We are proud to launch 5x for Nature, an urgent, solutions-focused convening of the country’s leading experts, practitioners and community champions working on nature finance. This is a first-of-its-kind and transformative action plan for nature finance in Canada.
We are leading a national, inter-disciplinary and inclusive process on what we need to collectively do to grow the value of the domestic nature finance market to 25 billion per year by 2030. This figure represents a fivefold increase in capital allocation to nature from public, private, philanthropic and Indigenous-owned capital pools.
For 5X for Nature to be a powerful tool for coordinated action, it requires buy-in from across the nature finance ecosystem. This is only possible if it is informed by those who are currently engaged in and thinking about nature finance, and who are experiencing both challenges and windows of opportunity to advance their own work in order to help articulate the vision of what is needed to scale action.
In collaboration with Nature Investment Hub partners and other experts, each roundtable focuses on engaging with technical experts that understand how to structure financial instruments with the best chances of liberating capital for nature, while being attuned to the specific market and socio-political realities in Canada. After the development period with technical experts that is oriented on the structuring mechanics, we will work with the wider nature finance ecosystem to incorporate various expertise and perspectives, and foster a better understanding of everyone’s role and how funds can be unlocked.
5x for Nature will be developed in two phases: phase one will include instrument-specific deep dives, and phase two will be ecosystem-wide consultation.
A series of virtual consultative roundtables inform the deep dive sessions that will run in Fall 2025. The resulting report will then be shared with leaders, experts, and practitioners in the nature finance ecosystem to help prioritize enabling actions that will drive capital allocation to nature. These efforts are expected to go some way in enabling Canada to achieve targets and actions set out in the 2030 National Biodiversity Strategy. Topics for the roundtables will include biodiversity credits, debt instruments, equity instruments, and pooled funds.
In addition to instrument-specific sessions, there will be other key inputs into 5x for Nature, including best-in-class research and Hub activities such as our Nature Finance Action Labs (like the first session led by Jeffrey Brown of Nature Focus on fire resilience bonds) and our annual investor survey. The Hub will also draw on insights from our existing programming such as the June roundtable we co-hosted with Carolinian Canada on outcome payers and impact bonds and an earlier webinar on scaling investment in Indigenous-led conservation and stewardship activities in Canada that we co-hosted with First 30x30.
Our team views the 5x for Nature process as an opportunity for both learning and unlearning what a regenerative nature finance market could be in Canada. In line with our commitment to Economic Reconciliation, working with the principles of Ethical Space, each table will also strive to centre Indigenous worldviews and ways of approaching markets and capital stewardship on par with how broader capital allocation systems currently work. Where there are tensions and incompatibilities to name, our role will be to surface these, and where possible to identify shared pathways forward.
Preliminary findings will go public in February 2026, for consultation, to make sure we get it right. Expert and community insights will be integrated, and the final version will be shared in late spring 2026. We are eager to ensure the whole nature finance ecosystem is reflected in 5x for Nature, so that it can be truly beneficial, action-oriented, and impactful.
Instrument-specific roundtables are invite-only, so that people with deep expertise and experience with the process of structuring nature finance dealflow can engage in technical conversations. If you are interested in being invited to participate, reach out to Paige Olmsted, our resident nature finance expert, at [email protected].