This high-level session brings together insights from the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos and a conceptual lecture on how to scale private investment in nature restoration and regeneration.
The session will open with reflections from Beatrice Weder di Mauro, offering an inside Davos debrief on how nature, climate, and financing discussions are converging, and what this implies for policymakers, investors, and the public sector. Drawing on Davos outcomes, the opening will frame the political economy and investment challenges that continue to limit capital flows into nature.
This will be followed by a high-level lecture by Erik Berglöf on the ‘Nature as Infrastructure’ approach. Nature restoration remains among the hardest areas to attract private investment, yet without private capital there is no credible pathway to reverse nature loss. Treating nature as infrastructure provides a framework that draws directly on experience from infrastructure finance.
In particular, contractual forms from Public-Private Partnership (PPP) practice can help provide long-term visibility and certainty, reduce risk, and lower financing costs. PPPs for Nature (PPPN) highlight the central role of the public sector in creating a supportive context, including through guarantees and insurance mechanisms that enable private capital to participate at scale. Developing markets for biodiversity and nature, using both equity and credit instruments, can further improve the bankability of nature investments.
Patrick Odier will act as discussant, bringing a practitioner’s perspective on what it would take for financial institutions and long-term investors to engage meaningfully in nature as an investable asset class.
The session links Davos-level insights with concrete financial frameworks, focusing on how public-private cooperation can unlock private capital for a nature-positive transition.
