Dr Catherine Farrell, Assistant Professor in Business and Nature in Trinity Business School and BFBI’s Business Programme Lead, is co-ordinator of a module for final year business students with learnings on nature, society and economy. The module, the development of which was supported by BFBI, is called The Business of Nature Positive and explores ways for undergraduate students to work with businesses in Ireland to support the global Nature Positive Initiative. We are delighted to share guest articles on a number of associated course topics, beginning with the role of green bonds in sustainable finance.  

In this extract, Ms. Meadbh O’Mahony, Senior Sophister student in Global Business in Trinity Business School, explores why these bonds are insufficient on their own to halt biodiversity decline; while highlighting the important role they must play a nature-positive future: 

Bridging the Biodiversity Financing Gap: Why Green Bonds Are Not Enough 

‘The planet’s rich web of life is unravelling, with ecosystems deteriorating at an alarming pace due to human-driven pressures. The UN’s Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) reports that 75% of terrestrial environments and 66% of marine ecosystems have been significantly altered by human actions, driven by deforestation, pollution, climate change and unsustainable resource extraction (Natixis, 2024). 

The World Economic Forum estimates that $44 trillion, over half of global GDP, is moderately or highly dependent on nature. (Deutz A, et al, 2020). Despite the urgency of the crisis, current biodiversity financing falls far short of what is needed to reverse ecosystem degradation.

Despite significant progress being made in climate and sustainable finance, with green bonds channelling nearly $600 billion into environmental projects in 2023 alone (Popoola et al. 2024), they have largely focused on climate mitigation projects, such as renewable energy and carbon reduction and overlooked biodiversity. 

In response to this imbalance, the financial industry is evolving beyond traditional green bonds and to a new generation of financial instruments, biodiversity bonds…’

Read the full article here: Bridging the Biodiversity Financing Gap – Meadbh O’Mahony