Conservation impact investment reaches $23bn in 5 years

The first-ever survey of investment into conservation impact discovered that approximately $23 billion was funneled into the sector over the last five years. And the report, Investing in Conservation, suggests that investments will more than triple between 2014 and 2018.

Co-authored by EKO Asset Management Partners and The Nature Conservancy’s NatureVest division, the report showed that just $1.9 billion of came from private investors with development finance institutions investing $21.5 billion.

Sustainable food and fibre took some $2 billion of investment as the investments were made into a large range of conservation-related deals from watershed protection to habitat conservation.

The private sector did exhibit some signs of increasing interest as investment grew 26 percent between 2009 and 2013 and sustainable food and fibre accounted for the majority of that growth. The survey also suggests that there are plans from the private sector to raise and invest another $4.1 billion between now and 2018.

Read Investing in Conservation: A landscape assessment of an emerging market here.