What Davos Is Signaling About Nature Finance, and Why It Matters for Canada

Co-authored by Hari Balasubramanian, Iswariya Tirunagaru & Priya Bala-Miller 

The 2026 Davos proceedings have become synonymous with Mark Carney’s era defining speech. While much has been made of the Prime Minister’s invitation for middle powers to own up to the follies of neoliberal institutionalism and embrace pragmatic action, here at the Hub, we are unabashedly preoccupied with what it all means from a Nature Finance lens. To help us parse out the hot takes from the hot air, we sat down with Hari Balasubramanian who was on the ground in Davos on behalf of Hub Partner EcoAdvisors. 

We are delighted to share his insights in this Q&A:

How would you characterize the general mood on sustainable finance in Davos this year?

This year in Davos, discussions were shaped by geopolitical uncertainty, competing crises, and a relentless pace of change. Amidst that whirlwind, one theme quietly but powerfully reasserted itself: “nature as infrastructure, nature as investible and nature as essential.”

At first, sustainable finance seemed to sit on the margins of the agenda however when reframed in terms of resilience and real economic value, the kind that underpins foundational systems it moved to the forefront. Conversations shifted from financing sustainability to building sustainable finance. In other words: those who can prove the business case for being nature-positive are now finding open doors and eager investors.

What do you think helped nature finance move from periphery to top of mind for the political and financial elite in attendance?

I would point to three systems change levers that helped to keep nature finance on the WEF agenda:

• Culture: THE NAT (Nature’s Publicist), launched in 2025, continued to energize a global movement to accelerate nature investment. THE NAT convenes dinners,  roundtables and communities covering the ways of water, the future of food, and AI’s role in the green transition, reminding us that storytelling and systems thinking move markets.
• Case-making: In collaboration with Conservation International, EcoAdvisors convened over 75 leaders from family offices to multibillion-dollar asset managers to prove that financing nature is no longer theoretical, it’s happening right now. Discussions spanned corporates, smallholders, and Indigenous-led models, surfacing investible nature solutions ready to scale into reality. 
• Commercialization: Underpinning these efforts is the emergence of a new financial architecture, Nature as Infrastructure. Work is advancing on commercial platforms designed to aggregate, structure, and institutionalize nature-positive cash flows so that nature can be treated and financed as long-term, resilient infrastructure for individuals, entities, institutions, and sovereigns.
  

We would be remiss if we didn’t ask you about your take on Prime Minister Carney’s speech – was it instructive for the future of nature finance?

As Mark Carney reminded us, the world is in flux. His vision for a more pragmatic and resilient global order echoed nature’s own playbook: strategic autonomy (patience), clarity of purpose (values), sovereignty (spacing), and cooperation (teamwork). The takeaway? The “new order” is not new, it’s simply new to those who assumed the old one worked for everyone.

For Canada, the unsaid message from Davos was clear: Nature as Infrastructure. Whether through water systems, soil health, food security, or coastal resilience, Canada’s natural assets are the silent engines of our national security and economic prosperity in an increasingly volatile world. 

This was just your 2nd time at Davos. What take-aways from this experience will stay with you and shape your identity as a nature finance changemaker?

Davos is as much a test of endurance as it is a space of ideas. Between a series of events, conversations, and treks across town, an important thread that grounded the week was that: “Nature once again was our greatest teacher and our most resilient infrastructure.”

In that context, four principles stood out as particularly instructive:

• Space: From dinners at Goals House and InTent, carefully spaced, both up and down the hill resulted in structure, breathing and grounding room amid the bustle.
• Movement: reinforced that clarity of purpose and disciplined execution (championed by The NAT and Nature’s Commercial Positioning) are essential in turbulent times.
• Patience: Our roundtable on Soil and Food Systems demonstrated that lasting solutions, like fertile soil itself, take time to take root.
• Teamwork: echoed across gatherings from the Nature Lunch to collaborative sessions,  proof that when given space, the most unlikely of allies can unite for shared purpose.

While the Global Biodiversity Framework provides the roadmap and the associated costs are well-understood, we must move beyond fragmented initiatives to integrated systems. Nature is inherently resilient; the question is whether our economic systems can evolve to match that endurance. 

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Beautifully articulated Hari! Thanks for your insights.

Nature Investment Hub and our growing network of partners like EcoAdvisors are committed to collaborating with partners to design, structure, and scale nature-positive solutions that reflect this reality and opportunity, interested in learning more about our work? Reach out to us at [email protected]