Biodiversity loss poses material risks for economies and financial systems, yet private capital toward biodiversity-positive outcomes remains limited. Blended finance and impact investing are increasingly recognized as mechanisms to bridge this gap, but barriers such as unclear risk-return profiles, lack of standardized measurement, and misconceptions about investability persist. This session will explore how these instruments can be scaled up by pension funds and asset managers, grounded in real-world cases.

We begin with success stories from agriculture and forestry finance, such as the FMO Fund & Green and the Tropical Forest Finance Facility (TFFF), which combine public and philanthropic guarantees with institutional investors to finance projects beyond conservation, supporting sustainable supply chains and local initiatives. These examples illustrate opportunities as well as barriers, from governance and monitoring challenges to aligning fiduciary duty with biodiversity-positive strategies. The session aims to identify solutions to such barriers while enabling networking to form a solution-oriented group capable of piloting cases.

We then turn to how asset managers can integrate these mechanisms into pension portfolios, outlining steps from pilot formats to institutional-grade products. A side focus will explore how financial tools can ensure a just process based on stewardship and collaboration across networks of actors affected by and benefiting from biodiversity.

This track will foster dialogue across private markets, NGOs, financial actors, and academics, building on initiatives such as the Financing Biodiversity Project in the Netherlands.