Context and role of Ministries of Finance

Biodiversity policy is increasingly moving from an environmental ministry concern to a question for Ministries of Finance (MoFs). Over half of national output depends directly on ecosystems that are deteriorating (WEF, 2020). Agriculture relies on pollinators, fisheries on healthy ecosystems, cities on watersheds for their water, and many economies on nature-based tourism for foreign exchange. As these systems decline, productive capacity weakens, sovereign creditworthiness can suffer, and the costs of replacing lost ecosystem services and of climate-nature feedback loops eventually fall on the public balance sheet (see the Nature and Biodiversity thematic overview page). 

National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans are the primary national instrument supporting nature-positive agendas 

Through National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity translate the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to their domestic context and realities. They also underpin the associated National Biodiversity Finance Plans that turn commitments into costed, implementable pathways. Yet the finance-oriented elements of the Kunming-Montreal GBF remain among the least well addressed in the plans submitted so far. The Convention on Biological Diversity Secretariat’s review of 58 revised or updated NBSAPs found that barely half of submissions reflected each of the four finance targets: aligning financial flows, business disclosure, harmful-subsidy reform, and resource mobilization (CBD Secretariat, 2025a). 

Since the Kunming-Montreal GBF was only adopted in 2022, most MoF engagement on biodiversity is recent; the examples in this Action Area largely document institutional design and early implementation rather than demonstrated outcomes at scale. However, this reflects the stage of the agenda rather than a gap in ambition, and the guidance below is emerging practice to be updated as results come through successive NBSAP and National Biodiversity Finance Plan cycles. 

Achieving these nature goals requires alignment with the economy and government processes 

MoFs are central to this alignment as they operate many of the policy levers that govern the economy and shape economic incentives, including public finance, regulatory, and economic policy tools. Their involvement makes it more likely that goals are achieved and that they are delivered in an economically efficient way. However, NBSAPs are not currently well integrated into the decision-making processes of governments and the private sector, and most countries have not linked them to theirdomestic growth, development, and industrial strategies (see Function 1, Shaping 21st century industrial and innovation strategies). MoFs need more involvement in the design and implementation of NBSAPs through cross-government collaboration,otherwise documents risk remaining aspirational without the necessary funding.  

Private investment decisions dominate nature-positive or nature-negative outcomes  

An MoFs’ ability to shape private capital allocation is a key part of the biodiversity finance toolkit. Fiscal, regulatory, and procurement levers—public expenditure, taxation, subsidies, financial-market regulation, and disclosure requirements for companies and financial institutions—determine whether NBSAPs translate into tangible outcomes or remain aspirational documents. The Kunming-Montreal GBF makes this opportunity concrete: Targets 14 (alignment of financial flows), 15 (business disclosure), 18 (reform of harmful incentives), and 19 (resource mobilization) are delivered through fiscal and regulatory architecture, which often rests in MoF and regulatory hands. 

MoFs can take an integrated approach to climate, biodiversity, and sustainability in investment decisions 

This avoids measures that deliver climate gains at the expense of both nature and public finances. In practice, this means screening climate investments for their biodiversity impacts. For example, bioenergy monocultures or planting exotic species of tree can damage existing ecosystems (and even reduce the carbon stored in them), undermining the very climate gains they aim to deliver (Pörtner et al., 2021). Conversely, nature-based solutions such as the protection of mangroves, peatlands, and forests can be more effective than “grey infrastructure” and deliver benefits across climate mitigation, adaptation, and biodiversity, provided they complement rather than replace ambitious emission reductions (ibid.). 

Aligning NBSAPs with Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategies (LT-LEDS), for example within a holistic SDG strategy, can make this integrated approach systematic (CBD Secretariat, 2025b). It ensures that climate investment pipelines defined under climate planning instruments are screened against biodiversity objectives from the outset, rather than addressed case by case after commitments are made.  

MoFs have several concrete entry points to support the design and implementation of NBSAPs 

They can work with the lead agency, such as the Ministry of Environment, by leading or supporting the following processes as appropriate. 

Costing biodiversity commitments and developing National Biodiversity Finance Plans 

First, National Biodiversity Finance Plans identify the financing needed to implement NBSAP commitments and set out how resources will be mobilized from public budgets, private finance, international support, and policy reforms. They typically include biodiversity expenditure reviews, finance gap assessments, financing instruments, and implementation roadmaps. Costing translates national biodiversity targets into credible, implementable pathways by clarifying the scale of resources required, the biodiversity finance gap, and the mix of public, private, and international sources needed to close it. It also makes visible the cost of inaction, including contingent liabilities from disaster response, food insecurity, and infrastructure damage, providing a clear fiscal justification for biodiversity investment. 

This work underpins the development of associated National Biodiversity Finance Plans, which translate NBSAP commitments into costed, time-bound financing roadmaps aligned with the national budget cycle. Natural capital accounting is a key entry point for this. (Uganda’s MoF, for example, is working to quantify its national biodiversity finance gap and identify private-sector entry points. To replicate these approaches, the UNDP BIOFIN Workbook 2024: Finance for Nature provides a standard methodological framework for countries to conduct these financial needs assessments and design National Biodiversity Finance Plans (UNDP BIOFIN, 2024). 

Integrating NBSAP commitments into core public financial management systems 

Second, translating NBSAP targets into public expenditure requires embedding biodiversity objectives into the instruments through which MoFs allocate and track resources. Biodiversity budget tagging enables MoFs to identify budget allocations contributing to NBSAP objectives. It extends the climate tagging logic to nature by tracking expenditures that conserve, restore, or sustainably use ecosystems, supporting monitoring and accountability (see Function 2, Using the budget to drive transformation in all sectors of the economy). France has applied green budgeting since 2020, tagging all budgetary and tax expenditures according to their environmental impacts. 

Mainstreaming biodiversity across sectors 

Third, NBSAP implementation requires action across multiple sectors simultaneously. MoFs are well placed to drive coherence by embedding biodiversity criteria into the fiscal and regulatory frameworks that govern each sector, including land-use planning, infrastructure, disaster risk reduction, coastal management, and circular economy strategies. Sectoral nature-positive transition pathways offer a structured, government-led instrument for this: by mapping how each sector should transform and when, they help MoFs prioritize policies and incentives, align limited fiscal resources with biodiversity targets, and give the private sector the long-term clarity needed to crowd in capital (BfN et al., 2026). 

Reforming biodiversity-harmful subsidies 

Fourth, governments spend approximately US$2.4tn annually on support that incentivizes ecosystem degradation, particularly in agriculture, fisheries, fossil fuels, and infrastructure, such as subsidies that encourage overfishing, deforestation, or excessive fertilizer use (UNEP, 2026). Kunming-Montreal GBF Target 18 calls on governments to identify incentives harmful to biodiversity and contribute to a collective global goal of reducing them by at least US$500bn per year by 2030. Savings can either relieve the budget (reducing the tax or debt burden) or be recycled into nature-positive investments and targeted transition support for vulnerable groups (see Function 2, Carbon taxes and pricing, subsidy reform, and frontiers in environmental taxation). For practical guidance on execution, Finance for Nature Positive: Building a Working Model documents operational models for this redeployment (UNEP FI and Finance for Biodiversity Foundation, 2024). 

Establishing regulatory frameworks for biodiversity-related disclosure 

Fifth, regulatory frameworks are one mechanism through which MoFs can help convert biodiversity information into standardized, comparable disclosure that feeds national NBSAP targets rather than standalone sustainability reporting. This work is often done alongside financial regulators and central banks who typically hold direct rule-making authority over corporate disclosure. France’s Article 29 of the Energy-Climate Law demonstrates how a legislative disclosure mandate creates the regulatory environment to which private institutions then respond. It requires all financial institutions to report biodiversity-related risks and impacts on a double materiality basis. 

The European Union’s interlocking Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, Taxonomy, and European Sustainability Reporting Standards frameworks make the same point at scale: coherent regulation sustained across multiple legislative cycles produces the private-sector alignment that quality biodiversity disclosure practices illustrate. For MoFs designing national disclosure frameworks, sequencing and coherence across instruments matter more than the ambition of any single measure. Aligning national disclosure requirements with the standards of the International Sustainability Standards Board of the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation helps avoid contradictions, duplication and double reporting (IFRS,2026). UNEP FI’s Accountability for Nature (2025) and Recommendations from Voluntary Nature-Related Reporting Frameworks (2024) provide the necessary framework comparisons (See Function 3, Using financial sector policy to mobilize private capital for the transition). 

Mobilizing private finance through dedicated instruments and markets 

Sixth, a core MoF role is to act as market enabler for private nature-related investment. Sovereign nature bonds and blended-finance structures that channel private capital are covered in Function 3, Debt financing for investment in sustainable infrastructure and Driving innovations in financing models, including blended finance; beyond these, MoFs can create markets directly. 

Market-creating regulation examples include the United Kingdom’s Biodiversity Net Gain rule. It requires new developments to deliver a measurable 10% increase in biodiversity value, with any shortfall met by purchasing units from landowners who restore habitat elsewhere. This creates private demand for biodiversity outcomes and finances habitat creation without public expenditure (Defra, 2024; GFI, 2024). Targeted tax incentives work through the same enabling logic: South Africa’s Biodiversity Management Agreements, for instance, tie a tax deduction to an approved biodiversity management plan, rewarding private stewardship at lower fiscal cost than direct spending (DFFE, 2021).