Earth Security's partnership with HSBC Australia is developing and bringing to market an innovative 'mangrove bond' in Australia. It supports a global bank to develop a pioneering position with a financial product aimed at capital markets, creating a way of financing the protection and restoration of this valuable coastal ecosystem. The project builds on our 2020 incubation programme, which developed the insights, analysis and proposals to invest in mangroves as an asset a global scale through municipal green bonds. Our partnership with HSBC Australia is drawing on Earth Security's innovative analysis and market facilitation, to move from insights into action.

Earth Security worked with British International Investments to assess the economic value that the restoration of mangroves by one of its investees – Zephyr Power Limited (ZPL) in Pakistan – could provide to the business as a nature-based climate solution. Our analysis identified and quantified tangible value for the investment in three areas: the protection of physical assets, the value to local communities, and regulatory compliance for international capital. The report supports the implementation of BII’s climate strategy and provides the much-needed evidence for investors and the DFI community at large to use natural assets, such as mangroves, as a cost-effective tool to mitigate climate change risks and build more resilient investments.

The Philippines is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change. Its natural ecosystems however present a cost-effective tool for climate adaptation. While the country has already lost 50% of its mangroves to deforestation, restoring them could yield $450 million per year in flood-protection benefits. With support from the German government’s international climate fund (IKI), and in conjunction with the Philippines’ government and the Asian Institute of Management, Earth Security has created a new programme that connects mayors from vulnerable coastal cities with companies interested in building local climate resilience. The programme bridges their leadership and helps them define new approaches to financing nature-based adaptation locally.

Conflicts over water have increased 400% in the past decade. The degradation of river basins and rising demand for water are expected to drive a sharp increase in transboundary tensions across Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. Our work has put forward a way to embed the value of peaceful water cooperation into investment policies for hydropower projects, new financing mechanisms such as ‘blue peace bonds,’ and brokered new partnerships between UN agencies monitoring transboundary aquifers and global companies willing to share their groundwater data. Our analysis and engagement have built bridges to unite the worlds of finance and water diplomacy.

The rapid destruction of the Amazon rainforest is a planetary emergency. The rainforest spans 8 sovereign countries, and is subject to intense economic and political pressures. Emitting 20% of the Earth’s oxygen, it’s less well known for its ability to pump water into the atmosphere and regulate rainfall patterns. It thus sustains South America’s agricultural commodities, and is central to Brazil’s hydropower generating capacity. Earth Security partnered with Fundación Gaia Amazonas in Colombia to build a case for financial institutions to integrate the value of the Amazon’s rainfall into their investment portfolios, and support a proposal for a transboundary protected area that connects key Amazonian nations.