MDBs Launch New Guidance at COP30 to Measure Nature and Scale Its Financing

BELÉM, Brazil - The Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB Group) and the European Investment Bank Group (EIB Group), on behalf of the Multilateral Development Banks Nature Working Group and in collaboration with the government of Brazil, today launched "Financing Nature: A Practitioner's Guide to Results Metrics Selection," a new tool to measure nature outcomes and accelerate investment in nature.

Tropical countries need $67 billion a year in investment by 2030 to halt forest loss and restore degraded areas. But nature measurement remains fragmented, with over 600 indicators and hundreds of metrics that often track activities instead of ecological outcomes - slowing investment and scale.

The guidance aims to unlock private capital for nature and climate by helping project developers and investors select robust, outcome-oriented nature metrics that align with global standards.

The launch took place at a high-level event hosted by Brazil's Ministry of Environment and Climate Change during COP30. The session featured opening speeches by João Paulo Capobianco, executive secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, and the president of the IDB Group, Ilan Goldfajn, followed by a panel of global leaders on nature financing.

"Investing in nature is investing in resilience and sustainable development," said Goldfajn. "But we cannot manage what we don't measure, and we cannot finance what we cannot explain. This guidance, the Belém Framework for Nature Finance, we call 'Belem Alignment,' turns ambition into action by providing practitioners with common nature metrics that investors can trust."

"Nature-positive investments are essential for achieving climate and economic resilience objectives," said EIB Vice-President Ambroise Fayolle. "The guidance we are launching today is a key step toward ensuring that mobilized financial flows deliver real and lasting benefits for people, climate, and biodiversity."

Drawing on reviews of more than 70 institutions, 10 frameworks, and 156 metrics, and developed with technical support from The Biodiversity Consultancy, the guidance promotes metrics that:

• Avoid nature-washing through evidence-based claims
• Align with leading standards from the Nature Positive Initiative, Finance for Biodiversity, International Finance Corporation, and the International Capital Market Association
• Measure nature outcomes, not just activities
• Strengthen monitoring and verification systems with traceability and community participation
• Link outcome results to financing through clear, easy-to-understand metrics that investors can trust.

The guidance is being piloted by the IDB in support of Eco Invest's fourth auction, which expands long-term financing for the bioeconomy and nature-based projects with defined biodiversity outcomes. Eco Invest has already mobilized over $13 billion through its first three auctions.

The guidance is a voluntary, flexible, and user-oriented tool, applicable across asset classes and ecosystems. While not an operational requirement for multilateral development banks (MDBs), it is designed to help governments, financial institutions, and NGOs improve efficiency, comparability, and credibility in nature measurement and finance.

As COP30 brings climate and nature together on the global stage, the IDB and EIB Groups reaffirm their commitment to making nature measurement and finance more usable, scalable, and tied to measurable outcomes. The guidance is a key deliverable of the "MDBs' Viewpoint Note: MDBs Working as a System for Impact and Scale," and reflects implementation of the MDBs Joint Statement on Nature, People, and Planet.