Conservation Finance

Our planet, including our atmosphere, forests, water, and other living entities, are fundamental to human survival. Yet these services have been vastly undervalued and under-resourced. Studies estimate a US$900 billion gap in annual funding needed for conservation critical to maintaining biodiversity and climate outcomes. The field of conservation finance aims to address this massive financing gap as well as the multitude of ways global markets and policies shortchange nature. Conservation finance umbrellas a variety of concepts, including (but not limited to) payments for ecosystem services, nature-based solutions, and environmental markets. In this course, we will focus on key concepts, tools, and challenges in this space. The course will be multidisciplinary, much like the field itself, which reaches across the intersections of ecology, economics, policy, finance, and human rights.

KEY QUESTIONS

• What is conservation finance and what is its role in biodiversity, water, and climate?

• What are the range of existing finance strategies and tools?

• What bottlenecks hold back conservation finance?

• What are examples of conservation finance in the field?

• Analyzing critiques and their importance and limitations

• How does policy drive or shape or omit conservation finance?

• What are the different roles of public and private financing?

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Explain the similarities and differences of conservation finance tools.

• Identify the different tools that might be viable given a conservation scenario.

• Utilize metrics for evaluating the impact and success of different strategies.

• Assess critiques and their strengths and weaknesses.

• Identify areas where more funding, research, and policy are needed to support conservation finance efforts.

• Build relationships with peers by working on group projects, participating in class and in online discussions.

• Demonstrate and communicate a broad understanding of conservation finance.

MODULES

• Module 1: Introduction to Conservation Finance

• Module 2: Beyond Markets: Debt for Nature, Conservation Easements, & Beyond

• Module 3: Nature-Based Solutions for Climate

• Module 4: Blue Carbon & Blue Bonds

• Module 5: Payments for Watershed Services

• Module 6: Biodiversity Offsets and Credits

• Module 7: Equity and the Human Dimension

• Module 8: ESG, Supply Chains, Consumer Choices, & Conclusion

COURSE SUPPORT:

Instructor support includes emailing your instructor, accessing discussion threads, attending group meetings, attending office hours, or scheduling one-on-one appointments (Zoom or phone) about course materials. You will have access to the course for 3 months. After completing the course, set up an optional meeting with the instructor to discuss your own personal project from work or school.  

DATES & PRICES:

• Winter: Jan 14 - Feb 13 (Early bird ends Nov 4th): $425 student / $525 professional

• Live meetings T/TH 12:00 - 1:30 p.m. EDT

*Early bird saves $75

DATES & PRICES:

• Winter: Jan 14 - Feb 13 (Early bird ends Nov 4th): $425 student / $525 professional

• Live meetings T/TH 12:00 - 1:30 p.m. EDT

*Early bird saves $75

COURSE SUPPORT:

Instructor support includes emailing your instructor, accessing discussion threads, attending group meetings, attending office hours, or scheduling one-on-one appointments (Zoom or phone) about course materials. You will have access to the course for 3 months. After completing the course, set up an optional meeting with the instructor to discuss your own personal project from work or school.  

GRADING:

For students seeking academic credit for the 1-credit class, 50% of the grade (P/F) will be based on responses to weekly activities on discussion boards and 50% will be based on an outline of a conservation finance strategy (details below under Applied Project).

For students seeking an additional 1-2 credits, 2/3 of their overall grade will be based on the Optional Applied Project (register HERE and see details below).

OPTIONAL APPLIED PROJECT (1-2 extra credits)

Applied project: Participants will develop an original, conservation finance strategy for a specific conservation project. The projects can be from any country in the world and can demonstrate any type of financing instrument. A successful project will focus on the following:

• Define the key conservation challenge(s) that the project seeks to solve.

• What are the negative consequences of this challenge?

• Discuss the chosen financing strategy and analyze why it is an appropriate tool for this context.

• What type of benefit sharing will be utilized?

• Analyze the stakeholders (e.g., who are the parties involved and indicate what roles each of them play).

• Identify opportunities for replication in other markets.

• What are potential risks you might encounter, and what is a sufficient risk management strategy.

Rubric for final project: The final project should be composed of a final report and a 30-minute presentation. The best projects will demonstrate the following:

• Focus on one area in need of innovative conservation finance.

• Clear overview of challenge(s) that the project seeks to solve.

• Strong understanding of the context in which the case takes place, highlighting any socio-economic development challenges, cultural conditions, regulatory constraints, etc.

• Deep analysis of the financial product/strategy, highlighting the design process, structure, parties involved and their respective roles.

• Clear explanation of the capital stack and benefit sharing.

• Present various risks and risk mitigation strategies.

• Key lessons-learned and potential replication strategy.

• Explanation of technical terminology.

• Citations for all secondary materials used.

• Bonus points added for any interviews and primary data collected for the project.