An Overview of Global Biodiversity Finance
A new OECD paper, “An Overview of Global Biodiversity Finance,” provides one of the clearest recent pictures of how much capital is actually flowing toward biodiversity — and how far the world still is from the financing scale required.
The OECD estimates global biodiversity finance at USD 74.9–92.4 billion per year for 2023–25, equivalent to only around 0.07–0.08% of global GDP. By comparison, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework calls for mobilising at least USD 200 billion annually by 2030.
Most funding still comes from governments. Domestic public expenditure accounts for USD 46–63.5 billion annually, or roughly 61–69% of the total. Public international finance adds USD 16.1 billion, while private biodiversity finance is estimated at only USD 12.9 billion per year.
The trend, however, is positive. Across comparable datasets, domestic public biodiversity expenditure increased 16% in real terms, international public finance rose 94%, and private biodiversity investment increased about 73% between the earlier and latest reporting periods.
Private markets remain relatively small but are developing. Biodiversity-focused private investment exceeded USD 14 billion in 2025, while biodiversity bonds reached roughly USD 25.4 billion in cumulative issuance across corporate, sovereign and supranational issuers. By contrast, the voluntary biodiversity credit market remains very early-stage, with only around USD 2.9 million of transactions in 2025.
A major challenge is measurement itself. Of the 142 Parties that had submitted their 7th National Reports to the CBD by mid-September 2026, only 42 reported quantitative private-finance data. Differences in definitions, methodologies and treatment of indirect finance make cross-country comparisons difficult.
My takeaway: the biodiversity finance gap is not only about mobilising more capital, but also about improving the quality of data behind it. Without consistent definitions, better corporate reporting and stronger tracking of private finance, it will remain difficult to know whether capital is truly scaling toward measurable biodiversity outcomes.
