7.3 trillion dollars in public and private financial flows directly negatively impacted nature in 2023, while only 220 billion financed conservation and biodiversity restoration activities. This 33-to-1 ratio quantifies for the first time the magnitude of global financial imbalance facing the biodiversity crisis.

This unprecedented measurement revealed by the IPBES business-biodiversity report places biodiversity loss at the rank of major systemic risk for the global economy. The methodological assessment, approved by more than 150 governments in February 2026, establishes the scientific foundations for rethinking the integration of nature risks into economic and financial models.

The global economy reveals its critical dependence on nature

Between 1820 and 2022, the global economy grew from 1.18 trillion to 130.11 trillion dollars, a multiplication by 110, while natural capital per inhabitant has declined by 40% since 1992. Every business depends directly or indirectly on biodiversity and every business impacts biodiversity.

According to the World Economic Forum, more than half of global GDP, approximately 44 trillion dollars, is moderately or strongly dependent on nature and its services. This dependence concerns raw materials, climate regulation, pollination, water purification, and soil stability.

These dependencies often remain invisible because they are embedded at multiple levels of the value chain. A retailer may not directly manage agricultural land, but its profitability ultimately rests on soil health, water availability, and stability of growth conditions.

Harmful subsidies fuel large-scale destruction

In 2023, private financial flows represented 4.9 trillion dollars in direct damage to nature, to which must be added 2.4 trillion in environmentally harmful public subsidies. Subsidies that harm nature and the environment cost the world approximately 1.8 trillion dollars per year, equivalent to Canada’s entire GDP.

These subsidies massively finance fossil fuels, intensive agriculture, deforestation, and mining extraction. In 2022, fossil fuel subsidies reached 7 trillion dollars. Their elimination could reduce global CO₂ emissions by 43% and prevent up to 1.6 million premature deaths per year through improved air quality.

In 2024, forestry activities received 175 billion dollars in subsidies, while gross deforestation reached 6.37 million hectares in 2023. Subsidies to fisheries and aquaculture totaled 55 billion dollars in 2023, often financing unsustainable practices such as overfishing and illegal fishing.

National data illustrates this contradiction. Australia identified 26.3 billion dollars in subsidies harmful to biodiversity in 2022-2023, representing 1.1% of its GDP, with subsidies to fossil fuels, agriculture, and forestry classified as potentially the most harmful. France allocates 3.7 billion euros to subsidies harmful to biodiversity against 4.6 billion euros favorable to it.

Systemic risk emerges in financial analyses

Biodiversity loss now constitutes a systemic risk for the economy and financial stability, interconnected with climate change and pollution that can amplify one another. The financial sector is highly exposed, albeit indirectly, to physical biodiversity risks, and investors increasingly demand higher premiums for companies exposed to biodiversity risks.

Biodiversity shocks can compromise company value, credit quality and access, sovereign stability, while contributing to systemic financial stress. The World Bank warns that the loss of essential nature services, such as pollination, marine fisheries, and timber supply, could reduce global GDP by 2.7 trillion dollars by 2030. In the United Kingdom alone, the impact of biodiversity loss could result in a GDP decline between 6% and 12% over the same period.

At least 8 countries, along with the European Union, have analyzed the exposure of their financial institutions to biodiversity dependencies. Central banks are now exploring their role in managing financial risks related to nature, balancing immediate actions and long-term strategic planning.

Companies facing complex impact assessment

Less than 1% of public companies mention biodiversity impacts in their reports. This gap reveals the complexity of nature risk assessment. Methods for calculating biodiversity footprint vary considerably among financial institutions. Iceberg DataLab uses Mean Species Abundance (MSA), TNFD promotes Potentially Disappeared Fraction (PDF) of species, while Bloomberg calculates using the Biodiversity Integrity Index from the Museum.

Companies often lack information to address their impacts and dependencies, as well as risks and opportunities related to biodiversity. Financial markets do not yet systematically reflect physical and transition risks related to biodiversity in asset prices.

New European regulations are changing this landscape. Europe is connecting its efforts for mandatory digital traceability to biodiversity transparency requirements. 49,000 companies are subject to the new European Directive on corporate sustainability reporting.

Coordinated action becomes imperative

Companies cannot, alone, deliver the scale of change necessary to stop and reverse biodiversity loss. Collaboration and collective actions are essential to create an enabling environment. More than 420 organizations in more than 50 countries, representing 15.9 trillion dollars in assets under management, have adopted the recommendations of the Task Force on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures.

36 countries and 2 regional institutions have undertaken or completed national assessments on harmful subsidies, 12 of them using BIOFIN’s step-by-step guide. The Global Biodiversity Framework sets the objective of reducing or reforming 500 billion dollars in harmful subsidies by 2030.

Technological innovations are emerging in Africa to develop accessible nature-technology solutions. These local experiments feed into a global approach that combines regulation, innovation, and financing.

The report demonstrates that business as usual is not inevitable. With the right policies, along with appropriate financial and cultural changes, what is good for nature also corresponds to what is optimal for profitability. Biodiversity loss now constitutes a systemic risk for the global economy and businesses themselves. There is no excuse for inaction. Companies, the financial sector, and governments already have sufficient information to transform their intentions into impact.

The measurement of the 33-to-1 ratio establishes a factual foundation for rebalancing global financial flows. It reveals that the transition toward a nature-respectful economy requires a scale of change comparable to that already underway for climate, but with the additional urgency dictated by the irreversibility of many ecological damages.