RISE-IN Presented at Webinar Financing Nature, GIZ
21 October 2025
Online
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@ 2025 by RISE-IN Consortium
Acknowledgement: RISE-IN receives funding from the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) and HorizonEurope, under Grant Agreement no. 101214441.
Disclaimer: Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CINEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
A high-level webinar held as part of GIZ’s Urban October series has spotlighted the urgent need to scale up finance for Nature-based Solutions (NbS) and strengthen urban resilience in the lead-up to COP30. The panel, “Financing Nature: Pleading the Business Case for Urban Nature-Based Solutions – Lessons from Global Practice”, brought together experts from ICLEI Africa, NetworkNature EU, C40 Cities Finance Facility, the City Climate Finance Gap Fund and the UN Environment Programme.
Émilie Maehara, Deputy Executive Director of the Sustainable Finance Observatory, joined the discussion to outline the financial innovations required to unlock investment for NbS. Despite the potential of NbS to deliver 30% of global climate solutions by 2030 and generate significant social and economic co-benefits, they currently attract less than 0.3% of urban infrastructure investment. The panel noted that NbS projects often remain small, local and non-revenue-generating, making it difficult to secure traditional financing.
Speakers emphasised opportunities ranging from stronger policy incentives to capacity building for cities, and showcased examples of NbS projects already delivering both environmental and financial returns.
In her speech, Maehara highlighted how targeted financial engineering can help bridge the bankability gap, and presented the RISE-IN project. She pointed to three promising approaches: aggregating projects to meet financiers’ ticket-size requirements; quantifying and monetising co-benefits such as improved habitats, water access, health and social outcomes; and insurance-based mechanisms that use insurance premiums to support NbS implementation. She noted that the Sustainable Finance Observatory is deploying such tools through its team of former bankers to design new bankability models for NbS.
With preparations accelerating for COP30 in Belém, the session underscored a shared commitment to move from dialogue to action and to unlock capital at scale for resilient cities.