Biodiversity offsets
Measurable conservation outcomes resulting from actions that compensate for significant residual adverse biodiversity impacts arising from development projects.
Bioprospecting
Systematic search for biochemical and genetic information in nature in order to develop commercially-valuable products and applications.
Carbon markets
Carbon markets aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions cost-effectively by setting limits on emissions and enabling the trading of emission units.
Climate credit mechanisms
Market mechanisms that enable entities, for which the cost of reducing emissions is high, to pay low-cost emitters for carbon credits that they can use to meet emission-reduction obligations.
Concessions (Protected Areas)
Concessions allow people to use land or property in a protected area or natural site for a specified purpose, usually in exchange for a fee.
Crowdfunding
Approach for projects, organizations, entrepreneurs, and startups to raise money for their causes from multiple individual donors or investors.
Debt for nature swaps
Agreement that reduces a developing country’s debt stock or service in exchange for a commitment to protect nature.
Disaster risk insurance
Insurance schemes covering—against a premium—the costs incurred by the insured entity from extreme weather and natural disasters.
Ecological fiscal transfers
Integrating ecological services means making conservation indices (e.g. size of protected areas) part of the fiscal allocation formula to reward investments in conservation.
Enterprise challenge funds
Funding instrument that distributes grants (or concessional finance) to profit-seeking projects on a competitive basis.
Entrance and activity fees
Tourists pay fees for access to a protected area. The revenues can contribute to conservation through retention by protected areas, revenue sharing agreements, and public transfers.
Environmental trust funds
Legal entity and investment vehicle to help mobilizing, blending, and overseeing the collection and allocation of financial resources for environmental purposes.
Green bonds
Bonds where proceeds are invested exclusively in projects that generate climate or other environmental benefits.
Impact investment
Investments made with the intention to generate a measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return.
Lotteries
Governments and civil society use lotteries to raise funds for benevolent purposes such as education, health, and nature conservation.
