going back to my little metaphor of the zoo and its business model, one could now ask: Who becomes a zoo financier, a zoo visitor, an animal keeper–how, and why?

Different Perspectives, One Project Voice

The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 specifies that “tackling biodiversity loss and restoring ecosystems will require significant public and private investments at national and European level.” Europe’s goal of mobilizing private investment and developing market-based solutions for the conservation of biodiversity is also reflected in a series of calls within the framework of the EU’s research and innovation programme (EC, 2022), and the EU’s Farm2Fork Strategy. BIO-CAPITAL is one of the projects, helping to bring Europes Biodiversity Strategy to life. The project brings together 17 organizations from 13 countries to harness financial solutions and advanced geospatial analytics to mobilize private capital investments for the protection and restoring of biodiversity.

Let’s go back to the logic of the zoo, or the botanical garden. As places that serve entertainment, pleasure, commerce, but also biological research, and species conservation, botanical gardens and zoos combine many different functions. And people attach very different meanings to them.

Our goal in Work Package 6 of the project is to acknowledge these different perspectives and explain the project in a transparent manner so that people inside and outside the consortium can reach a shared understanding of what the BIO-CAPITAL project is achieving. That’s challenging, but great task.

For decades, biodiversity has been regarded as a moral and ecological imperative, but not a financial one. While global institutions and scientific communities have emphasised the importance of protecting ecosystems, the tools to translate this value into investment-grade frameworks have lagged significantly behind. Today, that is changing. As climate finance accelerates and sustainability becomes a boardroom priority, the question is no longer whether to invest in nature – but how. And the reality is clear: biodiversity needs a business model.

 The Cost of Inaction

The economic consequences of biodiversity loss are staggering. The World Bank estimates that nature’s degradation could cost the global economy $2.7 trillion annually by 2030[1]. Yet current investment in nature-based solutions remains far below what’s needed to halt ecosystem collapse. The bottleneck? A lack of structured, trusted, and scalable mechanisms to embed biodiversity in financial decision-making. Unlike carbon markets, biodiversity has no globally accepted credit system, no standardised metrics, and no clear policy pathways for de-risking investments. That’s where science and finance must meet.

Bridging Science and Finance

The BIO-CAPITAL project, funded by Horizon Europe, is one of several EU initiatives aimed at closing this gap. It brings together ecologists, data scientists, financial experts, and policy practitioners to co-create mechanisms that monetise biodiversity-positive actions – but with scientific integrity and social legitimacy.

At the core of BIO-CAPITAL’s approach is the recognition that ecological restoration must be measurable, verifiable, and certifiable in order to attract private capital. This means building new tools and infrastructure:

• MRV (Monitoring, Reporting & Verification) systems based on remote sensing and AI
• Natural Capital Accounting/Triple Capital Accounting frameworks that quantify ecosystem benefits
• Biodiversity certificates and credits rooted in transparent methodology
• Financial mechanisms like sustainability-linked bonds or blended finance instruments tied to ecological performance

Avoiding the Greenwashing Trap

However, commodifying nature carries its own risks. Without robust governance, we risk creating a market for biodiversity products that appear promising on paper but fail in practice. The race to develop biodiversity credits, for instance, has seen an influx of players proposing token-based systems, offset schemes, or voluntary certificates—many of which lack clear scientific baselines or traceability. This raises concerns about greenwashing and the dilution of genuine conservation outcomes. To counter this, BIO-CAPITAL and similar initiatives are working to embed scientific rigour, transparency, and stakeholder co-design into all valuation and certification models. The emphasis is not just on pricing biodiversity, but on defining its ecological integrity in ways that are both actionable and trustworthy.

A New Financial Architecture for Nature

To scale investment in biodiversity, we must move beyond isolated pilots and fragmented projects. We need a systemic financial architecture that supports:

• Clear performance indicators for biodiversity outcomes
• Long-term, risk-adjusted returns for nature-positive investments
• Integration of biodiversity into ESG frameworks and regulatory disclosures
• Incentives for blended finance models that combine public guarantees with private capital

This is not a call to turn nature into a commodity – it is a call to internalise its value into decision-making, at every level from farmers and landowners to institutional investors.

What Comes Next?

For biodiversity finance to become mainstream, we must rethink traditional silos between science, policy, and markets. Projects like BIO-CAPITAL are already laying the groundwork by connecting MRV systems with financial instruments, aligning stakeholder interests, and building models that can scale—and be trusted. At the same time, initiatives such as Invest4Nature, NATURANCE, BIO-CAPITAL, BIOFIN, Nature-3B, and RISE-IN demonstrate the growing momentum across Europe and beyond to integrate nature-based solutions and financial innovation into a coherent, systemic approach.

But the work has only begun. In the decade ahead, the world will either redefine how value is assigned to the natural world or continue extracting from it until it collapses. The choice is clear. The tools are emerging. Now, biodiversity must be bankable – with integrity at its core.

[1] Source: 🔗 worldbank.org

How wetlands in southwest England help shape the future of biodiversity monitoring

In the rolling hills of southwest England, rivers remember how they once flowed free. Today, those memories are being revived — through careful restoration and new technologies that help make nature’s recovery visible, measurable, and ultimately valuable.

This short documentary follows the BIO-CAPITAL project as it explores how Earth Observation (EO) data can reveal the ecological impact of river and wetland restoration — and how this information could one day form the basis of measurable biodiversity value.

Restoring Rivers — and Rethinking Value

At the heart of this story is the Westcountry Rivers Trust (WRT), an environmental charity that has been protecting rivers and wetlands across southwest England for decades. Field officer Rachel spends most of her time knee-deep in streams, creating ponds, bunds, and scrapes designed to slow water and give space back to nature.

“Monitoring biodiversity uplift is one of the hardest parts of any restoration project,” Rachel explains. “It’s often underfunded — and that’s why exploring satellite imagery is so exciting for us.”

BIO-CAPITAL brings together this local expertise with EarthDaily Agro’s experience in remote sensing. Using GPS data and field observations, remote-sensing expert Harold compares what satellites can see from above with what conservationists observe on the ground. The goal: to test whether changes in vegetation, moisture, or biomass detected from space can serve as reliable indicators of biodiversity recovery.

Seeing Change from Above

At small wetland sites near Dartmoor National Park, Harold and maps interventions such as scrapes and ponds — then analyses whether these features show up in satellite imagery. When conditions are right, time-series analysis can reveal subtle seasonal shifts that reflect vegetation growth and habitat health.

Yet, as Harold notes, not all sites are easy to see:

“Dense vegetation or small restoration areas can push the limits of what satellite data can capture. But by combining field data and EO imagery, we can start to calibrate meaningful indicators for biodiversity uplift.”

This combination of muddy boots and clean data is where BIO-CAPITAL’s innovation lies: turning local restoration work into quantifiable, verifiable change.

Duchy College: A Living Laboratory

A key stakeholder in this effort is Duchy College, an agricultural and environmental training campus in Stoke Climsland, Cornwall.
The college manages extensive wetland areas and has become a valuable test site for scaling up the project’s methods.

Here, landscape architect Gemma shows how engineered ponds and bunds are helping to retain water and create habitats for freshwater species.

“Standing water is incredibly important for biodiversity,” she says. “We now have ponds that stay full most of the year — providing habitats for invertebrates, birds, and other wildlife.”

For Harold, these landscapes are also a perfect testing ground: their complex patchwork of fields, hedgerows, and wetlands mirrors the diversity of rural England, helping to refine EO-based monitoring approaches under real-world conditions.

Towards a New Kind of Capital

For Lawrence, Chief Executive of WRT, the value of this work extends beyond ecology:

“The BIO-CAPITAL project allows us to understand not only the benefits of protecting rivers and giving them space for nature, but also how to market that — for example, through biodiversity net gain schemes.”

By connecting field restoration, remote sensing, and natural capital accounting, BIO-CAPITAL seeks to create a framework where biodiversity gains can become recognised and tradable assets.

It’s a bold vision: that the recovery of ecosystems — once seen as priceless but immeasurable — can now be made both visible and valuable.

We are thrilled to announce that BIO-CAPITAL will be attending the ESA Living Planet Symposium 2025, which will take place from 23–27 June 2025 in Vienna, Austria. This flagship Earth Observation (EO) event, organised by the European Space Agency (ESA), brings together scientists, policymakers, researchers and industry professionals to explore the future of EO technologies and their critical role in addressing global environmental challenges.

About the Living Planet Symposium

The Living Planet Symposium (LPS), held every three years, is one of the world’s largest Earth Observation conferences. It provides a platform for sharing scientific findings, showcasing innovative applications and fostering collaboration between institutions and countries. The 2025 edition will highlight the transformative potential of Earth Observation (EO) in advancing climate action, sustainable development and biodiversity conservation, making it the perfect stage for BIO-CAPITAL’s mission and work.

Presenting Research on Biodiversity Certificates

We are proud to announce that the paper titled Object-Based Assessment of Ecosystem Restoration Level for Biodiversity Certificates in Europe, written by Lisa Delvaux, Julien Radoux and Prof. Pierre Defourny, has been accepted for presentation at session F.04.08: Earth Observation for Nature Finance and Ecosystem Accounting.

🗓️ Presentation date: Wednesday, 25 June 2025

🕚 Time: 11:30–13:00

📍 Room: 0.49/0.50

This presentation will introduce a novel approach to quantifying biodiversity gains through object-based remote sensing, which has been tailored to meet the requirements of emerging biodiversity certificates. The aim of these certificates is to establish trustworthy, transparent and scalable mechanisms that support investments in ecosystem restoration, thereby aligning with the objectives of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

The methodology uses Sentinel-2 data and machine learning to identify ecologically homogeneous landscape areas and group them based on land cover and abiotic characteristics. These clusters serve as proxies for biodiversity potential and are used to evaluate the impact of restoration projects through a combination of high-resolution image analysis (e.g. the detection of hedgerows and flower strips) and biophysical metrics. This integrated Earth observation (EO)-based approach supports the development of biodiversity certificates that are both science-driven and policy-relevant.

Visit Us at the Domino-E Stand

You can also find BIO-CAPITAL represented at the Domino-E stand at LPS 2025. While the two projects pursue different goals—Domino-E focusing on strengthening Europe’s Earth Observation infrastructure and BIO-CAPITAL advancing financial innovation for biodiversity restoration—they are connected through their shared communication partner, OIKOPLUS. This collaboration highlights the importance of strategic science communication in bridging the worlds of environmental policy, finance, and Earth Observation.

📍 Stand Location: F14, Level 0, Atrium of the Conference Centre

Whether you’re working on environmental finance, biodiversity monitoring, or EO technologies, we invite you to stop by, exchange ideas, and learn more about how BIO-CAPITAL is contributing to the transformation of nature finance in Europe.

Stay tuned for more updates from the LPS 2025 and follow us on our channels during the event week!