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Accelerating nature finance: a pivotal week for forests, climate, and capital
With just months to go before COP30 in Belém, Brazil, the spotlight is increasingly turning to how we finance nature as a foundation for global climate stability. Forests are emerging as a defining issue in global climate and nature negotiations. Brazil, home to 60% of the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest and one of its most vital carbon sinks, offers a powerful, strategic, and symbolic backdrop for the upcoming United Nations climate conference.
Marking the midpoint between COPs, London Climate Action Week (LCAW) 2025 was held at the end of June, bringing together global leaders across finance, policy, and civil society to advance the framework and financial tools needed to scale investment in climate and nature. Lombard Odier was proud to contribute to three landmark events that collectively signal a turning point in how the financial system is being retooled to value and invest in nature, with tropical forests at the heart of the conversation in the lead up to COP30.
London Climate Action Week 2025 was held at the end of June, bringing together global leaders across finance, policy, and civil society to advance the framework and financial tools needed to scale investment in climate and nature
Tropical forests forever: mobilising capital ahead of COP30
On Monday, 23 June, Brazil’s Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva, opened a high-level roundtable at Bloomberg HQ, setting the tone for a new era of international cooperation to protect tropical forests. The closed-door session, held under the Chatham House rule, gathered senior figures from global finance, policy, and conservation – including Lombard Odier’s Nature Specialist, Laura García Vélez – to explore the proposed Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF)1 an innovative financing mechanism due for formal launch at COP30 in Belém.
With a target fund size of USD 125 billion, the Facility aims to unlock as much as USD 4 billion annually for forest protection, a key building block in achieving the global pledge made at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow (COP26) to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. That’s nearly four times the combined value of the global forestry and land use voluntary carbon market in 2023.2 It would be a welcome reprieve, as the 2024 Forest Declaration Assessment indicates that the world is currently 21% off track to meet its goal.
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At the meeting, participants discussed the proposed structure and ambition of the Facility, including its blended finance model – anchored by USD 25 billion from sponsor partners and additional capital from private investors. Conversations focussed on fund governance, independent verification systems, and the importance of robust partnerships and institutional credibility. With only 3% of climate finance currently reaching forests, the Facility aims to rebalance incentives by directing 20% of proceeds to Indigenous Peoples and local communities and reversing the current dynamic, where deforestation is rewarded 40 times more than conservation.
As Brazil positions itself as a leader in forest finance, this roundtable reflected the growing momentum behind scalable investment models grounded in environmental integrity, long-term performance, and equitable benefit-sharing. At COP30, the TFFF is expected to be showcased as a flagship climate finance innovation, helping to mobilise global support for the protection, restoration and sustainable use of nature. It will also foster alignment across the Three Rio Conventions, the UNFCCC, UNCBD, and UNCCD, to build a truly integrated approach to climate, biodiversity and land use.
The Net Zero Delivery Summit: breaking barriers for nature finance
On the same day, the conversation moved to Guildhall for the Net Zero Delivery Summit, hosted by the City of London Corporation in partnership with the COP30 Presidency. The Summit marked the crucial halfway point between COP summits. As a flagship finance event during LCAW, it convened senior voices from across the financial system to focus on delivery: turning commitments into action.
Laura García Vélez joined a key workshop – “Nature: Getting to the roots – Breaking barriers to meeting scale for nature finance.” The session explored how to overcome the persistent bottlenecks preventing nature-positive finance from reaching the scale and speed required. Core themes also included how to mobilise the USD 1.3 trillion needed by 2035 to support developing countries in achieving climate and nature goals – funding that is vital to scaling nature-based solutions, supporting Indigenous-led conservation, and integrating nature into national development strategies.
Participants emphasised the need to integrate nature-based solutions into value chains (insetting) to deliver both nature and climate mitigation goals, while also strengthening climate adaptation. They also underscored the importance of enhancing the integrity and transparency of beyond-value-chain mitigation instruments, such as voluntary carbon markets instruments, ensuring that credits deliver measurable, verifiable, and equitable environmental and social impacts. The workshop also spotlighted innovative financial instruments, such as the Thematic Finance for Forest and Food (TFF) – a thematic funding model focussed on regenerative agriculture – as promising models to replicate and scale.
A series of priority actions emerged to break barriers to finance, including recognising Indigenous Peoples as equal partners in conservation efforts, rather than merely beneficiaries
A series of priority actions emerged to break barriers to finance, including recognising Indigenous Peoples as equal partners in conservation efforts, rather than merely beneficiaries; embedding nature into macroeconomic and fiscal policy; developing sector and location-specific pathways; and creating a unified nature finance taxonomy to ensure clarity and consistency across markets. Speakers also called for redirecting harmful subsidies and building a compelling, data-driven narrative on the economic cost of inaction.
Discussions from the session will inform a forthcoming whitepaper designed to shape COP30 priorities, particularly on how to channel institutional capital into nature-based solutions, biodiversity markets, and natural capital accounting frameworks.
Nature action with HM The King: mobilising frameworks and finance
Among the week’s particular highlights was a prestigious event at Lancaster House hosted by the UK Government and attended by His Majesty King Charles III, a long-standing advocate for rainforest protection since 1990.3Titled “Nature Action: Mobilising Frameworks and Finance,” this high-level meeting aimed to encourage greater private sector spending on biodiversity credits and other financial instruments to safeguard species and habitats. The event brought together some 100 leaders from government, business, finance, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs), and civil society, creating a diverse and influential forum for driving nature-positive finance forward.
Representing both Lombard Odier and the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance (CBA), Dr. Marc Palahí contributed to discussions on integrating nature into the global financial system through actionable investment pathways. As a key participant in a series of roundtables, he explored how investing in nature can drive economic growth, enhance business resilience, and boost competitiveness. Dr. Palahí served as the lead speaker at the “Investing in Nature – Regenerative Agriculture, Forests, and Other Terrestrial Habitats” Action Station, facilitated by Ruth Davis OBE, where he addressed issues including:
The urgency of the crisis – Climate and nature degradation are already having significant economic impacts, including a doubling of global insured losses over the past decade and increasing disruption to supply chains, with record-high prices for commodities like coffee and cacao.
The transition to a circular bioeconomy – A shift is required toward an economy that restores, protects, and sustainably uses natural capital. This includes scaling nature-based solutions, alternative materials, and bio-based innovation.
The role of regenerative commodity production as part of a nature-based solution – The CBA is piloting ‘Living Labs’ to test regenerative production models with local communities, scientists, and businesses, and to develop solutions that can scale for cacao, coffee, and cotton using approaches like agroforestry, which improve resilience, yields, and environmental outcomes.
As nature-related finance enters a new phase of institutionalisation and scrutiny, the event showcased practical tools, emerging innovations, and business models that are already demonstrating impact. The event served to demonstrate leadership, foster collaboration and show how we can move the needle on operationalising nature finance in the lead-up to COP30.
These three large-scale events reflect a growing consensus: that nature must be embedded at the heart of financial decision-making. At Lombard Odier, we believe the next phase of climate and sustainability investing is about rethinking our economic models, from extractive to regenerative, and from short-term gains to long-term resilience and shared value.
To deliver on the promise of a nature-positive economy, the financial sector must respond with greater capital, stronger commitments, and measurable accountability
Nowhere is this transformation more urgent or more consequential than in the world’s tropical forests. They are among the planet’s most valuable natural assets. Yet, only 3% of climate finance4is directed toward them. Investing in their protection is not only a climate imperative but an economic one. As global momentum builds towards COP30, the stakes could not be higher. The Amazon rainforest alone spans over 5.5 million square kilometres, stores an estimated 150–200 billion tonnes of carbon, and sustains more than 10% of the planet’s known species. It is one of Earth’s greatest climate stabilisers, yet deforestation continues at alarming rates, driven largely by short-term economic incentives. Today, incentives to deforest outweigh those to conserve by a factor of 40.5
Financial instruments like the Thematic Finance for Forest and Food, and the proposed Tropical Forests Forever Facility, offer a turning point. But more needs to be done. To deliver on the promise of a nature-positive economy, the financial sector must respond with greater capital, stronger commitments, and measurable accountability. The urgency is clear: forests must move from the periphery of climate finance to the mainstream. These three events brought together influential voices and helped shift forest finance from a side issue to the core of climate strategy. The Amazon cannot endure another lost decade – nor can the planet. The moment to scale up nature finance is not in the future. It’s now.
This is a marketing communication issued by Bank Lombard Odier & Co Ltd (hereinafter “Lombard Odier”).
It is not intended for distribution, publication, or use in any jurisdiction where such distribution, publication, or use would be unlawful, nor is it aimed at any person or entity to whom it would be unlawful to address such a marketing communication.
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