Nature for Sale

Corporations, industries and international institutions have spent the last two decades pursuing market-based ‘solutions’ to the deepening biodiversity crisis. ‘Financialization of nature’—a process of framing discourse and policies related to environmental protection in solely economic terms—has been portrayed as the ‘win-win’ solution, allowing for conservation of nature while business as usual continues. However, this proves to be a false solution, allowing further environmental destruction and human rights violations in the process.

Nature For Sale unpacks how businesses use Financialization of Nature processes for profit: by bending environmental policy to their interests, getting access to restricted natural sites, getting quick approval for financial loans, and winning reputational benefits through greenwashing. The report digs deep in to the involvement of certain sectors—banking, extractive industries related to mining, oil, gas and quarrying, real estate, consumer goods, and aviation—and how each of them benefits from offsetting and similar schemes.

This is one of a two-part series by Friends of the Earth International exploring developments in Financialization of Nature processes over the past two decades.

The other report, Regulated Destruction, explores how corporations and countries use Financialization of Nature discourse to weaken environmental regulations and facilitate exploitation by extractive industries in protected areas and other contested places.