Glossary

Working reference for climate, nature, NbS, and EbA terminology

Updated entries — 20 September 2026 (v2.1: five-part entry structure; seven thematic parts) · 107 entries

A living reference, updated monthly. Comments and suggestions welcome — join the discussion.

How to Use This Glossary

This Glossary is the working reference for the climate, nature, NbS, and EbA terminology that the NbS Praxis brand uses across the newsletter, the toolkits, the website, and the advisory work. It serves three purposes. First, it provides a reference for readers encountering terminology they may not know — making the brand's content accessible to a wider audience than the practitioner core. Second, it establishes the brand's authority on the terminology — a serious practitioner can write a definitive glossary of their field, and the existence of the glossary signals that the practitioner can. Third, it surfaces the brand on search engine queries for the terms themselves, which is a brand-discovery channel that compounds over time.

Each entry follows the same five-part structure: a crisp definition of the term; examples that illustrate what the term refers to and what it does not refer to; a rationale section explaining why the term matters in the brand's practice; references to authoritative institutional sources; and a related terms section pointing to two or three other entries that deepen understanding of the entry. The format is consistent across all entries so that the glossary reads as a coherent reference work rather than as a collection of disparate definitions, and the related-terms field turns the glossary from a list of entries into a network — pathways through the document that mirror the analytical connections the brand makes in its editorial work.

The entries below cover the foundational terminology used across the brand's development to date and the terms surfaced through the production pipeline since the initial May 2026 entries. The glossary grows over time as new terms enter the brand vocabulary. Terms arising in the production pipeline, the think pieces, or the toolkit content are tagged as they come up, and the consolidation pass runs monthly, on the 20th, after that month's long-form piece has landed so that its terminology is captured in the same cycle.

A note on sources. The references below name institutional sources by their canonical name and provide URLs where the URL is confirmed stable. Where a URL is uncertain or unstable, the source is named so that you can find it through the institution's website. Practitioner verification of sources before publication is recommended; the institutional documents referenced here update periodically and authoritative versions should be sourced directly from the issuing institution when the glossary is published to the public website.

Index

7 parts · 107 terms

Part One

Core Framing Terms

Terms that define the territory the NbS Praxis brand operates in. These are the foundational concepts referenced throughout every piece of brand content.

CLIMATE-AND-NATURE NEXUS

Definition. The integration of climate response (mitigation and adaptation) with biodiversity conservation and ecosystem stewardship, treated as a single domain rather than as adjacent but separate fields. The nexus framing recognizes that climate finance and nature finance are increasingly the same flow of capital, and that climate adaptation and ecosystem stewardship are increasingly the same implementation work.

Examples.

(i) What it is

integrated programming that addresses climate and biodiversity objectives through a single intervention
finance instruments that count toward both climate and nature targets
institutional architecture that operates across both domains (TNFD, GBF Fund climate co-benefits, GCF NbS programming)

(ii) What it is not

climate finance with biodiversity as an after-the-fact co-benefit
nature finance that ignores climate dimensions
sustainability framings that treat all environmental outcomes as equal without analytical structure

Rationale. The nexus is the central analytical lens of the NbS Praxis brand. It is also the territory where senior practitioner judgment is most scarce in 2026, because most practitioners operate primarily on the climate side or primarily on the nature side. Practitioners who recognize the integration ahead of their peers will be the ones who matter as the institutional architecture continues to converge over the next decade.

References.

IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report (2023) on integrated climate-and-nature pathways
IPBES-IPCC Co-Sponsored Workshop Report on Biodiversity and Climate Change (2021)
Convention on Biological Diversity Decision 15/4 (Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework)

CLIMATE CHANGE

Definition. Two authoritative definitions are in force and they do not agree. Article 1(2) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change defines climate change as a change of climate attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere, and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change defines it more broadly, as a change in the state of the climate identifiable by changes in the mean or the variability of its properties and persisting for an extended period, typically decades or longer, arising from natural internal processes, from external forcings such as solar cycles and volcanic eruptions, or from persistent anthropogenic change in atmospheric composition or land use. The treaty admits only human-caused change and assigns the rest to climate variability. The scientific definition admits both.

Examples.

(i) What it is

under either definition, a shift in the statistical properties of the climate persisting over decades, as distinct from a single season or a single event
under the IPCC definition, a change driven by volcanic forcing or solar modulation as much as by emissions
under the treaty definition, only the anthropogenic component

(ii) What it is not

weather, which is the state of the atmosphere over hours to days rather than a shift in its long-run distribution
not climate variability in the treaty’s sense, which the Convention holds separate by construction
and not, under the treaty definition, any warming an attribution study cannot tie to human alteration of atmospheric composition

Rationale. The gap between the two definitions is not academic, and it is widest exactly where the money is. A loss and damage claim, an adaptation finance case, and an attribution study each depend on whether a given harm counts as climate change, and the answer differs by definition. Under the Convention, a harm that attribution cannot connect to human alteration of the atmosphere is climate variability and falls outside the treaty’s object. Under the IPCC definition, the same harm is climate change with a natural cause. A practitioner drafting for a UNFCCC-established fund is working inside the narrower treaty definition whether or not the drafting says so. The Convention repays a second reading on a related point. Article 1(3) defines the climate system as the totality of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and geosphere and their interactions. The biosphere sits inside the treaty’s own definition of the climate system, which suggests that the institutional separation of climate work from nature work is a later artifact of how the regimes were built rather than a distinction the founding treaty drew.

References.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Article 1, paragraphs 2 and 3, in the 1992 Convention text at https://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/background_publications_htmlpdf/application/pdf/conveng.pdf, the source of the treaty definition and of the definition of the climate system
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Sixth Assessment Report, Synthesis Report, Annex I Glossary, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_Annex-I.pdf, which gives the broader scientific definition and states that the Convention distinguishes climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition from climate variability attributable to natural causes
IPCC Online Glossary, https://apps.ipcc.ch/glossary/, the harmonised set of definitions across the three Working Group contributions

BIODIVERSITY

Definition. The variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part, comprising diversity within species, between species, and of ecosystems. That is the definition Article 2 of the Convention on Biological Diversity gives for biological diversity; biodiversity is a contraction of the treaty term, not a separate concept. The definition describes variability rather than quantity — variety across genes, species, and ecosystems, not how much living matter a place holds.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the three nested levels the Convention names, being genetic variation within a species, the range and relative abundance of species in a place, and the variety of distinct ecosystem types across a landscape or seascape
the object of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
and, in its loss form, a named slow onset event under the Cancun Agreements

(ii) What it is not

a synonym for biomass, canopy cover, or carbon stock, since a monoculture plantation can raise all three while lowering biodiversity at every level
not a synonym for nature or the environment, which are broader and take in abiotic elements the Convention treats under separate terms
and not a single measurable quantity, because no one index captures variability across three levels at once

Rationale. Two things make precision here worth the space. The first is that biodiversity measures variability, not quantity, and the distinction changes project design. An afforestation scheme that raises canopy cover and carbon stock while replacing mixed native forest with one planted species produces a climate result and a biodiversity loss in the same act. A practitioner who assumes the two move together will misreport one of them. The second is that the authoritative definitions have quietly diverged. The Convention confines biodiversity to variability. The IPBES Global Assessment works from a broader formulation drawn from the platform’s own conceptual framework, adding genetic, phenotypic, phylogenetic, and functional attributes, and including changes in abundance and distribution over time and space. Abundance is not variability. Under the treaty definition, a population crash that leaves every species still present is not in itself a loss of biodiversity; under the Global Assessment definition it is. The IPBES glossary carries both formulations side by side, tagged to different assessments. Any claim of biodiversity gain or loss therefore needs to declare which definition it is measured against, and most claims do not.

References.

Convention on Biological Diversity, Article 2 (Use of Terms), https://www.cbd.int/convention/articles/?a=cbd-02, the treaty text from which the definition above is taken
IPBES, glossary entry for biodiversity, https://www.ipbes.net/glossary-tag/biodiversity, which carries four variant definitions tagged to different assessments, the broadest attributed to S. Díaz and others, “The IPBES Conceptual Framework — Connecting Nature and People,” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 14 (2015): 1–16
Decision 1/CP.16, the Cancun Agreements, footnote 3 to paragraph 25, in FCCC/CP/2010/7/Add.1, which enumerates loss of biodiversity among the slow onset events

NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS (NbS)

Definition. Actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits. NbS is the broader of the two operational framings (the other being EbA), encompassing both mitigation and adaptation dimensions of climate response.

Examples.

(i) What it is

mangrove restoration for coastal protection and carbon sequestration
urban forest expansion for heat mitigation and biodiversity habitat
wetland restoration for flood regulation and ecosystem function
peatland rehabilitation for carbon storage and water security
agroforestry for soil and food-system resilience

(ii) What it is not

pure carbon offset plantations that displace local ecosystems
engineered grey infrastructure with token green elements
species reintroductions without ecosystem context
greenwashing initiatives that claim NbS framing without meeting the IUCN Global Standard criteria

Rationale. NbS is now the standard institutional framing for ecosystem-based interventions delivering climate and biodiversity outcomes simultaneously. The IUCN Global Standard provides the most authoritative definition and the eight criteria practitioners use to distinguish substantive NbS from greenwashing. For NbS Praxis, NbS is the operational expression of the climate-and-nature nexus — the place where the integrated work is done.

References.

IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions, first edition (2020)
UNEA Resolution 5/5 on Nature-based Solutions for Supporting Sustainable Development (2022)
Cohen-Shacham et al. (2016) Nature-based Solutions to Address Global Societal Challenges, IUCN

ECOSYSTEM-BASED ADAPTATION (EbA)

Definition. The use of biodiversity and ecosystem services as part of an overall adaptation strategy to help people adapt to the adverse effects of climate change. EbA is the adaptation-specific operational framing, more narrowly scoped than NbS, and is the term used in adaptation-focused climate finance instruments and institutional architecture.

Examples.

(i) What it is

mangrove and seagrass restoration as coastal climate adaptation
watershed restoration for water security under changing precipitation patterns
agroforestry for adaptation to heat and drought stress
managed wetland systems for flood resilience under climate change

(ii) What it is not

pure carbon sequestration projects (these are mitigation, not EbA)
biodiversity conservation without explicit climate adaptation framing
engineered adaptation infrastructure (sea walls, hard barriers) with ecosystem components added for aesthetics

Rationale. EbA is the term used in the UNFCCC adaptation track, the Adaptation Fund's mandate, the Green Climate Fund's adaptation programming, National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and most bilateral adaptation programs. For NbS Praxis, EbA is the adaptation-specific operational expression of the climate-and-nature nexus, paired with NbS to cover the full mitigation-and-adaptation scope.

References.

Convention on Biological Diversity Decision X/33 on Climate Change and Biodiversity (2010)
UNEP/CMP Decision 2/CP.17 on Cancun Adaptation Framework
Andrade Pérez, Herrera Fernández and Cazzolla Gatti, eds. (2010) Building Resilience to Climate Change: Ecosystem-based Adaptation and Lessons from the Field, IUCN

ECOSYSTEM-BASED APPROACHES

Definition. The integrated management of land, water, and living resources to promote conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way — the broad umbrella, rooted in the Convention on Biological Diversity’s ecosystem approach, from which Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) is the climate-adaptation-specific subset. An ecosystem-based approach is not necessarily tied to climate change: it can serve biodiversity conservation, sustainable resource management, or several development objectives at once, with adaptation only one possible application. The relationship is one of nested scope — every EbA measure is an ecosystem-based approach, but not every ecosystem-based approach is EbA.

Examples.

(i) What it is

watershed and landscape management undertaken for conservation and sustainable use across multiple objectives
mangrove restoration whose primary goal is biodiversity conservation or fisheries productivity
protected-area and living-resource management following the CBD ecosystem approach

(ii) What it is not

a measure scoped solely to helping people adapt to climate impacts, which is the narrower Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA)
a purely engineered or grey-infrastructure solution with no ecosystem management at its core
a single-objective intervention detached from the integrated management of land, water, and living resources

Rationale. The distinction governs how a project is framed and, therefore, how it is funded. Ecosystem-based Adaptation is the term that reaches adaptation-track climate finance — the Adaptation Fund, the Green Climate Fund’s adaptation programming, and the National Adaptation Plan process — because it names an explicit adaptation objective. An ecosystem-based approach is broader and not inherently climate-specific, so the same physical intervention can be either, depending on its stated aim: mangrove restoration is EbA when the goal is reducing storm-surge risk for coastal communities, but an ecosystem-based approach when the goal is biodiversity conservation or fisheries management. For NbS Praxis, holding the two terms apart prevents a common framing error — claiming adaptation finance for work whose primary objective is not adaptation.

References.

NATURAL AND NATURE-BASED FEATURES (NNBF)

Definition. An engineering and planning term for the spectrum of flood- and coastal-risk-management measures that runs from wholly natural, unaltered ecosystems through nature-based features engineered to mimic natural forms and processes, to hybrid gray-green structures that combine engineered and ecological elements. NNBF is defined by construction method along that natural-to-engineered spectrum, which distinguishes it from Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA), a term defined by adaptation purpose rather than by how a feature is built.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a restored dune system incorporating engineered sediment traps
a living shoreline combining planted marsh grass with a submerged sill
the permeable brushwood-and-bamboo dams used at Demak, on the coast of Central Java, Indonesia, which function as a temporary engineered scaffold enabling natural mangrove recolonization

(ii) What it is not

a synonym for Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA is the adaptation-purposed subset of nature-based solutions under CBD guidance; NNBF is a broader, purpose-neutral construction-method spectrum that includes features with no adaptation intent)
a synonym for green infrastructure generally (NNBF is specific to flood and coastal risk management, not the wider urban green-infrastructure vocabulary)
a claim that hybrid construction always outperforms full engineering or full restoration (which point on the gradient a site can bear is set by its space, budget, wave energy, and risk horizon)

Rationale. NNBF supplies the coastal-and-flood-risk field with a shared engineering vocabulary for the hybrid, gray-green middle of the gradient that the brand's Coastal Protection long-form (draft, July 2026) treats as frequently the enabling scaffold for a fully green endpoint rather than its alternative. Distinguishing NNBF from EbA matters in practice because the two terms are often used loosely as synonyms: EbA is the purpose-defined subset used in the UNFCCC adaptation architecture, while NNBF is the construction-method spectrum used in engineering guidance, and it is the engineering guidance that will eventually set the technical standard a coastal-defense budget line must satisfy before finance can flow to it as a nature-based asset.

References.

T. S. Bridges, J. K. King, J. D. Simm, M. W. Beck, and others, eds., International Guidelines on Natural and Nature-Based Features for Flood Risk Management (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineering With Nature Initiative, 2021)
World Bank and Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, Implementing Nature-Based Flood Protection: Principles and Implementation Guidance (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017)

BLUE CARBON

Definition. The carbon captured and stored by coastal and marine ecosystems — principally mangroves, seagrasses, salt marshes, and tidal wetlands — in both biomass and (predominantly) sediment. Blue carbon ecosystems sequester carbon at rates that can substantially exceed terrestrial forests on a per-area basis, with the bulk of long-term storage residing in the soil rather than the standing vegetation, which is why permanence and protection from drainage or disturbance are the defining considerations rather than tree biomass.

Examples.

(i) What it is

mangrove restoration projects credited for sediment-stored carbon over multi-decade horizons
seagrass meadow protection programs structured around blue-carbon credits
salt marsh conservation linked to coastal-defense and carbon-sink co-objectives
a project crediting under Verra's VM0033 Methodology for Tidal Wetland and Seagrass Restoration, version 2.1, active since 4 September 2023, which Verra introduced in its version 2.0 as the replacement for the Clean Development Mechanism methodologies AR-AM0014 and AR-AMS0003

(ii) What it is not

open-ocean carbon storage (which is a distinct domain governed by different science and policy)
offshore aquaculture biomass (which does not constitute long-term sediment carbon)
coral reef carbon (corals are net calcifiers and not generally counted in blue-carbon accounting)

Rationale. Blue carbon has become the primary asset class around which integrated climate-and-nature financial instruments are converging, particularly in ASEAN where mangroves anchor pipelines such as the Mangrove Breakthrough and the ASEAN-UK Green Transition Fund. The credibility of blue-carbon credits hinges on permanence — soil carbon stored over centuries can be released within months by drainage or conversion — which makes blue carbon simultaneously the leading edge of integrated finance and the leading edge of the verification problem the publication addresses.

References.

Macreadie et al. (2021) The future of Blue Carbon science, Nature Communications
IUCN Blue Carbon Initiative resources
Mengis, Paul and Fernández-Méndez (2023) on baseline and permanence challenges in blue-carbon accounting, PLOS Climate. Verra, VM0033 Methodology for Tidal Wetland and Seagrass Restoration, v2.1
Verra, Verra Replaces CDM AR-AM0014 and AR-AMS0003 Methodologies with VM0033 Methodology for Tidal Wetland and Seagrass Restoration, v2.0 (10 June 2022)
Verified 20 September 2026. A claim circulating in secondary material, that Verra folded the tidal wetland modules of VM0007 into VM0033 in a 2023 revision, is not supported: the version 2.1 revision of September 2023 made two clarifications only, the alignment with VM0007 was made in version 2.0 of 2021 as an incorporation of changes, and VM0007 still carries its tidal wetland modules at version 1.8

PERMANENCE (in carbon accounting and NbS finance)

Definition. The durability over time of the climate benefit claimed by a project — specifically, how long sequestered carbon remains stored, and how long an avoided emission remains avoided, given the risks of reversal from biophysical, social, or economic causes. Permanence is the binding constraint on the credibility of nature-based carbon credits because nature-based carbon stores are recoverable rather than fixed: a peatland can be re-drained, a mangrove cleared, a forest burned.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a century-scale durability requirement attached to a blue-carbon project
an insurance or buffer-pool arrangement designed to absorb reversal events
protection-over-restoration logic that prioritizes keeping existing carbon stores intact rather than rebuilding lost ones

(ii) What it is not

a binary property (permanence is risk-graded, not absolute)
a problem solved by monitoring alone (monitoring detects reversal but does not prevent it)
a barrier specific to nature-based credits (engineered carbon-removal credits face their own permanence questions, though the failure modes differ)

Rationale. Permanence is the single concept that most cleanly separates a bankable NbS project from a stranded one. The publication's editorial position is that permanence, not yield, distinguishes bankable from speculative — and that the highest-leverage NbS work increasingly sits in protection (where permanence is highest) rather than restoration (where permanence must be proven from scratch). The 85% permanence-risk figure for Southeast Asian mangroves (No. 2 endnote 9) is the defining empirical anchor for this framing in the brand voice.

References.

Communications Earth and Environment (2025) on permanence risks affecting Southeast Asian mangroves
University of Utah net-cooling roadmap for nature-based climate solutions (additionality, leakage, century-scale durability)
IPCC AR6 WGIII Chapter 7 on land-sector mitigation
Verra and Gold Standard methodology updates on buffer pools

CODIFICATION LAYER

Definition. The institutional and regulatory arena in which the rules governing climate-and-nature finance are written — including taxonomies, definitions of what qualifies as an integrated NbS project, eligibility criteria for finance instruments, Article 6 cooperation frameworks, and the metrics and standards through which projects are scored. The codification layer is analytically distinct from the project layer (where individual interventions are designed and financed) and from the capital layer (where instruments and flows are mobilized).

Examples.

(i) What it is

the EU LIFE 2026 calls that define what counts as a multi-benefit project for European funding
the Article 6 cooperation rules being developed at UNFCCC for cross-border carbon transfers
the Paris NbS International Congress standards-setting around evidence and monitoring
the ASEAN Taxonomy's treatment of ecosystem protection

(ii) What it is not

a single body or process (codification happens across many overlapping forums and frameworks)
a one-time exercise (rules iterate as evidence and politics evolve)
a substitute for project preparation (codification sets the eligibility envelope; project preparation determines whether a specific intervention fits inside it)

Rationale. The codification layer is the central analytical concept of the forthcoming long-form on governance, and the framing emerged across the brand voice during the buildup to the publication launch. The strategic claim is that during a phase mismatch — where institutional language consolidates faster than capital moves — the highest-leverage practitioner position is inside the codification layer rather than chasing slow-moving pipelines. Practitioners who participate in rule-writing now define the architecture that the next decade's capital must move through.

References.

Forthcoming NbS Praxis monthly long-form, “The Codification Lead” (August 2026); link to follow on publication
EU LIFE Programme 2026 work programme
UNFCCC Article 6 negotiation documents
IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions (2020 and updates)

INTEGRATED PRIMARY OUTCOMES

Definition. The analytical framing that distinguishes the principal climate-and-biodiversity outcomes a single intervention is designed to deliver (climate mitigation, climate adaptation, biodiversity conservation) from the additional outcomes (socio-economic and environmental co-benefits) that the same intervention generates. The framing is analytically essential because the institutional finance architecture is structured around primary outcomes; co-benefits strengthen the case for finance but do not by themselves qualify a project for finance.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a mangrove restoration project framed as delivering climate adaptation (coastal protection), climate mitigation (carbon sequestration), and biodiversity conservation as primary outcomes, with livelihoods, fisheries productivity, and water security as substantial co-benefits

(ii) What it is not

treating every outcome of an intervention as equal (a generic sustainability framing that provides no analytical structure for project preparation)
claiming co-benefits as primary outcomes to inflate the apparent value of an intervention

Rationale. The distinction between primary outcomes and co-benefits is what distinguishes serious practitioner thinking about NbS and EbA from generic sustainability framing. Practitioners who maintain this distinction can navigate the institutional finance architecture (where projects are scored against primary outcomes against specific instruments); practitioners who collapse the distinction cannot.

References.

Green Climate Fund Initial Investment Framework and Updated Investment Criteria (2014, updated 2022)
IPCC AR6 Working Group III chapters on integrated assessment of mitigation pathways

CLIMATE OVERSHOOT

Definition. The condition in which global mean surface temperature temporarily exceeds a defined warming limit — most often the 1.5°C threshold of the Paris Agreement — before being brought back down later in the century through deep emissions cuts and large-scale carbon dioxide removal. An overshoot is temporary by definition: the warming peak is passed and then reversed, rather than settling permanently above the limit.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a modeled pathway in which warming peaks around 1.6 to 1.7°C near mid-century and returns to 1.5°C by 2100 on the strength of net-negative emissions
the framing the UN Secretary-General used around World Environment Day 2026 when conceding that a temporary breach of 1.5°C had become almost inevitable

(ii) What it is not

a permanent abandonment of the 1.5°C goal, nor a license to defer mitigation, since every increment and every year of overshoot raises the risk of irreversible impacts such as ice-sheet loss and ecosystem tipping points

Rationale. Overshoot reframes the role of nature-based removals for the brand: in an overshoot world the durability and verifiability of biological carbon storage become load-bearing assumptions for the entire temperature trajectory, not optional co-benefits. It connects directly to the editorial insistence on permanence as the binding constraint, because removals that reverse during the overshoot period do not deliver the temperature reversal the pathway assumes.

References.

IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR1.5, 2018)
IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group I (2021) and Synthesis Report (2023) on overshoot pathways and carbon dioxide removal
United Nations statements around World Environment Day 2026 (as reported in NbS Praxis Newsletter Issue No. 2, June 2026)

NATURE-POSITIVE

Definition. A societal goal, framed by analogy with net zero for climate, of halting and reversing the loss of nature so that there is more nature in the world by 2030 than in 2020, with full recovery by 2050. The term names both a direction of travel for the global economy and an emerging standard against which corporate and financial commitments are increasingly assessed.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a corporate or national commitment expressed against a measurable 2020 baseline of ecosystem extent and integrity
the high-level ambition that the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework operationalizes through its 2030 targets and 2050 goals
the organizing concept behind the Nature Positive Initiative's work to standardize metrics

(ii) What it is not

a synonym for sustainable or green, and not a claim that can be made credibly without a baseline, a measurement method, and attention to the same additionality and permanence tests that discipline carbon claims

Rationale. Nature-positive is becoming the headline vocabulary of nature finance, and the brand's editorial position is that the term is only as good as the measurement behind it — which makes it a natural companion to the measurement-failure framing. Naming it here lets the brand use the term while signaling the provenance discipline that separates a decision-grade nature-positive claim from a marketing one.

References.

Locke et al. (2021) A Nature-Positive World: The Global Goal for Nature
Nature Positive Initiative (
CBD COP15 Decision 15/4, Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022)

NATURAL CAPITAL ACCOUNTING (NCA)

Definition. Natural capital accounting is the practice of measuring the stocks of natural assets — ecosystems and the species, water, soils, and carbon they hold — and the flows of services those assets provide to the economy, and recording them in a structured set of accounts that can be read alongside conventional economic statistics. The internationally agreed standard is the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting—Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA), which organizes data on the extent and condition of ecosystems and on the ecosystem services they supply, and links that information to measures of economic and human activity.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a national set of ecosystem extent and condition accounts compiled by a statistical office to SEEA EA rules
a corporate or portfolio assessment of dependencies and impacts on nature that draws on the same stock-and-flow logic
the natural-capital accounts that make an ecosystem legible to a treasury or an investor as an asset with a measurable condition rather than an undifferentiated externality

(ii) What it is not

a single market price for nature, a carbon-credit methodology, or a disclosure framework — natural capital accounting supplies the underlying measurement layer that disclosure regimes such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and labeled finance instruments then draw upon

Rationale. Natural capital accounting is the base-layer rail that the brand’s reporting has repeatedly identified as the precondition for nature finance: an ecosystem cannot be underwritten, insured, or priced as a resilience asset until its stock and condition are measured in a way a balance sheet can read. The concept matters in practice because the credibility of every downstream claim — contribution, offset, nature-positive, or resilience — ultimately rests on whether the accounts beneath it are sound, which is why measurement failure recurs as the field’s central risk.

References.

United Nations and partner agencies, System of Environmental-Economic Accounting—Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA), adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission at its 52nd session, March 2021 (
United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting—Central Framework (SEEA-CF, 2012), the first international statistical standard for environmental-economic accounts

IPSAS 51 (TANGIBLE NATURAL RESOURCES HELD FOR CONSERVATION)

Definition. A public-sector accounting standard, issued by the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board on 22 January 2026 and effective for reporting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2028 (with earlier application permitted), that sets recognition, measurement, and disclosure requirements for tangible natural resources a government or public entity holds for conservation purposes. IPSAS 51 is a financial-reporting standard rather than a statistical framework: it determines when and how a conserved natural resource enters a government's own financial statements as a recognized asset, a step distinct from, and downstream of, the statistical accounts that natural capital accounting produces.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the standard a national or subnational government applies to decide whether, and at what value, a protected mangrove forest, a marine reserve, or a conserved wetland appears as a tangible asset on its balance sheet
a rule that narrows, but does not close, the long-standing gap between recognizing nature's value in principle and recording it on a government's own books
a standard confined to natural resources held specifically for conservation, not a general revaluation of all public natural assets

(ii) What it is not

a market price or a tradable claim on the resource
a substitute for the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting–Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA), which supplies the underlying statistical measurement of ecosystem extent, condition, and services that a government's financial statements can then draw upon
a mechanism that by itself creates a payer or a budget line for stewardship, since recognition on a balance sheet does not by itself appropriate funds

Rationale. IPSAS 51 matters to NbS Praxis because it closes one half of the “booking nature” problem the practice has tracked since natural capital accounting entered the Glossary: a government can now, in principle, carry a conserved coastline or protected watershed as a recognized asset in its own financial statements, which is a precondition for the resource to be planned, appraised, and managed with the same fiscal discipline as built infrastructure. It does not by itself create the payer, budget appropriation, or legal mechanism that turns a recognized asset into funded stewardship, which is why the Coastal Protection long-form treats it as a narrowing of the reporting gap rather than a resolution of the financing gap.

References.

International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board, IPSAS 51, Tangible Natural Resources Held for Conservation (issued 22 January 2026; effective for periods beginning on or after 1 January 2028, with earlier application permitted)
United Nations, System of Environmental-Economic Accounting—Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA), adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission, March 2021

KUNMING-MONTREAL GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY FRAMEWORK (KMGBF)

Definition. The global biodiversity agreement adopted by the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity at the fifteenth Conference of the Parties in Montreal, Canada, in December 2022, setting four long-term goals to 2050 and twenty-three action targets to 2030 to halt and reverse the loss of nature. Its best-known component, Target 3, commits governments to conserve at least 30% of terrestrial, inland-water, coastal, and marine areas by 2030 — the target widely known as 30x30 — while Target 15 asks large businesses and financial institutions to assess and disclose their biodiversity-related risks, dependencies, and impacts, and Target 19 addresses mobilizing at least USD 200 billion per year for biodiversity from all sources.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the policy backbone against which national biodiversity commitments, corporate nature disclosure, and biodiversity-finance instruments are now benchmarked, and the source of both the 30x30 conservation target and the treaty mandate that connects business disclosure to a global goal

(ii) What it is not

a binding treaty with enforcement machinery — the framework is agreed under the Convention but delivered through national implementation, principally national biodiversity strategies and action plans, rather than through direct legal obligation
nor is it a financing facility, a role played by its associated Global Biodiversity Framework Fund

Rationale. The framework gives the nature half of the climate-and-nature nexus its measurable goals, in the way the Paris Agreement anchors the climate half. It matters to a practitioner because funders increasingly ask projects to state their contribution to specific Kunming-Montreal targets, because Target 15 is the treaty hook that TNFD-style disclosure operationalizes, and because Target 3 shapes which conservation areas attract finance. The framework converts a general aspiration to protect nature into a numbered set of targets that a concept note can cite and a monitoring framework can track.

References.

Convention on Biological Diversity, Decision 15/4, Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (Montreal, 19 December 2022)
CBD Secretariat, final text and target pages
United Nations Environment Programme overview of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022)

SOIL ORGANIC CARBON (SOC)

Definition. The carbon held in soil organic matter, the fraction of soil made up of decomposing plant and animal residues, living microbial biomass, and the stabilized products of microbial decay. Soil organic carbon is reported as a stock over a stated depth, conventionally 0 to 30 centimeters, and expressed in tonnes of carbon per hectare, with change over time reported as an annual accrual or loss rate. The unit convention matters more than it appears: a tonne of soil organic carbon is not a tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent, and the two differ by the ratio of their molecular weights, roughly a factor of 3.7.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the measured change in a soil carbon stock following a change in grazing, cropping, or restoration practice
the 0 to 30 centimeter stock estimates published in the Food and Agriculture Organization's Global Soil Organic Carbon Map
the credited abatement generated under a soil carbon crediting method

(ii) What it is not

soil inorganic carbon held as carbonate minerals, which is governed by different processes and is not the object of soil carbon crediting
carbon held in standing biomass above ground
and a carbon dioxide equivalent figure, which soil organic carbon becomes only after conversion

Rationale. Soil organic carbon is where measurement uncertainty and financial exposure meet most directly in the land sector, because the stock is spatially variable, the annual signal is small relative to the sampling error, and the crediting decision rests on a modeled interpolation between sampling points. Australia's Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee, reviewing the 2021 soil organic carbon method in 2026, sampled project reports and found an average undiscounted accrual of 7.4 tonnes of soil organic carbon per hectare per year, with some reports above 20 tonnes, levels the peer-reviewed literature does not support, and recommended withholding units for accruals above 3 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year for projects on a 25-year permanence period. The practitioner lesson is that a soil carbon revenue line should be modeled against a plausible conservatism ceiling from the outset, and that any figure quoted in a financial model should carry its unit explicitly.

References.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Global Soil Partnership, definition of soil organic carbon and the Global Soil Organic Carbon Map (GSOCmap), 0 to 30 centimeter stocks
Food and Agriculture Organization, Global Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration Potential Map (GSOCseq) technical manual
Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, consultation on the Australian Carbon Credit Unit scheme's Soil Organic Carbon 2021 method, opened 28 July 2026
NbS Praxis, Weekly Briefing No. 10, "When the Method Becomes the Risk," 1 August 2026. The Australian accrual figures are drawn from the committee's review as reported in the consultation material and in trade press coverage of it, and should be checked against the committee's own review document before quotation

OTHER EFFECTIVE AREA-BASED CONSERVATION MEASURE (OECM)

Definition. A geographically defined area other than a protected area that is governed and managed in ways achieving positive and sustained long-term outcomes for the in-situ conservation of biodiversity, with associated ecosystem functions and services and, where applicable, cultural, spiritual, socio-economic, and other locally relevant values. The parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted the definition in Decision 14/8 of November 2018, which also set out the criteria for identification. An area qualifies on the conservation outcome it sustains rather than on the intention behind its management, so conservation may be the primary objective, a secondary objective, or the ancillary result of management undertaken for another purpose.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a watershed protection forest managed by a utility whose management sustains biodiversity as a by-product of securing water supply
a locally managed marine area governed under customary tenure
a restricted-access area whose governance sustains habitat without conservation being its founding purpose

(ii) What it is not

a protected area, which is designated with conservation as its primary objective and is reported in a separate category
and not a status satisfied by intention, since the measure must deliver and sustain the outcome and must be governed and managed, which excludes land that is merely undisturbed. Nor is recognition a financing instrument, since designation places an area on a national reporting return and attaches no money to it

Rationale. The measure is the second of the two accounting categories through which Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the 30% commitment widely known as 30x30, is met and reported, and the split between the two categories is where national progress is now read. Canada's 2026 reporting shows the arithmetic: 13.8% of terrestrial area and 15.5% of marine territory recorded as conserved, of which protected areas account for 12.8% and 11.4% respectively, the balance falling to other effective area-based conservation measures. The category also enters project design directly. Blue Action Fund's mangrove call closing in October 2026 requires the establishment or improved management of a protected area or an other effective area-based conservation measure against Convention and International Union for Conservation of Nature criteria, alongside a credible pathway to high-integrity carbon credits, which places the term in the same document as an Article 6 authorization and a carbon-crediting standard. For a practitioner the measure is the route by which land already delivering conservation outcomes under another management purpose can be counted, which matters most where new protected-area designation waits on a legislative or cabinet step no proponent can compel.

References.

Convention on Biological Diversity, Decision 14/8, Protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, adopted at the fourteenth Conference of the Parties, Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, 30 November 2018, whose Annex III carries the definition and the criteria for identification
International Union for Conservation of Nature, World Commission on Protected Areas, Recognising and Reporting Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (2019)
Ramsar Convention Scientific and Technical Review Panel, briefing note on other effective area-based conservation measures, https://www.ramsar.org/sites/default/files/2025-05/STRP_BN14_OECM_EN.pdf. The Canadian percentages above are Canada's own national indicator figures for end-2024, read here through NbS Praxis Weekly Briefing No. 12 (15 August 2026) rather than from the Canadian indicator page directly. The Blue Action Fund call parameters are as described in the NbS Praxis August 2026 long-form
the call document itself should be consulted before use in a client deliverable

LAND DEGRADATION NEUTRALITY (LDN)

Definition. A state whereby the amount and quality of land resources necessary to support ecosystem functions and services and enhance food security remain stable or increase within specified temporal and spatial scales. The parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification endorsed that definition in decision 3/COP.12, adopted at Ankara, Türkiye, in 2015. Progress is monitored through three sub-indicators — land cover, land productivity, and carbon stocks — which are the same three used for Sustainable Development Goal indicator 15.3.1 on the proportion of land that is degraded, and which are combined under a one-out, all-out rule: a significant negative change in any one of the three counts the area as degraded.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a national target voluntarily set under the Convention's target-setting programme, against which a country reports the balance of degradation avoided, reduced, and reversed
a restoration program designed so that gains in one landscape counterbalance losses in another within the same reporting period

(ii) What it is not

a prohibition on degradation, since neutrality is a balance rather than a floor, and losses are permitted where matched by equivalent gains
and not a measure of ecological condition on its own, since the one-out, all-out rule flags degradation without describing what recovered land is worth ecologically. Nor is the target binding: the Convention obliges no party to set one

Rationale. Land degradation neutrality is the third leg of the multilateral nature architecture alongside the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the Paris Agreement, and it is the one a nature-based practitioner is least likely to have to hand. The concept matters commercially because it supplies a reporting frame that restoration finance is increasingly asked to satisfy: the International Union for Conservation of Nature's restoration ledger, launched at the Convention's seventeenth Conference of the Parties in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, in August 2026, synthesizes national reporting against pledges made under this target alongside those made under the biodiversity framework and nationally determined contributions. The counterbalancing logic also carries a design warning worth stating to a client. A neutrality target can be met while a specific ecosystem is lost, because the accounting is territorial rather than site-specific, which is precisely the substitution that ecological equivalence arguments in biodiversity offsetting have struggled with for two decades.

References.

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, decision 3/COP.12, Ankara, Türkiye (2015), endorsing the definition of land degradation neutrality
UNCCD Science-Policy Interface, Scientific Conceptual Framework for Land Degradation Neutrality, which underpins the concept and sets out the counterbalancing logic
UNCCD, Good Practice Guidance for Sustainable Development Goal Indicator 15.3.1, Proportion of Land That Is Degraded Over Total Land Area, version 2, which sets out the three sub-indicators and the one-out, all-out rule
UNCCD Land Degradation Neutrality Target Setting Programme technical guide
International Union for Conservation of Nature, Global Restoration Achievements Database report, launched at UNCCD COP17, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 21 August 2026, as reported in NbS Praxis Weekly Briefing No. 13 (22 August 2026)

PEATLAND REWETTING

Definition. The restoration of a drained peatland's water table toward its natural level, principally by blocking or backfilling drainage canals and, where canals alone are insufficient, by pumping from deep wells, so that the exposed peat is re-saturated. Rewetting is the first of the three activities in the sequence Indonesia's peatland program termed rewetting, revegetation, and revitalization, and its purpose is to stop the oxidation and combustion of drained peat rather than to re-establish vegetation.

Examples.

(i) What it is

canal blocking across a drained peat dome to raise the water table
deep wells that both wet dry peat and supply water for firefighting

(ii) What it is not

revegetation, which follows and depends on it
and not a permanent state achieved at construction. Rewetting infrastructure is a maintenance liability rather than a completed asset, and a blocked canal that has failed has stopped delivering the benefit while the hectare remains counted as restored

Rationale. Peatland rewetting is the clearest available case of an intervention whose benefit is real, quantified, and conditional, which makes it a useful test of how a practitioner should write a claim. A matched comparison published in Geophysical Research Letters in 2026 found that rewetting under Indonesia's peatland restoration program cut fire hotspots by roughly 22% across some 3,920 square kilometers in the strong El Niño year of 2019, with deep wells outperforming canal blocking, and found no comparable effect in the low-fire year of 2023. The honest reading is that the intervention works when tested and is invisible when untested, so a benefit claim should be conditioned on the fire year rather than averaged across one. The second lesson is institutional. Civil-society field sampling in 2023 found a majority of inspected canal blocks damaged, and Indonesia's dedicated restoration agency was wound up at the end of 2024 with its functions distributed across three ministries, so the maintenance obligation that carries the benefit has no single owner. An area-based indicator records hectares rewetted and sees none of this, which is why permanence for peat is a governance question before it is a hydrological one.

References.

Salmayenti et al., “Tropical Peatland Restoration Reduces Fire Occurrence,” Geophysical Research Letters (2026), https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GL121564, reporting the matched comparison of restored and unrestored peatland in Sumatra and Kalimantan, the relative performance of deep wells against canal blocking, and the contrast between the 2019 El Niño year and the low-fire year of 2023
NbS Praxis, Weekly Briefing No. 13, “The Ledger Arrives Before the Money,” week to 22 August 2026, which reports the study alongside the 2023 field sampling of canal-block condition by Pantau Gambut and the dissolution of Indonesia's peatland restoration agency, formalized in April 2025. The canal-block figure is a sample rather than a census and should be cited as such

↑ Back to index

Part Two

Climate-and-Nature Finance Institutions

Institutional actors whose names appear repeatedly in the brand voice and the production pipeline. The descriptions focus on the institution's role in the climate-and-nature finance architecture rather than on the institution's full history or mandate.

GREEN CLIMATE FUND (GCF)

Definition. The largest dedicated multilateral climate fund, established under the UNFCCC in 2010 and operational since 2015. The GCF supports developing countries in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change, with a Board-agreed aim of a 50:50 balance between mitigation and adaptation over time, in grant-equivalent terms, and a floor of 50% of the adaptation allocation for particularly vulnerable countries, including least developed countries (LDCs), small island developing States (SIDS), and African States.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a multilateral fund accredited entities (national, regional, and international) submit projects to for funding
the institution behind the Concept Note, Funding Proposal, Readiness Programme, and Project Preparation Facility instruments
an increasingly active funder of NbS and EbA projects through its programming and accredited entity network

(ii) What it is not

a bilateral donor
a project implementation agency (the GCF funds projects implemented by accredited entities and their executing partners)
a research or technical assistance organization in its primary function

Rationale. The GCF is the primary institutional architecture the NbS Praxis toolkit business serves. The GCF Concept Note Toolkit, GCF Readiness Toolkit, and GCF Project Preparation Facility Toolkit are designed for buyers preparing projects to submit to the GCF or to support National Designated Authorities and accredited entities through GCF programming processes.

References.

Green Climate Fund Governing Instrument (2011)
GCF Strategic Plan 2024-2027
Green Climate Fund website (

GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT FACILITY (GEF)

Definition. A multilateral fund established in 1991 that finances projects in biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, chemicals and waste, and forest management. The GEF operates through implementing agencies (multilateral development banks, UN agencies) and is structured around four-year replenishment cycles with thematic focal areas.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the longest-established multilateral environmental fund, with a substantial portfolio in biodiversity finance through the GEF Trust Fund's Biodiversity Focal Area
the operating entity of the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBF Fund) established in 2023
a funder of integrated projects at the climate-and-nature nexus through its multi-focal-area programming

(ii) What it is not

a single-issue fund
a fund that supports adaptation specifically (the Least Developed Countries Fund and Special Climate Change Fund are the GEF-administered adaptation funds, distinct from the main GEF Trust Fund)

Rationale. The GEF is the second major institutional architecture the NbS Praxis toolkit catalog will extend into (after GCF). The GEF's biodiversity-and-climate integration programming under recent GEF cycles makes it a natural fit for nexus-focused toolkit products in 2027-2028.

References.

Global Environment Facility website (
GEF-8 Programming Directions (2022)
Global Biodiversity Framework Fund Implementation Document (2024)

ADAPTATION FUND

Definition. A multilateral fund established under the Kyoto Protocol and now serving the Paris Agreement, dedicated specifically to adaptation finance. The Adaptation Fund pioneered direct access modalities (allowing national implementing entities to access funds without going through multilateral intermediaries) and has a strong portfolio in ecosystem-based adaptation.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the most adaptation-focused of the major multilateral climate funds
a key funder of EbA projects globally
an institution with explicit direct access provisions that make it accessible to national implementing entities in developing countries
the Nature-based Climate Adaptation Programme for the Urban Areas of Penang Island, Malaysia, a USD 10 million grant approved on 23 February 2022 with UN-Habitat as implementing entity and the Penang City Council, the Department of Irrigation and Drainage, Think City and the responsible federal ministry as executing entities, a precedent for ecosystem-based adaptation finance reaching an ASEAN middle-income country through an accredited intermediary

(ii) What it is not

a mitigation fund (Adaptation Fund finance does not count toward mitigation targets)
a large fund relative to GCF or GEF (the Adaptation Fund operates at smaller scale but with stronger direct access)

Rationale. The Adaptation Fund is the third major institutional architecture the NbS Praxis toolkit catalog will extend into. The Adaptation Fund's strong EbA portfolio and direct access modalities make it a particularly important institution for toolkits supporting national implementing entities in developing countries.

References.

GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY FRAMEWORK FUND (GBF FUND)

Definition. A multilateral fund established in 2023 under the Global Environment Facility to support implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The GBF Fund is the principal financing instrument for the GBF and is structured to mobilize finance from public, private, and philanthropic sources for biodiversity conservation, sustainable use, and benefit-sharing.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the operational financing arm for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework
a fund with explicit recognition of climate co-benefits in its programming
a relatively new institution (operationalized 2024) whose architecture is still developing

(ii) What it is not

a climate fund (although it recognizes climate co-benefits, its primary outcomes are biodiversity)
a substitute for the GEF Trust Fund's Biodiversity Focal Area (the two operate complementarily)
a fully matured institution with a long track record

Rationale. The GBF Fund is the institutional architecture most directly relevant to nature finance work and to future nature-finance toolkit products. Its early-stage status creates both opportunity (practitioners can shape the institutional language) and risk (institutional language and instruments may evolve significantly in the next 24-36 months).

References.

Global Biodiversity Framework Fund Implementation Document (2024)
CBD COP15 Decision 15/4 (Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework)
GEF Council documents on GBF Fund operationalization

Definition. A market-led, science-based initiative that published its final framework in September 2023 for organizations to report and act on evolving nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities. The TNFD framework parallels the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and is increasingly being adopted by major financial institutions and corporates. The framework is structured around the LEAP approach (Locate, Evaluate, Assess, Prepare) and is being absorbed into mandatory disclosure regimes in several jurisdictions.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the leading disclosure framework for nature-related financial considerations
a market-led initiative with strong institutional backing (UNEP FI, WWF, Global Canopy, UNDP)
the principal mechanism through which nature is being integrated into mainstream corporate and financial reporting

(ii) What it is not

a regulatory mandate by itself (TNFD adoption is voluntary, though jurisdictions are increasingly making it mandatory)
a project finance framework (TNFD is about disclosure and risk management, not project preparation)
a substitute for biodiversity-specific accounting frameworks

Rationale. TNFD is the principal architecture moving nature-related risk from voluntary corporate disclosure to mainstream balance-sheet pricing — the structural shift the publication has tracked across both newsletter issues. The publication's editorial position is that TNFD-aligned disclosure is the route by which "ecosystem dependency" is internalized into asset valuation, ending the era of "free" environmental extraction. The framework is also the operational reference for the data-stack logic in nature-finance investor guidance.

References.

TNFD website (
TNFD Recommendations final framework (September 2023)
UNEP FI Banking on Nature reports
NatureFinance with UNEP-WCMC, Climate-Nature Nexus Investor Guide (2022 and updates)

UNEP FINANCE INITIATIVE (UNEP FI)

Definition. A partnership between the United Nations Environment Programme and the global financial sector to mobilize private finance for sustainable development. UNEP FI convenes banks, insurers, and investors around frameworks for integrating environmental, social, and governance considerations into financial decision-making, and is the principal UN convening body on nature-finance for the financial sector.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a global membership organization of financial institutions committed to sustainable finance principles
the secretariat for the Principles for Responsible Banking, the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, and the Principles for Sustainable Insurance
a primary publisher of analytical work on nature-related risk for financial institutions, including the 2023 figure of approximately USD 102 billion in "nature-badged" private finance that has become the headline reference figure

(ii) What it is not

a regulator (UNEP FI sets frameworks and convenes members; regulators set rules)
a project finance vehicle (UNEP FI does not finance projects directly)
a unified position-taker (member institutions retain independent strategies under shared principles)

Rationale. UNEP FI is the source of one of the two competing measurement frames the publication has tracked: the “nature-badged” tally of approximately USD 102 billion in private finance for 2023, which sweeps in every nature-labelled instrument from biodiversity ETFs to debt swaps. Set against UNEP's own State of Finance for Nature 2026 figure of approximately USD 23 billion in private NbS finance on a narrower boundary, the gap between the two UN-affiliated sources is at least fourfold — and, because the narrower figure is measured three years later, wider still if private nature finance grew over the interval. That gap is the empirical anchor of the No. 2 measurement-failure thesis.

References.

UNEP FI website (
UNEP FI, "Private finance for nature surges to over $102 billion" (December 2023)
UNEP State of Finance for Nature 2026 (April 2026)

INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY STANDARDS BOARD (ISSB)

Definition. The standard-setting board established by the IFRS Foundation in 2021 to develop a global baseline of sustainability-related financial disclosure standards for capital markets. Its first two standards, IFRS S1 on general sustainability-related disclosures and IFRS S2 on climate-related disclosures, were issued in June 2023 and drew together the earlier work of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures and the SASB standards. In 2026 the board agreed to develop nature-related disclosure requirements in the form of an IFRS Practice Statement sitting alongside IFRS S1 and S2, with an exposure draft targeted for October 2026.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the body whose standards define how companies report climate and, prospectively, nature-related risks and opportunities to investors, and the financial-reporting counterpart to the nature-focused TNFD, on whose recommendations the board is drawing

(ii) What it is not

a nature-specific framework — the board's remit is investor-focused financial materiality across sustainability topics, and its nature work is being built as guidance on applying the existing standards rather than as a standalone biodiversity standard
nor is it a regulator, since whether the standards apply depends on adoption by each jurisdiction

Rationale. The board matters to the nexus because it is the channel through which nature-related disclosure is most likely to become mandatory and comparable across markets, turning the voluntary TNFD architecture into an enforceable reporting baseline. For a practitioner structuring an integrated climate-and-nature claim, the board's standards increasingly determine what counts as a defensible, investor-grade disclosure, and its 2026 move on nature signals that the measurement discipline long demanded of carbon is extending to biodiversity.

References.

IFRS Foundation, IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information and IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures (June 2023)
IFRS Foundation, ISSB agreement on the way forward for nature-related disclosures (2026)
IFRS Foundation work plan, Biodiversity, Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services

TROPICAL FORESTS FOREVER FACILITY (TFFF)

Definition. A Brazil-initiated blended-finance facility that pays tropical forest countries an annual amount for each hectare of standing tropical forest they maintain, with deductions applied for deforestation and for fire-related degradation, funded from the investment return on a capitalized fund rather than from the sale of carbon credits. Sovereign sponsor capital is intended to sit in a first-loss position beneath a much larger pool raised from institutional investors, and a fixed share of payments is earmarked for Indigenous peoples and local communities. The facility styles itself the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, in the singular, on its own site, although the plural form is in wide circulation and appears on some of its own pages.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a results-linked conservation payment facility whose unit of account is the hectare of forest still standing, capitalized as an endowment and designed to pay indefinitely rather than over a project term

(ii) What it is not

a carbon crediting mechanism. Payments under the facility are not carbon credits, generate no tradable units, support no offset claim, and require no corresponding adjustment under the Paris Agreement. Nor is it a fund at its target size: announced sponsor pledges, signed contributions, and deployable capital are three different figures, and the gap between them has been the facility's central open question since its launch

Rationale. The facility is the clearest live test of whether large-scale conservation payments can be financed from an investment return rather than from a market for offsets, which is the structural alternative the NbS Praxis editorial line has tracked since the offset-to-contribution shift. For practitioners the facility matters in two ways. It is a potential source of predictable, non-credit revenue for forest countries, which changes what a national forest program can be built on; and it is a case study in the distance between a pledge announced at a conference and capital a ministry can spend, which is the discipline this publication applies to every finance headline.

References.

Tropical Forest Forever Facility, https://tfff.earth/, including the facility's statement that COP30 closed with more than USD 6.7 billion in announced contributions (Belém, Brazil, November 2025), https://tfff.earth/cop30-ends-with-over-us-6-7-billion-for-the-tfff/, its statement of April 16, 2026 counting USD 6.5 billion announced from five major investor countries, with an interim sponsor-tranche target of USD 10 billion in 2026, USD 25 billion over the coming years, and a full capitalization goal of USD 125 billion including the senior tranche, https://tfff.earth/tropical-forest-forever-facility-demonstrates-rapid-progress-at-imf-world-bank-spring-meetings/, and its statement of June 5, 2026 that the Tropical Forest Investment Fund will be incorporated and hosted in Luxembourg and that a minimum of 20% of forest payments is directed to Indigenous Peoples and local communities
COP30 Presidency, description of the facility's financing model
World Resources Institute, commentary on the facility's design and funding prospects, https://www.wri.org/insights/financing-nature-conservation-tropical-forest-forever-facility. The World Bank acts as trustee and interim host of the facility's secretariat, and the facility is being constituted within the World Bank as a Financial Intermediary Fund. Tropical Forest Forever Facility, Frequently Asked Questions, last updated 23 June 2026, https://tfff.earth/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/TFFF-FAQs-June-23-2026.pdf, which states approximately USD 6.8 billion in announced sovereign sponsor capital and 67 endorsing countries
a USD 125 billion fund combining sovereign and philanthropic capital with private investment
an indicative payment objective of up to USD 4 per hectare of eligible forest, discounted for forest loss and for degradation assessed initially through fire damage as a proxy
a mandatory minimum of 20% of Forest Payments allocated to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities
the Tropical Forest Investment Fund to be established as an independent legal entity in Luxembourg
and a Secretariat hosted by the World Bank for an incubation period of up to three years
Re-verified against that document on 20 August 2026. The design parameters above are primary-sourced
the facility's own announced-contributions count has moved between statements, from more than USD 6.7 billion at the close of COP30 to USD 6.5 billion in April 2026 and approximately USD 6.8 billion in June 2026, which is the pattern this entry's caution describes. The distinction between announced pledges, budgeted commitments, and deployable capital remains unresolved on the public record — the facility itself describes 2026 as a transitional year in which sponsors move from pledges to budget commitments — so any figure used in a client document should be re-verified against the facility's current published position at the date of use
Re-verified 20 September 2026. Two figures have moved since the June 2026 Frequently Asked Questions and are not the same measure. The facility's About page, which carries no date and was retrieved on 20 September 2026, states approximately USD 7.3 billion in pledged contributions from Norway, Germany, Brazil, Indonesia, France, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, the Minderoo Foundation and The Nature Conservancy, a figure that mixes sovereign and philanthropic capital, against the USD 6.8 billion of announced sovereign sponsor capital in the Frequently Asked Questions of 23 June 2026
and the same page states the political endorsement of 66 countries and the European Union against the 67 countries the Frequently Asked Questions record, https://tfff.earth/about-tfff/. The principal movement since June is the United Kingdom's announcement of 3 September 2026 of an intention to invest GBP 400 million through a loan, expressly subject to the finalisation of the facility's governance and operational arrangements, to completion of due diligence and to its conditions being met
no United States dollar equivalent is given by any official source. The facility's interim Board adopted the TFFF Facility Charter on 22 July 2026, announced 3 September 2026, and the same announcement records that a contribution agreement between Germany and the World Bank as trustee was concluded on 15 August 2026, releasing EUR 20 million to finance initial administrative costs, https://tfff.earth/tfff-closes-first-semester-of-2026-with-adoption-of-facility-charter/ and https://tfff.earth/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/2026-07-17-TFFF-Facility-Charter.pdf. The USD 125 billion total goal, the indicative payment of up to USD 4 per hectare, the minimum 20% of forest payments to Indigenous Peoples and local communities, the incorporation of the Tropical Forest Investment Fund in Luxembourg and the World Bank's roles as trustee and interim secretariat host were re-verified against the June 2026 Frequently Asked Questions and are unchanged. The distinction between announced pledges, budgeted commitments and deployable capital remains unresolved on the public record, so the entry's standing caution is retained

GLOBAL EbA FUND

Definition. A grant facility that funds catalytic and innovative initiatives creating the enabling environment for ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) rather than field implementation. The Fund describes itself as implemented by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which acts as its secretariat, with funding from the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. Grants are awarded through periodic calls. The 8th call, launched 24 August 2026, offers a total of USD 7.5 million through a small-size window of up to USD 250,000 per grant, with a submission window of 28 September to 26 October 2026, and a medium-size window of up to USD 500,000, with a submission window of 12 October to 16 November 2026, both for projects of up to 24 months. The small-size call places its primary geographic focus on ODA-eligible small island developing States and least developed countries. Figures and windows are as at 20 September 2026, when neither window had yet opened.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a grant to a non-governmental organization to build investment-ready EbA concepts and financing strategies for a larger fund
a project strengthening institutional capacity, evidence generation, or learning networks for EbA
a consortium including government partners that receive none of the money

(ii) What it is not

a fund for stand-alone field implementation, since the Fund states that projects should not be comprised exclusively of field implementation
a source of grants to governments, since IKI policy means the Fund will not grant directly to government partners and sub-granting to governments at any level is not permitted
a financier of for-profit activity, of individuals, of seed-grant programs, or of a second phase of a project the Fund has already financed
a window open to UNEP and IUCN offices, which are not currently eligible to apply

Rationale. The Fund is the one dedicated adaptation grant window whose call names investment readiness and project pipeline preparation as an encouraged topic and whose guidance states that projects should not be standalone interventions but should address a gap in existing work or knowledge, contribute to policy upscaling, enhance the impact of an investment, or serve to develop a larger proposal to another funding mechanism. That places it in the gap between a project idea and the accredited-entity pipelines of the Green Climate Fund and the Adaptation Fund. Its published evaluation weights, identical across both windows, reward a proposal written as adaptation rather than as carbon: the project approach and EbA criterion carries 40%, and innovative and catalytic contribution, sustainability, and institutional arrangements and budget carry 20% each, with design and methodology and gender and social inclusion listed as sub-criteria of the first without separate weights. Calls have not been annual; the 8th call opened in August 2026 after seven earlier rounds, so a missed window can cost a year or more.

References.

Global EbA Fund, About the Global EbA Fund
Global EbA Fund, 8th Call for Proposals for Small-Size Grants, https://globalebafund.org/small-size-grants/, and Medium-size Grants Call for Proposals, https://globalebafund.org/medium-size-grants/, both pages updated 9 September 2026 and carrying the grant ceilings, submission windows, evaluation weights and eligibility exclusions cited above
Global EbA Fund, The Global EbA Fund announces USD 7.5 million in grants for ecosystem-based adaptation (24 August 2026)
International Climate Initiative, project page, Global EbA Fund — Support for the Implementation and Upscaling of Ecosystem-based Adaptation, recording IKI funding of EUR 48,000,000 over 12/2019 to 06/2028 and seven calls for proposals before the current one, latest update September 2026
All verified 20 September 2026

MANGROVE BREAKTHROUGH

Definition. A global initiative established at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November 2022 as part of the Sharm el-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda, convened with the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions and the Global Mangrove Alliance, whose stated goal is to mobilize USD 4 billion to secure the future of 15 million hectares of mangroves by 2030. The Breakthrough is a coalition and a financial architecture rather than a fund. Its Financial Roadmap, prepared by Systemiq with the Climate Champions and the Global Mangrove Alliance and published around COP28 in November and December 2023, sets out the instruments and enabling conditions for mobilizing the USD 4 billion, and at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025 the initiative introduced a Mangrove Catalytic Facility, described as its engine for investment readiness with a USD 80 million fundraising target, and announced a mapping and monitoring platform built with Restor.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a government endorsement of the 2030 targets, which reached 50 national, state and municipal governments on 17 September 2026 and had reached 48 on 15 January 2026, when Indonesia, host to about 23% of the world's mangroves on the Breakthrough's account, became the 48th
a mangrove-positive investment tracked toward the USD 4 billion goal
a project registered on the Breakthrough's platform to reach capital

(ii) What it is not

a grant window or a fund with an application process of its own
a carbon standard or a source of credits
a capitalized facility, since the Mangrove Catalytic Facility carries a fundraising target rather than committed money
a substitute for the site-level payer that a protection benefit needs before it becomes revenue

Rationale. The Financial Roadmap's central finding structures how a mangrove portfolio should sequence its finance. Of the estimated USD 4 billion needed by 2030, around a third, USD 1.2 billion, could come from commercial sources, with philanthropic, development and public finance delivering the rest, so grant and concessional capital carry an outsized role in the early years to de-risk what commercial capital later joins. That is the logic of a grant-funded preparation phase followed by a blended implementation phase. Two cautions belong with any figure drawn from the initiative. Its tracked investment figures are self-reported by the coalition rather than audited disbursements, and they count mangrove-positive investments broadly rather than money that reached a restoration site: the initiative reports more than USD 750 million mobilized across more than 40 operations above USD 1 million since 2020, a figure that should be attributed to its own tracking. And the initiative's website carries undated counters and unreplaced template statistics that contradict its dated releases, so a practitioner should cite the dated press releases and never the site's running totals.

References.

↑ Back to index

Part Three

Project Preparation Terms

Terms specific to the project preparation work that the NbS Praxis toolkit business is built around. These terms appear in the toolkit products, in advisory engagements, and in the brand's content addressing the institutional architecture of climate-and-nature project finance.

NATIONAL DESIGNATED AUTHORITY (NDA)

Definition. The government institution designated by each developing country as its primary point of contact for the Green Climate Fund. The NDA is responsible for nominating accredited entities, endorsing project concept notes and funding proposals, and ensuring alignment between GCF programming and national climate strategies (NDCs and NAPs).

Examples.

(i) What it is

a single designated government institution per country (typically housed in the ministry of environment, finance, or planning)
the institutional gatekeeper for GCF programming in-country
a focal point engaging with both accredited entities (on specific projects) and the broader climate finance community (on country programming strategy)

(ii) What it is not

the implementing agency for GCF projects (that role is played by accredited entities and their executing partners)
a multi-purpose climate policy body (the NDA's mandate is specifically GCF-focused)

Rationale. NDA officers are a primary audience for NbS Praxis content and toolkits. The GCF Readiness Programme Toolkit is partly oriented toward NDAs and toward consultancies working with NDAs on readiness proposals. NDA endorsement is a mandatory step in GCF Concept Note submission, which makes the NDA-AE relationship a central operational consideration in toolkit content.

References.

Green Climate Fund website on National Designated Authorities (
GCF Country Ownership Guidelines

ACCREDITED ENTITY (AE)

Definition. An institution accredited by the Green Climate Fund to develop and implement GCF-funded projects. Accreditation is granted through a structured process assessing the entity's fiduciary standards, environmental and social safeguards, and gender policy. AEs can be national (direct access), regional, or international, and operate at different scales of project size based on their accreditation level.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the institution that submits GCF concept notes and funding proposals on behalf of project ideas it has developed or that have been brought to it
the implementing institution for approved GCF projects (typically through executing entities)
the institution that bears fiduciary and safeguards responsibility for GCF-funded work

(ii) What it is not

the project beneficiary (AEs are intermediary institutions)
a guaranteed funder (accreditation enables access to GCF finance but does not guarantee project approval)
a perpetual status (accreditation must be renewed and can be suspended for non-compliance)

Rationale. Aspiring AEs and existing AEs are both primary audiences for the NbS Praxis toolkit business. The GCF Concept Note Toolkit, GCF Readiness Toolkit, and GCF Project Preparation Facility Toolkit all serve AE and aspiring-AE buyers.

References.

Green Climate Fund Accreditation Framework (current edition)
GCF website on Accredited Entities (

CONCEPT NOTE (CN)

Definition. The initial project document submitted to the Green Climate Fund by an accredited entity. The Concept Note presents the project's rationale, objectives, expected outcomes, finance structure, and alignment with GCF investment criteria. The CN is the GCF's first-stage filter; only projects whose CNs are approved by the GCF Secretariat proceed to the full Funding Proposal stage.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a structured document (currently template V.3.1) of approximately 20-30 pages
the project's first formal articulation against GCF requirements
the document that establishes the project's analytical foundation (theory of change, climate rationale, finance structure) for subsequent development

(ii) What it is not

a full project proposal
a guarantee of funding
a one-time exercise (CNs typically undergo multiple iterations between AE and GCF Secretariat)

Rationale. The Concept Note is the central artifact of the GCF Concept Note Toolkit and is the most-prepared GCF document in the practitioner community. The shift from CN template V.2.2 to V.3.1 (the central insight of the toolkit's analytical foundation) is the most consequential recent change in GCF concept note preparation discipline.

References.

Green Climate Fund, concept note submission and screening in the GCF project cycle
GCF has withdrawn its earlier public concept-note template and guidance (the Concept Note User's Guide and the Programming Manual) as it moves to a digital project-cycle system, and the current template and detailed submission guidance are now accessed by Accredited Entities and National Designated Authorities through GCF's own project-cycle systems

THEORY OF CHANGE (ToC)

Definition. An analytical framework that articulates the causal chain between project activities, outputs, outcomes, and long-term impact, alongside the assumptions that connect each step and the risks that threaten the chain. In climate-and-nature finance, the Theory of Change is the structural foundation of project design and is increasingly required by GCF, GEF, Adaptation Fund, and other multilateral funders.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a structured logical framework distinguishing activities, outputs, outcomes, impact, assumptions, and risks
the analytical foundation that connects project design to results-based monitoring
the basis on which project performance is assessed against funder expectations

(ii) What it is not

a logical framework matrix alone (the ToC is the underlying analytical logic; the logframe is one of several ways to present it)
a fixed document
a marketing narrative (rigorous ToCs are testable rather than aspirational)

Rationale. The Theory of Change is the natural starting point for climate-and-nature project design and is the analytical spine that the GCF Concept Note Toolkit is built around. Senior practitioners consistently observe that weak ToCs are the most common cause of weak concept notes; strong ToCs are necessary but not sufficient for strong concept notes.

References.

Vogel (2012) Review of the use of 'Theory of Change' in international development, UK Department for International Development
OECD-DAC Network on Development Evaluation publications on theory-based evaluation

MEASUREMENT, REPORTING, AND VERIFICATION (MRV)

Definition. The integrated system of methodologies, data collection, reporting protocols, and independent verification by which a project demonstrates that its climate or nature outcomes are real, measurable, and attributable. MRV is the operational machinery through which the assurance question is answered for a specific project, and is the precondition for credit issuance, results-based payment, and credible disclosure.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a project-level monitoring plan with baselines, methodologies, frequency, and assigned responsibilities
periodic reporting to a registry or funder against agreed indicators
independent third-party verification, typically by an accredited validation/verification body

(ii) What it is not

monitoring alone (monitoring captures data; MRV requires the data to be reported and independently verified)
a guarantee of outcome
a substitute for project design

Rationale. MRV is the operational expression of the assurance argument that runs across the publication's central editorial line. The No. 1 issue's central claim — that the binding constraint has shifted from legitimacy to assurance — is in practice a claim that MRV capacity, not headline finance, is the scarce resource. For NbS specifically, MRV faces distinctive challenges around blue-carbon soil dynamics, baseline drift, leakage across landscape scales, and permanence over century horizons, which is why NbS MRV is itself a frontier area of methodology development.

References.

UNFCCC technical guidance on MRV (Article 13 of the Paris Agreement)
Verra VCS Standard and methodologies
Gold Standard for the Global Goals
ICVCM Core Carbon Principles assessment framework
CDP, GRI, and TNFD disclosure protocols

ADDITIONALITY

Definition. The principle that a project should result in a climate or nature outcome that would not have occurred in its absence — that the intervention is additional to the business-as-usual baseline. Additionality is one of the foundational tests for carbon and biodiversity credits, alongside permanence and the absence of leakage, and is among the most contested concepts in offset-and-contribution methodology.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a project that protects a forest under demonstrable threat of clearing, where the protection would not have occurred without the project's intervention
a restoration project on degraded land where restoration would not have happened without the project's finance
a methodology test typically combining financial, regulatory, common-practice, and barrier analyses

(ii) What it is not

the same as monitoring outcomes (additionality is about counterfactuals, not realized outcomes)
a settled methodology
a one-time test (additionality assumptions can require revalidation as baselines shift)

Rationale. Additionality sits at the heart of the offset-to-contribution shift that the No. 2 issue identified as one of the four structural shifts in nature finance. The University of Utah net-cooling roadmap tightens the additionality screw alongside leakage, permanence, and biophysical accounting, with the cumulative effect of moving the defensible corporate claim from "we offset" to "we contributed." For practitioners, additionality discipline is the most common point of failure in concept-note review and is increasingly subject to ex-post evaluation.

References.

Verra VCS Methodology Assessment Team guidance on additionality
CDM Methodology Panel additionality tools (legacy)
Cames et al. (2016) How additional is the Clean Development Mechanism?, Öko-Institut for European Commission
ICVCM Core Carbon Principles assessment framework

Definition. The principle, established in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and incorporated into multilateral finance safeguards, that Indigenous Peoples have the right to give or withhold consent to any project or decision that affects their lands, territories, or other resources, on the basis of full information and without coercion. FPIC is operationally distinct from consultation; consent is required, not merely sought.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a structured process by which project proponents engage with Indigenous communities before project design, share complete information about project impacts and benefits, and obtain documented consent before proceeding
a mandatory safeguard standard for GCF, World Bank, IFC, and most multilateral funders
an ongoing requirement that can be withdrawn if circumstances change

(ii) What it is not

consultation alone (consultation is one input; consent is the threshold)
a one-time approval at project start (FPIC is a continuing relationship, not a transaction)
a substitute for tenure clarity

Rationale. FPIC has become a defining test of the credibility of blue-carbon and forest-carbon projects in contested tenure settings, particularly in Southeast Asia. The publication's editorial position is that the assurance question for NbS includes social safeguards as a non-severable component — a project that fails FPIC fails on assurance regardless of its biophysical performance. The coastal long-form (target July 2026) will treat FPIC as a central operational variable in the green-grey integration thesis.

References.

UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), Articles 10, 19, 28, 29, 32
ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples
FAO Free, Prior and Informed Consent Manual (2016)
GCF Indigenous Peoples Policy
IFC Performance Standard 7 on Indigenous Peoples
ICVCM Core Carbon Principles on safeguards and social integrity

LEAKAGE (in carbon accounting and NbS)

Definition. The displacement of the emissions or ecosystem damage that a project was designed to prevent, such that the activity simply moves outside the project boundary rather than being avoided. Leakage is the reason a project's gross local benefit can overstate its true net contribution to the atmosphere or to biodiversity.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a forest-protection project that halts logging inside its boundary while the same demand for timber drives clearing in an adjacent unprotected area (activity-shifting leakage)
a mangrove-conservation scheme that pushes aquaculture conversion to a neighboring coastline (market leakage)

(ii) What it is not

a measurement error or a reversal of stored carbon — those are accounting and permanence problems respectively
leakage is specifically about emissions or damage relocating rather than disappearing

Rationale. Leakage sits alongside additionality and permanence as one of the three integrity tests that separate a credible NbS credit from a stranded one, and it featured directly in the No. 2 issue's treatment of the net-cooling roadmap, where honest accounting for leakage is part of why the only defensible corporate claim becomes contributed rather than offset. A glossary that already defines additionality and permanence is incomplete without it.

References.

IPCC 2006 Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories and IPCC AR6 (2021) on accounting boundaries
Verra Verified Carbon Standard methodologies and leakage requirements
Gold Standard for the Global Goals guidance on leakage

ARTICLE 6 (PARIS AGREEMENT COOPERATIVE APPROACHES)

Definition. The provision of the Paris Agreement that allows countries to cooperate in meeting their nationally determined contributions through the international transfer of mitigation outcomes. It comprises a bilateral market-based mechanism (Article 6.2, using internationally transferred mitigation outcomes), a centralized crediting mechanism (Article 6.4, the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism), and a framework for non-market approaches (Article 6.8).

Examples.

(i) What it is

a host country authorizing the transfer of mitigation outcomes from a project — potentially an NbS or EbA project — into another country's NDC accounting, subject to corresponding adjustments that prevent double counting
the rulebook finalized at COP26 in Glasgow (2021) and elaborated at later COPs

(ii) What it is not

a voluntary carbon market, although the two interact
Article 6 governs transfers between sovereign parties and the integrity rules that attach to them, whereas voluntary markets operate under private standards

Rationale. Article 6 is a central piece of the codification layer the brand tracks, because it determines whether and how nature-based mitigation can cross borders without being counted twice — the kind of definitional plumbing that decides which projects are bankable. It links the project-preparation work to the international accounting architecture that increasingly conditions finance.

References.

Paris Agreement, Article 6 (2015)
UNFCCC decisions on Article 6.2 and 6.4 adopted at COP26 (Glasgow, 2021) and refined at COP27 (2022) and COP28 (2023)
UNFCCC Article 6 information portal (

VALIDATION AND VERIFICATION BODY (VVB)

Definition. A validation and verification body is the accredited, independent third party that checks a climate or environmental project against its standard. Validation assesses, before implementation, whether the project's design and baseline are sound; verification confirms, after implementation, that the reductions or removals the project projected were realized. The VVB is the assurance institution that stands between a project's self-reported numbers and the registry, funder, or market that relies on them, and its accreditation is what allows a buyer to treat a credit or a result as independently checked rather than self-asserted.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a firm accredited to validate and verify projects under Verra's Verified Carbon Standard or the Gold Standard
a body accredited against ISO 14065 to verify a greenhouse-gas statement
the entity whose validation and verification fees, distinct from the registry's own program fees, a project proponent negotiates and pays per cycle

(ii) What it is not

the standard or registry itself, which sets the rules but does not perform the field audit
the project's internal monitoring team
an accreditation body, which accredits VVBs but does not itself verify projects. The VVB performs the audit
others write the rules or accredit the auditor

Rationale. The validation and verification body is where the cost structure of measurement, reporting, and verification becomes a barrier to entry. The Medellin long-form shows that VVB fees are largely fixed per cycle and therefore fall hardest on the smallest projects, excluding community-scale reforestation from the carbon market before it begins. Understanding the VVB as a discrete, separately priced actor, rather than folding it into a vague notion of verification, is what lets a practitioner see why cheap, automated, per-credit measurement could change the economics of small projects and where the assurance bottleneck sits.

References.

ISO 14065:2020, General principles and requirements for bodies validating and verifying environmental information (a sector application of ISO/IEC 17029:2019)
ISO 14064-3:2019 on the verification and validation of greenhouse-gas statements
Verra, Verified Carbon Standard Program Guide and Program Fee Schedule v1.0 (2024)
American National Standards Institute National Accreditation Board (ANAB), greenhouse-gas validation and verification accreditation program

REDD+ (REDUCING EMISSIONS FROM DEFORESTATION AND FOREST DEGRADATION)

Definition. A results-based framework under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change through which developing countries can receive payments for verified reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions from avoided deforestation and forest degradation, together with the activities denoted by the plus sign — conservation of forest carbon stocks, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. Its rules were consolidated in the Warsaw Framework for REDD+ adopted at the nineteenth Conference of the Parties in 2013, and the mechanism is anchored in Article 5 of the Paris Agreement.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a national- or jurisdictional-scale, pay-for-performance mechanism requiring a forest reference emission level, a national forest-monitoring system, safeguards, and independent verification before results-based payments are made, and the framework under which national instruments such as Vietnam's 2026 forest-carbon decree recognize eligible activities including avoided deforestation, afforestation and assisted natural regeneration, forest restoration, and improved forest management

(ii) What it is not

a project-by-project offset scheme in its UNFCCC form — although voluntary-market forest-carbon projects exist and use the REDD label, the UNFCCC construct is designed around national accounting precisely to control leakage
nor is it a guarantee of finance, since payment follows demonstrated, verified emission reductions

Rationale. REDD+ is the longest-standing large-scale mechanism for paying to keep carbon in living ecosystems, and its two-decade record is where the field learned that permanence, additionality, leakage, benefit-sharing, and free, prior, and informed consent are the binding constraints on ecosystem-carbon finance, not the science of sequestration. For a practitioner it is both a live source of results-based finance and a cautionary archive: the credibility problems that now recur across blue-carbon and other nature-based crediting were first diagnosed in REDD+.

References.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, What is REDD+ and the Warsaw Framework for REDD+ (Decisions 9/CP.19 to 15/CP.19, 2013)
Paris Agreement, Article 5 (2015)
UN-REDD Programme (UNDP, UNEP, and FAO) technical guidance

Definition. The arrangements that determine how the monetary and non-monetary benefits generated by a nature-based or forest-carbon program — carbon revenue, but also employment, secure land tenure, infrastructure, and capacity — are distributed among the state, project developers, and the local communities and Indigenous peoples whose stewardship produces the result. In the REDD+ context, a benefit-sharing plan setting out beneficiaries, benefit types, and distribution rules is a standard readiness requirement that must be designed through consultation and disclosed before results-based payments flow.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a negotiated plan specifying who receives what share of carbon revenue and on what terms, developed through stakeholder consultation, as required by the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility for its emission-reduction programs

(ii) What it is not

the same concept as the Nagoya Protocol's access and benefit-sharing, which governs the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources and is a distinct legal instrument
nor is it satisfied by a revenue-allocation rule alone — a decree that routes funds through a national fund sets payment mechanics but is not, by itself, a full benefit-sharing regime, which also requires tenure safeguards, grievance mechanisms, and free, prior, and informed consent

Rationale. Benefit-sharing is the mechanism that determines whether an NbS project's finance reaches the people who hold and protect the asset, and it is therefore the hinge on which both the equity and the durability of a project turn, since arrangements perceived as unfair predict the community disengagement that undermines permanence. For a practitioner assessing a national carbon framework, whether it fixes benefit-sharing — not merely revenue allocation — before transactions scale is a first-order test of the framework's credibility.

References.

World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, REDD+ Benefit Sharing and the FCPF Methodological Framework
UN-REDD Programme guidance on benefit-sharing
UNFCCC Cancun safeguards (Decision 1/CP.16, Appendix I, 2010). To be distinguished from the Convention on Biological Diversity's Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing (2010)

DIGITAL MEASUREMENT, REPORTING, AND VERIFICATION (dMRV)

Definition. The use of remote sensing, in-situ sensors, connected devices, cloud computing, machine learning, and distributed ledgers within a measurement, reporting, and verification system in order to automate, fully or in part, the collection, recording, and processing of the data on which reporting and verification depend. Digital measurement, reporting, and verification changes how the evidence behind a claim is gathered and moved; it does not change what the claim must satisfy.

Examples.

(i) What it is

satellite-based forest carbon monitoring that replaces periodic field campaigns with continuous observation
soil and water sensors streaming directly into a project database
a registry that ingests monitoring data in machine-readable form rather than as a submitted report

(ii) What it is not

automated issuance, and not a substitute for independent verification by an accredited validation and verification body. Nor does digitization convert a modeled estimate into a measured one. A machine-learning model applied to imagery produces a modeled result at higher frequency and lower cost, and the uncertainty attached to that result remains a property of the model

Rationale. The cost and cadence of measurement, reporting, and verification determine which projects can carry an assurance obligation at all, and small nature-based projects have historically been priced out of credible monitoring. Digital approaches are the main route by which that constraint could ease, which is why standard-setters have moved from pilots to methodology development. The practitioner caution is that automating the measurement layer does not touch the layer above it. Whether a method is conservative, whether the baseline is defensible, and whether the community holds rights and evidence are judgments that no sensor network settles.

References.

Verra, Methodology for Digital MRV Forest Carbon Crediting
Verra stakeholder update of 29 July 2026 announcing next-generation registry infrastructure alongside digital measurement, reporting, and verification testing and durability pilots
World Bank, Digital Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification Systems and Their Application in Future Carbon Markets, technical report, Washington, DC, May 31, 2022, http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37622, the primary World Bank document on the subject, which makes the case for digital systems, styled D-MRV by the World Bank, to underpin carbon markets under the Paris Agreement, reviews the available technologies and the barriers to their adoption, and collects guidelines, tools, and case studies across forestry and land-use, rural energy, and waste-to-energy applications. That later note is now pinned: Carbon Markets Infrastructure Working Group, convened by the World Bank, Technical Guidance Note on Standardizing Digital MRV in Carbon Markets: System Evaluation Criteria and Hotspots Assessment, published 6 June 2025, one of five guidance notes prepared by the working group, which sets out evaluation criteria for assessing system performance, identifies the workflow areas where digitization adds value, and is addressed to standard-setting bodies, validation and verification bodies, governments, and digital solution providers, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/397c4e52-445a-4cf4-89df-f2e61373a524. Verified 20 August 2026
the caveat carried in the 4 August 2026 edition is resolved

CONSERVATIVENESS (in crediting methodologies)

Definition. The principle that where a crediting methodology faces uncertainty in quantifying an outcome, the uncertainty should be resolved in the direction that understates the credited result, so that the units issued are more likely to be backed by a real outcome than to overstate one. Conservativeness is implemented through discount factors, baselines set below business as usual, ceilings on creditable rates, buffer withholdings, and stratification and sampling requirements that penalize thin evidence.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the requirement, in Australia's statutory integrity standards, that a crediting method be conservative
the downward adjustment of baselines and the tighter quantification applied under the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism relative to its Clean Development Mechanism predecessor
a methodology that caps a creditable accrual rate at the low end of the range the literature supports

(ii) What it is not

a general preference for smaller or slower projects, and not a finding that the underlying science is wrong. A method can rest on sound science and still fail a conservativeness test if its quantification rules allow uncertainty to run in the project's favor

Rationale. Conservativeness is the integrity standard most likely to be failed by a method already in service, because a method is written before the population of projects using it exists, and only the reported results reveal whether its quantification rules were tight enough. Australia's review of its 2021 soil carbon method illustrates the pattern precisely: the method met five of the six statutory integrity standards and failed only the conservative test, and the consequence was a recommended withholding rather than a cancellation. For a practitioner, conservativeness is therefore a financial parameter as much as a technical one, and the question to ask before commitment is not whether a method is approved but how much room its quantification rules leave for a later tightening.

References.

Australian Government, Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011, section 133, which sets out the six Offsets Integrity Standards that a crediting method must satisfy
Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee, Information Paper on the Offsets Integrity Standards
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, guidance under Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement requiring conservative reference levels and baselines set below business-as-usual projections, taking account of uncertainty and potential leakage
Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism (Article 6.4) methodology requirements

REVERSAL AND BUFFER POOL (in carbon crediting)

Definition. A reversal is the loss of carbon that a project has already been credited for storing, whether through fire, pest outbreak, drought, illegal clearing, or the abandonment of the practice that produced the storage. A buffer pool is the standing reserve of non-tradable units withheld at issuance from the projects in a crediting program, held collectively, and cancelled in the quantity needed to compensate when a reversal occurs at any participating project. The buffer contribution is set by an assessed risk score rather than by a flat rate, so a project's risk profile is priced directly into the units it may sell.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a project's buffer contribution determined under a non-permanence risk tool covering agriculture, forestry, and other land use
the cancellation of pooled units following a project fire
a monitoring obligation that continues for decades after the last credit is issued

(ii) What it is not

an insurance contract that pays cash, since the pool compensates in units and only within the program that holds it
and not a guarantee that the pool is adequately capitalized, since the adequacy of a given buffer percentage against systemic climate-driven loss is an open question rather than a settled one

Rationale. The buffer pool is where permanence stops being a principle and becomes a number on the issuance schedule, which is why it belongs in a financial model rather than only in a technical annex. A higher risk rating withholds a larger share of units at issuance, delaying revenue for a project that is otherwise sound. Vocabulary is also shifting here, and the shift is worth tracking: durability increasingly appears where permanence once stood, carrying an explicit monitoring-and-compensation obligation rather than an implied promise of forever. Reversal risk should not be confused with methodology risk. A reversal is a physical loss at the site; a methodology change alters the accounting while the site is unchanged.

References.

Verra, Tool for AFOLU Non-Permanence Risk Analysis and Buffer Determination
Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, Core Carbon Principles and Assessment Framework, https://icvcm.org/core-carbon-principles/, whose permanence principle requires that reductions or removals be either scientifically permanent or covered by mechanisms adequate to manage and compensate reversals
Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, follow-up work program to refine permanence requirements, https://icvcm.org/integrity-council-launches-follow-up-work-program-to-refine-permanence-requirements/. Both parameters are now confirmed against the primary text and the caveat carried in the 4 August 2026 edition is resolved. The Core Carbon Principles Assessment Framework, Section 4, Version 1.1, requires at criterion 9.3 that a carbon-crediting program impose, for categories at high risk of reversal, a monitoring and compensation period of at least forty years from the start of the first crediting period or to at least the end of the crediting period, whichever is later, and that cessation of monitoring and verification be treated as an avoidable reversal
and requires at criterion 9.4 that the program implement a pooled buffer reserve in which the proportion of credits placed is either at least twenty percent of the total credits issued to contributing mitigation activities or, alternatively, proportional to the reversal risk of the activity over the full monitoring and compensation period and to the risk that proponents do not compensate for avoidable reversals, https://icvcm.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/CCP-Section-4-V1.1-FINAL-15May24.pdf. The twenty percent figure is therefore one limb of an either-or rather than a floor applying to every program, which is the precision the widely quoted version of the figure loses. Criterion 9.5 sets the separate jurisdictional REDD+ case, where the contribution must be proportional to reversal risk and adequate to compensate for a minimum of forty years from the start of the first crediting period. Verified 20 August 2026. These parameters remain under active refinement: the Integrity Council's second permanence work program, launched 18 February 2026, is exploring options including extension of the forty-year period, and the Council published a CCP Rule Architecture with Annexes in August 2026 governing how the rule base is interpreted and maintained over time

CORE CARBON PRINCIPLES (CCP)

Definition. The ten fundamental principles published by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, together with the Assessment Framework that operationalizes them, defining a common quality threshold for carbon credits across governance, emissions impact, and sustainable development. The label is awarded through a two-stage process: a carbon-crediting program is first assessed as CCP-Eligible, and the methodologies generating the credits are separately assessed as CCP-Approved, so a credit carries the label only where both the program and the methodology have passed.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the benchmark a funder invokes when a call requires a credible pathway to high-integrity credits under a standard aligned with the principles
a methodology approval extending the label to a new project type, as the Governing Board's decision of 10 August 2026 approving the Agroforestry methodology, version 1.0, applied under Isometric, records
the Governing Board's decision of 30 April 2026, announced on 11 May 2026, approving the Mangrove Restoration Protocol, version 1.0, applied under Isometric, which Isometric describes as the first blue carbon protocol approved to issue credits carrying the label, and in respect of which the Integrity Council relays Isometric's account of three signed projects with the potential to issue up to 2 million carbon removal credits by 2030

(ii) What it is not

an assessment of individual projects, since the Council assesses programs and methodologies and not the projects that use them
not an issuance, a transaction, or a price, since an approval is an integrity designation and nothing is credited by it
and not a regulatory instrument, since the principles bind through market adoption rather than through law, although several governments and regulators have aligned their own frameworks with them

Rationale. The principles are the closest the voluntary market has come to a common quality floor, and their practical effect sits upstream of any transaction: the approval status of a method determines whether a project can produce a labeled credit at all, and therefore which buyers are reachable and at what price. The Council's criteria are also where several parameters a financial model must carry are set, among them the minimum monitoring and compensation period and the buffer-reserve contribution required for categories at high risk of reversal. Those parameters are under active refinement, which makes the approval status of a method a live diligence question rather than a settled fact, and which places the Council squarely inside the codification layer this practice tracks.

References.

Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, Core Carbon Principles, https://icvcm.org/core-carbon-principles/, and the Core Carbon Principles Assessment Framework and Procedure, published in six parts
Integrity Council, Fact Sheet on the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, which sets out the two-tick process by which programs are assessed as CCP-Eligible and methodologies as CCP-Approved
Integrity Council, CCP Rule Architecture with Annexes, August 2026, https://icvcm.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/CCP-Rule-Architecture-with-Annexes-August-2026.pdf, which sets out how the Council interprets, applies, and maintains the rule base over time. The August 2026 agroforestry approval is now primary-sourced: Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, assessment decision, Agroforestry version 1.0 applied under Isometric, date of Board decision 10 August 2026, https://icvcm.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/M50W_ISM_Agroforestry_v1.0_2026.pdf, with the accompanying Board Observations at https://icvcm.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Board-Observations_ARR_V_ISM_Agroforestry_v1.0.pdf, and the Council's assessment status table, last updated 12 August 2026, https://icvcm.org/assessment-status/. The caveat is narrowed rather than kept: no dedicated press release for this approval was found on the Council's news index, but the decision document itself is primary and dated. The mangrove approval is likewise primary-sourced: Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, assessment decision, Mangrove Restoration version 1.0 applied under Isometric, date of Board decision 30 April 2026, https://icvcm.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/M49_ISM_Mangrove_v1.0_2026.pdf, announced in Integrity Council announces new batch of assessment decisions, 11 May 2026, https://icvcm.org/integrity-council-announces-new-batch-of-assessment-decisions/. Note that 30 April 2026 is the decision date and 11 May 2026 the announcement date, that the claim to be first is Isometric's rather than the Council's, and that no primary source establishes whether credits have yet been issued under the protocol
Verified 20 September 2026

PARIS AGREEMENT CREDITING MECHANISM (PACM, ARTICLE 6.4)

Definition. The centralized crediting mechanism established under Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement and overseen by a Supervisory Body, which registers activities, approves the methodologies under which they are quantified, and issues units for use toward nationally determined contributions or other international mitigation purposes. The mechanism succeeds the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol and applies tighter quantification rules, principally baselines set below business as usual and an explicit alignment of the baseline with the Paris Agreement's temperature goal.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the first methodology adopted under the mechanism, covering the management of methane from landfill sites, approved by the Supervisory Body on 30 October 2025, in force from adoption and valid for five years unless revised or withdrawn, and derived from a Clean Development Mechanism methodology updated to meet the newer requirements
the transition of inherited activities and methodologies, which qualify only once updated

(ii) What it is not

the bilateral track of Article 6.2, under which countries cooperate directly and transfer internationally transferred mitigation outcomes without a central registry
and not the voluntary market, whose standards are private, although the two increasingly borrow each other's integrity vocabulary

Rationale. The mechanism matters to nature-based work in two ways that pull against each other. It supplies the first internationally governed crediting route whose baseline logic is explicitly Paris-aligned, which is the direction of travel every private standard is now read against. It is also a slow-moving institution whose methodology pipeline decides when a given project type can use it at all, so a proponent designing around the mechanism is designing around a schedule set elsewhere. That is the gate structure the August 2026 long-form describes: the timetable belongs to the rule-writer, and the project pays for it in delay rather than in fees.

References.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Article 6.4 Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism pages
UNFCCC, “UN Body agrees first methodology under Paris Agreement carbon market,” 30 October 2025
UNFCCC, Article 6.4 methodologies pages, https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/article-6/article-64-pacm/mechanism-process/methodologies. Reporting on the first methodology gives its reference code inconsistently, so the code is deliberately omitted here and should be taken from the UNFCCC methodologies page at the date of use

CORRESPONDING ADJUSTMENT

Definition. The accounting entry a host country makes to its emissions balance when a mitigation outcome generated on its territory is authorized for use toward another country's nationally determined contribution or for other international mitigation purposes, so that one reduction is not counted twice. The host adds the transferred quantity back to its own reported emissions and the acquiring party deducts it, which is the mechanism preventing double counting under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the adjustment applied when a host government authorizes units for use toward another party's pledge or for an international compliance scheme
the entry a funder means when it instructs an applicant to aim for national authorization

(ii) What it is not

an automatic consequence of a cross-border sale. A credit sold to a foreign buyer that supports no claim against a national pledge triggers no adjustment, and that distinction decides whether the host gives up the reduction from its own accounts. Nor is the adjustment a quality standard: it establishes that a reduction has been counted once, not that the reduction was real, additional, or durable

Rationale. The adjustment is the Article 6 parameter most often assumed rather than secured, and it is held entirely by the host government. A project can satisfy every private standard and still fail to deliver the claim its buyer expected if the authorization never arrives, because the authorization turns on a sovereign decision about the country's own pledge. That dependency is why a funder can require an applicant to aim for authorization while being unable to deliver it, and why the question of what survives if the authorization never comes belongs in project preparation rather than in a later contract negotiation. The commercial consequence is direct: an authorized unit and an unauthorized one are different products, with different buyers and different prices.

References.

Paris Agreement, Article 6 (2015)
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, guidance on Article 6.2 adopted at COP26, Glasgow, United Kingdom (2021) and refined at subsequent sessions, which establishes the corresponding-adjustment requirement for internationally transferred mitigation outcomes, and the UNFCCC Article 6 information portal
NbS Praxis, “The Reconciliation Burden: What One Mangrove Hectare Must Prove, and to Whom,” monthly long-form, August 2026, for the distinction between an authorized use and a cross-border sale

BIENNIAL TRANSPARENCY REPORT (BTR)

Definition. The report every party to the Paris Agreement submits under the Enhanced Transparency Framework, at least every two years, covering its national greenhouse gas inventory, its progress toward its nationally determined contribution, and, as applicable, climate impacts, adaptation, and support provided or received. Each report undergoes a technical expert review whose findings the secretariat publishes, and a party reporting results from reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation may attach a technical annex through which those results are separately assessed.

Examples.

(i) What it is

Costa Rica's first report, whose technical annex records emission reductions of roughly 9.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent over 2020 to 2023 against the country's assessed forest reference level and shows the forest sector as a net sink in each year, with the expert analysis published by the secretariat on 14 August 2026

(ii) What it is not

a crediting process. The technical analysis confirms that a reported result has been assessed against the framework's rules
it issues no unit, creates nothing tradable, and finances nothing by itself

Rationale. The framework is the route by which a national forest result becomes a figure a third party can quote, and the difference between a self-reported number and a reviewed one is precisely the gradation of assurance a practitioner should preserve when citing either. For results-based finance the report matters more directly still, because payment arrangements for forest results increasingly key to a reviewed national result rather than to a project-level verification, which moves the measurement burden onto the national system and rewards countries that built one over decades. Legibility is not bankability, but a measurement and assurance rule close to the work is increasingly a precondition for finance.

References.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Enhanced Transparency Framework and biennial transparency reporting pages
UNFCCC secretariat, technical analysis of the technical annex to the first biennial transparency report of Costa Rica, report reference FCCC/ETF/TATR.1/2025/CRI, published 14 August 2026. The Costa Rica figures above are the annex's own, read here through NbS Praxis Weekly Briefing No. 12 (15 August 2026), which also records that a trade-reported total above 10 million tonnes could not be reconciled with the annex

INVESTMENT READINESS (PROJECT PIPELINE PREPARATION)

Definition. The state in which a project concept carries the evidence, structure, partners, and documents that a specific financier needs to appraise it, and the work of bringing a concept to that state. Investment readiness is measured against a named financier's requirements rather than in the abstract: an adaptation fund asks for an impact chain, a theory of change, a results framework, and an eligible access channel, while a private investor asks for a payer, a cash-flow model, and a risk allocation. The term is distinct from readiness in the Green Climate Fund's sense, where the Readiness and Preparatory Support Programme supports country-driven initiatives to strengthen institutional capacities, governance mechanisms and planning frameworks, and from the Fund's Project Preparation Facility, which offers up to USD 1.5 million for each application to develop a funding proposal and which must be requested with or after a concept note rather than before one.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a concept note whose climate rationale reaches the adaptation increment, backed by a theory of change and a costed budget
a term sheet for a protection payment that names the payer, the service, and the price
the Global EbA Fund's encouraged topic of investment readiness and project pipeline preparation, described as designing investable, scalable concepts tailored for large-scale climate financing
the readiness support the Australian Government's Blue Carbon Accelerator Fund provided over 2021 to 2025 to bring coastal blue carbon projects to an investment-ready state

(ii) What it is not

a pitch deck or a feasibility study on its own
readiness in the Green Climate Fund's sense, which is institutional rather than project-level
shovel-readiness, which the Australian department uses for the later, more mature implementation stage rather than for the development stage
a guarantee of funding, since a ready concept still competes

Rationale. Concept preparation sits in a funding gap. Readiness programs are aimed at institutions rather than at a single project's documents, and a project preparation facility attaches only once a concept note exists, so the small sum that makes a concept investment-ready unlocks preparation money an order of magnitude larger and, on approval, a project two orders larger. Naming the gap lets a practitioner budget for it deliberately and route it to the few windows that fund it.

References.

IMPACT CHAIN (IN ADAPTATION PLANNING)

Definition. An analytical tool that traces how a climate hazard propagates through the exposure and sensitivity of a system to a risk for people and ecosystems, so that adaptation measures can be placed at the links where they reduce that risk. The standard form was developed for The Vulnerability Sourcebook, published by the German development agency GIZ in 2014 and prepared by adelphi and Eurac Research, and was aligned with the risk concept of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the 2017 Risk Supplement to that Sourcebook. It runs from a hazard through intermediate impacts to a risk, with exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity as the factors that shape it. The Global EbA Fund requires proposals to be grounded in a detailed impact chain analysis, and a four-link version, which is an NbS Praxis practice framing rather than an institutional term, serves the climate rationale most funders test: the hazard and its trend, the exposure pathway by which it reaches a service, the service impact on the population served, and the adaptation increment the project adds.

Examples.

(i) What it is

cyclone surge as the hazard, inundating delta villages behind a degraded mangrove belt as the exposure pathway, destroying paddy and aquaculture ponds as the service impact, reduced by a restored belt that a business-as-usual development project would not have funded as the adaptation increment
a diagram in a concept note showing where each activity intervenes in the chain

(ii) What it is not

a general statement that the climate is changing and the area is vulnerable
a list of co-benefits
a substitute for the theory of change, which sequences activities and outcomes rather than hazards and risks, and which should reduce the risks the impact chain identifies

Rationale. Reviewers reject rationales that assert climate relevance instead of demonstrating it, and the impact chain is the demonstration. Because the Global EbA Fund weights the project approach and EbA criterion at 40% of its score and asks explicitly for the chain, and because the Green Climate Fund and the Adaptation Fund test the same links under other names, the chain is the cheapest single piece of preparation that changes a proposal's odds. Density beats length: one named hazard event with a date and a figure outperforms a paragraph of general vulnerability language. Practitioners should note that GIZ commissioned Eurac Research, with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, the University of Salzburg and the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security, to carry the method forward into the Climate Risk Sourcebook of 2023, which supersedes the 2014 guidance while retaining the impact chain as its organizing device.

References.

GIZ, The Vulnerability Sourcebook: Concept and guidelines for standardised vulnerability assessments (2014), prepared by adelphi and Eurac Research on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, https://www.adaptationcommunity.net/publications/vulnerability-sourcebook-concept-guidelines-standardised-vulnerability-assessments/, with the document at
GIZ and EURAC, Risk Supplement to the Vulnerability Sourcebook: Guidance on how to apply the Vulnerability Sourcebook's approach with the new IPCC AR5 concept of climate risk (Bonn, 2017)
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group II, Chapter 1 on the risk framework and Chapter 10 on Asia (2022)
Global EbA Fund, 8th Call for Proposals for Small-Size Grants, on the requirement for a detailed impact chain analysis
Titles and URLs verified 20 September 2026

ADAPTATION INCREMENT

Definition. The part of a project's design, cost, and outcome that responds to a documented climate-driven change and would not be present in a business-as-usual development project in the same place. The increment is the adaptation counterpart of additionality in mitigation: a water project in a water-scarce country is development, while a water project responding to a measured climate-driven change in water availability is adaptation, and only the increment is what an adaptation fund is paying for. The term is an editorial label for a concept the funds express in their own vocabulary. The Global Environment Facility's incremental cost principle, the Adaptation Fund's reasoning on the full cost of adaptation, which pays the full cost of concrete adaptation measures rather than only the increment, and the Green Climate Fund's climate rationale requirement all test the same link.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the wider mangrove belt, the higher setback, or the community early-warning arrangement justified by a projected increase in cyclone surge
the cost difference between a drainage design sized to historical rainfall and one sized to projected intensification
the paragraph of a concept note that states what the project does that development finance would not

(ii) What it is not

the whole project, since most of a coastal or water project is development that adaptation finance co-funds rather than pays for
a co-benefit
an assertion of vulnerability without a measured climate signal
the same as additionality in carbon crediting, which tests a counterfactual emission rather than a counterfactual design

Rationale. Of the four links in a climate rationale, the adaptation increment is the one reviewers test, because it is where a development project relabels itself as adaptation. A practitioner who can state the increment in one sentence, with the climate signal that justifies it, has passed the screen that stops most concept notes. Where the increment cannot be stated, the honest finding is that the project is development finance material rather than climate finance material, and it should be routed accordingly.

References.

Global Environment Facility, Operational Guidelines for the Application of the Incremental Cost Principle, Council document GEF/C.31/12, dated 14 May 2007 and considered at the Council meeting of 12 to 15 June 2007
Adaptation Fund, Operational Policies and Guidelines for Parties to Access Resources from the Adaptation Fund, amended October 2022
Green Climate Fund, climate rationale requirement under the investment framework, greenclimate.fund — note that the Fund's standalone concept note screening page was withdrawn in the 2026 restructure of its website and that updated concept note guidance is under development, so the current expression of the requirement is the digital template in the GCF Partner Portal
Verified 20 September 2026

ACCESS CHANNEL (DIRECT, PARTNER-MEDIATED, AND COUNTRY-MEDIATED)

Definition. The legal route by which an organization reaches a climate fund's money, as distinct from whether its project fits the fund. Four cases cover the field. Direct access, where the organization itself holds accreditation and can submit. Partner-mediated access, where it executes under another entity's accreditation, which changes who signs, who bears fiduciary responsibility, who takes the management fee, and how long the arrangement takes to negotiate. Country-mediated access, where a national authority originates or endorses the request and the organization supports it. And no route, where a different fund must be found. Some accreditations confer derived access: the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage treats entities already accredited to the Adaptation Fund, the Global Environment Facility, or the Green Climate Fund as its access entities, listing 195 such entities alongside 116 national focal points as at 9 July 2026, and its funding requests to date have been submitted under the modality of access in partnership with those entities.

Examples.

(i) What it is

an international non-governmental organization accredited to the Green Climate Fund submitting its own proposal, which is direct access
a foundation executing a coastal program under a United Nations agency's Adaptation Fund accreditation, with the agency's fee drawn from the approved amount, which is partner-mediated access
a loss-and-damage request originated by a national focal point, which is country-mediated access
Malaysia's record of reaching the funds through UN-Habitat and other multilateral intermediaries

(ii) What it is not

a fund fit, which is a separate test
an internal description such as "our first Adaptation Fund project as an implementing entity," which on inspection often means execution under someone else's accreditation

Rationale. Two silent failures destroy access maps. The first is language drift, where an organization that executed under another's accreditation describes itself as having implemented the project, and the map recommends a route it cannot legally take. The second is derived access, where a fresh Green Climate Fund accreditation opens a fund the organization never applied to. Establishing the channel before the fund, from the fund's own project documents rather than the agency's description of itself, is the discipline that keeps a routing honest. The durability of a channel also differs by fund, and the rules moved in 2026: under its revised Accreditation Framework the Green Climate Fund now grants accreditation for an indefinite period and has repealed the fixed term and the re-accreditation process, while the Adaptation Fund retains a term-based model whose expiries falling between 10 April 2026 and 31 October 2027 were extended to 31 October 2027 while a continuous accreditation model is developed. In fragile contexts the channel question decides everything, because country-mediated routes close when the state is not an available counterparty.

References.

EXECUTING ENTITY

Definition. The organization that carries out the activities of a fund-financed project under the oversight of the accredited, or implementing, entity that submitted it. The accredited entity signs the funding agreement, holds fiduciary and safeguards responsibility toward the fund, and receives the fund's management fee; the executing entity receives project funds from the accredited entity under a subsidiary agreement and delivers the work. The Green Climate Fund and the Adaptation Fund both use the distinction, the Adaptation Fund under the labels implementing entity and executing entity, and its Operational Policies and Guidelines state that executing entities are organizations that execute adaptation projects and programmes supported by the Fund under the oversight of implementing entities, while an implementing entity bears the full responsibility for overall management and all financial, monitoring and reporting responsibilities.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a national ministry, a state agency, a research institute, or a foundation delivering restoration, training, or monitoring under a United Nations agency's or a development bank's accreditation
a project developer whose site-level work is financed through an accredited intermediary

(ii) What it is not

the accredited entity itself, even when the executing organization designed the project and does most of the work
a beneficiary
a status that confers any right to submit to the fund

Rationale. The executing-entity role is where most practitioners in nature-based solutions meet the climate funds, and where their internal narratives drift: "our GCF project" is usually an accredited entity's project executed by the practitioner's organization. Understanding the role as a contractual position, with a fee, a signature, and a fiduciary chain above it, lets a practitioner negotiate the arrangement on its real terms and price the intermediary's cut into the budget.

References.

ARTICLE 6 AUTHORIZATION (AUTHORIZED AND UNAUTHORIZED UNITS)

Definition. The decision by which a host country's government authorizes a mitigation outcome for international transfer under Article 6, paragraph 2, of the Paris Agreement, either for use toward another country's nationally determined contribution or for other international mitigation purposes, of which the airline offsetting scheme CORSIA is the principal case. Under the guidance adopted at Glasgow, authorization is what brings a mitigation outcome into the cooperative-approach accounting framework, and a first transfer of an authorized outcome carries the host country's obligation to apply a corresponding adjustment so that the tonne is not counted twice. A credit that has not been authorized can still be sold and used for a voluntary claim, but it cannot count toward another country's target, and both Verra and Gold Standard now tag units on their registries by authorization status.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a host-country authorization of credits from a mangrove project for transfer to a buyer country under a bilateral Article 6.2 arrangement, such as the memoranda of understanding Malaysia exchanged with South Korea on 25 November 2024 and with Singapore on 7 January 2025
a Verra unit carrying an Article 6 Authorized label, granted on submission of the registry's letter-of-authorization checklist
a Gold Standard credit labelled as authorised once the host country's authorization has been formally communicated through the UNFCCC registry or a national registry

(ii) What it is not

a requirement for every credit sale, since voluntary buyers may purchase unauthorized units
the corresponding adjustment itself, which both registries treat as a separate label applied only once the adjustment is verified in the host country's transparency reporting, so an authorized unit is not by that fact a correspondingly adjusted one
a single, uniform CORSIA condition, since ICAO's eligibility scope turns programme by programme on host-country authorization by way of an attestation to the avoidance of double-claiming, with several approved programmes additionally requiring verification that a corresponding adjustment has been applied or is covered by a programme-approved guarantee, and others requiring authorization alone
a quality label, since authorization concerns double counting rather than the integrity of the methodology

Rationale. Authorization is sorting the credit market into tiers with different buyers and prices, and a project developer does not control which tier its credits fall into, because the decision belongs to the host government. For a developer with projects in more than one country the split can run along the border: one country builds an authorization process while another has none, so the same restoration model produces authorized units in one place and voluntary-only units in the other. Any revenue projection for a nature-based credit stream should state the assumed tier explicitly, and should not assume that authorization and corresponding adjustment travel together.

References.

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Part Four

ASEAN-Specific and Regional Terms

Terms specific to the ASEAN regional focus that appears in the weekly briefing and that informs the brand's regional positioning. These terms appear in the production pipeline prompts and in any regional content the brand produces.

ASEAN CATALYTIC GREEN FINANCE FACILITY (ACGF)

Definition. A financing facility administered by the Asian Development Bank that supports green infrastructure projects in ASEAN countries through blended finance vehicles. The ACGF mobilizes public and private finance for projects aligned with ASEAN green economy objectives, with a focus on infrastructure with climate mitigation and adaptation outcomes.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a blended finance facility specifically for ASEAN green infrastructure
a vehicle through which ADB co-finances and structures projects with multiple finance partners
a regional mechanism that complements country-level GCF and bilateral programming

(ii) What it is not

a grant fund (ACGF operates through loans and blended instruments)
a substitute for national climate finance institutions (ACGF works through and alongside national systems)
a biodiversity-specific fund

Rationale. The ACGF is the principal regional finance architecture for ASEAN climate-and-nature work and appears frequently in ASEAN regional content. Its operational model — blended finance mobilizing private capital around public anchor finance — is structurally relevant to broader trends in climate-and-nature finance.

References.

Asian Development Bank website on ACGF (
ACGF Annual Reports

ASEAN TAXONOMY FOR SUSTAINABLE FINANCE

Definition. A common classification system for sustainable economic activities developed by the ASEAN Taxonomy Board, in its fourth version since 6 November 2025. The taxonomy provides a regional framework for identifying activities aligned with environmental objectives including climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, sustainable use of water, ecosystem protection, pollution prevention, and circular economy.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a regional taxonomy structured around six environmental objectives
a framework using a traffic-light system (green, amber, red) that recognizes the realities of ASEAN's energy transition pathways
a tool intended for use by financial institutions, regulators, and corporates in identifying and reporting sustainable economic activities

(ii) What it is not

a regulatory mandate (adoption is voluntary at the regional level, though some member states are integrating it into national regulation)
a global standard
a substitute for project-level environmental and social impact assessment

Rationale. The ASEAN Taxonomy is the regional architecture most relevant to private-sector engagement with climate-and-nature finance in ASEAN, and it interacts with TNFD adoption in the region. Its inclusion of ecosystem protection as one of the six environmental objectives makes it relevant to nature finance work specifically.

References.

ASEAN Taxonomy Board, ASEAN Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance Version 4, released 6 November 2025, https://asean.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/ASEAN-Taxonomy-Sustainable-Finance-V4_06Nov25.pdf, which completes Plus Standard coverage across the identified focus and enabling sectors, adds grandfathering rules for the amber tiers, and provides guidance on entity and portfolio assessment
ASEAN Taxonomy Board media statement on the Version 4 launch, 6 November 2025
ASEAN Capital Markets Forum publications. The Board comprises representatives of the ASEAN Capital Markets Forum, the ASEAN Insurance Regulators' Meeting, the ASEAN Senior Level Committee on Financial Integration, and the ASEAN Working Committee on Capital Market Development. Corrected 20 August 2026 from the superseded Version 3 (2024) reference carried in earlier editions

MALAYSIA NATIONAL CARBON MARKET POLICY (DPKK)

Definition. The national policy framework, styled in Malay as the Dasar Pasaran Karbon Kebangsaan and in its own English text as the National Carbon Market Policy for Malaysia, approved by Malaysia's Cabinet on 1 April 2026 and launched by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability on 21 April 2026, which sets the direction for the country's voluntary and compliance carbon markets and for its participation in international cooperation under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. The policy records that Article 6.2 cooperation is formalized through memoranda of understanding between participating governments, and that Malaysia has established such arrangements with Singapore and South Korea, with implementation agreements treated as a later step.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the framework under which a blue carbon project on Sarawak state land seeks the state approvals introduced by the Land Code (Amendment) Ordinance, 2022 and the Forests (Amendment) Ordinance, 2022, registers under a standard, and may seek federal authorization for transfer to a buyer country
the policy setting within which a Malaysian company claims the further tax deduction of up to RM 300,000 on measurement, reporting and verification and on carbon-project development expenses, deductible from carbon-credit income derived from trading on the Bursa Carbon Exchange, for applications made to the Malaysian Green Technology and Climate Change Corporation between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2026

(ii) What it is not

an operating Article 6 registry or a completed authorization procedure, since implementing rules were still being developed through 2026
a designation of any particular trading venue, since the policy text does not name one
a carbon tax, which is a separate instrument
a statement about the constitutional division of competence over land and forests, which the policy does not make, addressing federal and state alignment instead through the national decarbonization committee and a proposed federal-state climate coordination council

Rationale. Malaysia is the ASEAN member where a nature-based credit stream can most plausibly move from the voluntary tier to the authorized tier, because the policy, the bilateral arrangements, a domestic exchange and a tax incentive for project development exist at the same time. For a practitioner the policy is also a case in the codification layer: a developer's revenue depends on rules being written by a federal ministry and by state governments that hold competence over land and forests, and the timing of those rules is a project risk that belongs in the financing strategy rather than in a footnote.

References.

Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability, Malaysia, media statement, Pengenalan Dasar Pasaran Karbon Kebangsaan (DPKK) memperkukuh ekosistem ekonomi rendah karbon negara, 21 April 2026, recording Cabinet approval on 1 April 2026
Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability, National Carbon Market Policy for Malaysia (2026)
Prime Minister's Office of Malaysia, record of the exchange of memoranda of understanding with the Republic of Korea, including on cooperative approaches under Article 6, paragraph 2, of the Paris Agreement, 25 November 2024
Ministry of Trade and Industry, Singapore, Agreements and MOUs exchanged between Singapore and Malaysia at the 11th Malaysia-Singapore Leaders' Retreat, 7 January 2025
Malaysian Green Technology and Climate Change Corporation, Further Tax Deduction for Carbon Projects, https://www.mgtc.gov.my/what-we-do/further-tax-deduction-for-carbon-projects-ftc/, with the accompanying guidelines of June 2024
Sarawak, Land Code (Amendment) Ordinance, 2022, Chapter A200, and Forests (Amendment) Ordinance, 2022, Chapter A201, gazetted 7 June 2022, with the Land (Carbon Storage) Rules, 2022 and the Forests (Forest Carbon Activity) Rules, 2022 gazetted 22 December 2022
All verified 20 September 2026. No statutory instrument for the further tax deduction was located, and Sabah has no equivalent carbon-competence legislation on the record at the date of this entry

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Part Five

Strategic and Operational Terms

Terms that appear in the brand's strategic positioning, in the production pipeline, and in the operational architecture of the practice. These are less universally known than the institutional terms above but appear repeatedly in NbS Praxis content.

NATIONALLY DETERMINED CONTRIBUTION (NDC)

Definition. Each country's nationally determined climate contribution, communicated to the UNFCCC under Article 4 of the Paris Agreement. The Agreement obliges each Party to prepare, communicate, and maintain successive contributions and to pursue domestic mitigation measures, while the level of ambition is set nationally; most Parties also include adaptation components, communicated under Article 7. Contributions are communicated every five years and are intended to be progressively more ambitious over time. The NDC is the foundational document anchoring national climate strategies and a key reference point for climate finance project preparation.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a country-level climate contribution with mitigation and, at the Party's option, adaptation components
a document submitted to the UNFCCC Secretariat
the principal anchor for national climate policy and for international climate finance project alignment

(ii) What it is not

a sectoral plan
a binding international treaty (NDCs are nationally determined within the Paris Agreement framework)
a static document

Rationale. Project alignment with NDCs is increasingly required by climate finance institutions. The GCF Concept Note V.3.1 template specifically requires articulation of how the proposed project advances the country's NDC commitments — this is the most consequential change in the V.3.1 template relative to the previous V.2.2 version and is the analytical foundation of the GCF Concept Note Toolkit.

References.

UNFCCC website on NDCs (
Paris Agreement Article 4
Climate Action Tracker (CAT) analyses of country NDCs

NATIONAL ADAPTATION PLAN (NAP)

Definition. A country-level plan articulating medium- and long-term adaptation needs and the strategies and programs to address them. The NAP process was established under the UNFCCC and is the principal national-level adaptation planning instrument. NAPs increasingly incorporate ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) as a central strategy and are a key reference for adaptation-focused project preparation.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a long-term national planning document for climate adaptation
a process (not just a document) involving stakeholder engagement, vulnerability assessment, and prioritization
an increasingly important reference for GCF, Adaptation Fund, and bilateral adaptation finance

(ii) What it is not

a project document
a one-time exercise
a substitute for sector-specific adaptation strategies

Rationale. Like NDCs, NAPs are a foundational reference for climate-and-nature finance project preparation, particularly for EbA projects. The GCF Concept Note V.3.1 template requires articulation of how proposed adaptation projects advance the country's NAP priorities. NbS Praxis content frequently references NAPs alongside NDCs as the country-level anchors for project alignment.

References.

UNFCCC website on National Adaptation Plans (
LDC Expert Group publications on NAP process
NAP Global Network resources

NATIONAL BIODIVERSITY STRATEGY AND ACTION PLAN (NBSAP)

Definition. The principal national planning instrument under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), through which each Party translates its biodiversity commitments into national targets, financing plans, and implementation measures. Following the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022), Parties are revising and resubmitting their NBSAPs to align with the Framework's 23 global targets, giving the instrument the same anchoring function for biodiversity commitments that the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) performs for climate.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a country's roadmap for translating the Global Biodiversity Framework's targets into domestic targets, resource-mobilization plans, and monitoring measures
a document revised and resubmitted to the CBD Secretariat on a recurring cycle tied to the Conference of the Parties
the biodiversity-side reference a coastal or land-use project cites alongside its NDC and National Adaptation Plan (NAP) to establish country ownership

(ii) What it is not

a legally binding treaty obligation in itself (the CBD is binding on its Parties; the specific content of an individual NBSAP is a matter of national discretion within the Framework's targets)
interchangeable with an NDC (NDCs run under the UNFCCC and center on emissions and adaptation; NBSAPs run under the CBD and center on biodiversity, though the two increasingly cross-reference where climate and nature outcomes coincide)
a one-time filing (it is a recurring planning cycle, not a static document)

Rationale. Anchoring a project in a country's NBSAP alongside its NDC and NAP is what multilateral and philanthropic funders routinely test for country ownership and eligibility, and the practice's Coastal Protection long-form (draft, July 2026) names all three instruments as the triad institutional financiers cite together when assessing a sovereign or sub-sovereign facility. The NBSAP entry closes a gap in the practice's existing three-instrument set of national commitments: the NDC and NAP entries were already in this Glossary, and biodiversity-anchored project design requires the third.

References.

Convention on Biological Diversity, Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Decision 15/4 (2022), establishing the requirement that Parties revise and submit updated NBSAPs aligned with the Framework's targets
Convention on Biological Diversity, Article 6 (1992), establishing the original NBSAP obligation

CLIMATE-AND-NATURE CO-BENEFITS

Definition. The additional outcomes generated by an intervention beyond its primary climate or nature outcomes. Co-benefits typically include socio-economic dimensions (livelihoods, public health, food security, water security) and environmental dimensions beyond the primary outcome (water quality, soil health, landscape value). Co-benefits strengthen the case for finance but are analytically distinct from primary outcomes.

Examples.

(i) What it is

outcomes that flow from a primary intervention but are not the principal reason the intervention is being undertaken
outcomes that may be quantified and reported but do not by themselves qualify a project for finance against a specific instrument
substantial value that compounds the case for integrated climate-and-nature interventions over single-purpose alternatives

(ii) What it is not

the primary outcomes themselves
a marketing claim (rigorous practitioner work distinguishes co-benefits from primary outcomes rather than conflating them)

Rationale. The distinction between primary outcomes and co-benefits is central to the NbS Praxis brand's analytical framing. Generic sustainability framings collapse the distinction; serious practitioner thinking maintains it. The co-benefits framing also serves a strategic role in advisory work, where surfacing under-recognized co-benefits can strengthen the case for projects whose primary outcomes are insufficient on their own.

References.

IPCC AR6 reports on integrated assessment of mitigation pathways
OECD work on co-benefits of climate action
World Bank publications on biodiversity-climate-development integration

PRACTITIONER JUDGMENT

Definition. The accumulated analytical capability of senior expert practitioners that distinguishes serious project preparation, advisory work, and analytical writing from generic or AI-generated content. Practitioner judgment encompasses what to include and what to exclude, what to emphasize and what to deprioritize, what to question and what to accept, and how to navigate institutional and political dimensions of work that cannot be fully captured in written guidance.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the substantive expertise that comes from sustained engagement with the institutional architecture, the technical content, and the practitioner community over years
the capability to evaluate competing considerations and produce analytical positions that hold under scrutiny
the value-add that justifies premium rates for expert advisory work as AI commoditizes substrate content

(ii) What it is not

tacit knowledge that cannot be articulated
intuition without analytical structure
gatekeeping

Rationale. Practitioner judgment is the central strategic asset that the NbS Praxis brand is built around. The AI-augmented production model is designed specifically to concentrate practitioner time on judgment-layer work while delegating substrate work to AI tools. The brand's writing voice — authoritative, analytical, intellectually honest — is the expression of practitioner judgment in published form.

References.

Mollick, E. (2024) Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI

NEW COLLECTIVE QUANTIFIED GOAL (NCQG)

Definition. The New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance is the post-2025 global climate-finance target agreed at the twenty-ninth Conference of the Parties (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November 2024. It calls on developed countries to take the lead in mobilizing at least USD 300 billion per year for developing countries by 2035 — tripling the previous USD 100 billion goal — and sets a broader call on all public and private actors to scale climate finance to developing countries to at least USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the negotiated successor to the USD 100 billion annual commitment, expressed as a layered goal with a USD 300 billion public-led core and a USD 1.3 trillion outer ambition
the envelope within which nature and adaptation finance must now compete for a share, and the reference point for the Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T that the COP29 and COP30 presidencies were tasked to develop

(ii) What it is not

a binding disbursement schedule or a fund — the NCQG is a collective mobilization goal drawing on public, private, bilateral, multilateral, and alternative sources, not a single channel that projects apply to

Rationale. The NCQG matters to climate-and-nature practice because it sets the headline number against which nature finance is implicitly measured: when the entire developing-country climate-finance envelope is USD 300 billion of mobilized public-led finance and a USD 1.3 trillion aspiration, the share that can plausibly reach nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based adaptation defines the realistic ceiling for the field. The goal also sharpens the brand’s recurring argument that the binding constraint is bankable, finance-ready pipeline rather than headline capital, since a mobilization target converts into projects only where credible instruments and measurement already exist.

References.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, “COP29 UN Climate Conference Agrees to Triple Finance to Developing Countries, Protecting Lives and Livelihoods” (decision 1/CMA.6, Baku, November 2024) (
World Resources Institute, “How to Reach $300 Billion — and the Full $1.3 Trillion — Under the New Climate Finance Goal” (2024)

DEBT-FOR-NATURE SWAP

Definition. A financial transaction in which a portion of a developing nation's sovereign debt is purchased, refinanced, or forgiven by a third party in exchange for a legally binding commitment by the debtor country to allocate fiscal resources to designated conservation activities. The mechanism converts an external debt obligation into a domestic conservation fund, with the conservation commitment typically governed by an independent trust or fund structure.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a structured transaction involving a creditor (typically a bilateral or commercial lender), the debtor government, and a conservation trust
legally binding allocations of the debt-service savings to specific conservation programs over a defined horizon
recent examples include large-scale swaps in Belize, Barbados, Ecuador, and the Gabon-Ecuador and Cabo Verde models

(ii) What it is not

debt forgiveness without conditionality (a swap requires the conservation commitment)
a quick transaction
a substitute for conservation finance at scale

Rationale. Debt-for-nature swaps are one of the three principal financial instruments at the center of the forthcoming "Assurance to Architecture" long-form (target September 2026). The publication's editorial position is that swaps preserve sovereign credit while channeling preserved fiscal capacity into vital biosphere assets, and that scaling them is among the genuine solutions to the trillions-versus-billions credibility gap. The structural complexity is real and the disbursement pace is slow, but the instrument addresses both sovereign-debt and conservation-finance failures in a single transaction.

References.

The Nature Conservancy publications on Blue Bonds for Conservation
IIED working papers on debt-for-nature mechanisms
IMF Working Paper WP/22/237 on debt-for-climate swaps
Sommer et al. (2020) on the role of debt-for-nature in conservation finance

BLENDED FINANCE (MULTI-TIERED)

Definition. The strategic use of concessional public or philanthropic capital to mobilize additional private investment for development outcomes, structured through tiered instruments — typically including first-loss capital, mezzanine or subordinated tranches, and senior commercial debt or equity — that redistribute risk across investors with different risk-return preferences. The "multi-tiered" qualifier distinguishes this from simple co-financing arrangements and is essential to the instrument's effectiveness in adaptation and NbS contexts.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a fund structure with public first-loss capital absorbing initial defaults, mezzanine capital from impact investors at moderate risk-return, and senior debt or equity from institutional investors at near-market terms
the GCF's catalytic role in private-sector facilities
the ASEAN Catalytic Green Finance Facility's tiered structure

(ii) What it is not

any combination of public and private funds (true blended finance requires structural risk-redistribution, not just commingling)
an instrument that automatically reduces total cost
a substitute for grant finance

Rationale. Multi-tiered blended finance is the second of the three principal instruments in the forthcoming "Assurance to Architecture" long-form. The publication's editorial position is that the instrument's effectiveness depends critically on the design of the first-loss tranche — too thin a first loss fails to mobilize private capital; too generous a first loss subsidizes private returns without genuine additionality. The instrument is most effective in adaptation and NbS pipelines anchored in NDC and NAP commitments, where the underlying project pipeline is portfolio-eligible rather than orphaned.

References.

Convergence (blendedfinance.earth) State of Blended Finance reports
OECD DAC guidance on blended finance principles
GCF Private Sector Facility documentation
ASEAN Catalytic Green Finance Facility (ACGF) annual reports
IFC Blended Concessional Finance for Private Sector Projects

CONTRIBUTION CLAIM (vs OFFSET CLAIM)

Definition. A corporate or sovereign claim that supports climate or nature outcomes through finance, action, or partnership, without asserting equivalence between the supported outcomes and the claimant's own emissions or impacts. A contribution claim describes what the claimant contributed to; an offset claim asserts that emissions or impacts have been neutralized by an equivalent action elsewhere. The distinction has become central as the credibility of offset claims has come under sustained scientific and regulatory scrutiny.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a corporate statement that the company has financed mangrove restoration projects supporting national adaptation goals, without claiming those projects offset the company's residual emissions
participation in a sovereign-led results-based payment program without asserting credit-for-credit equivalence
nature-positive contribution toward landscape outcomes that does not enter the company's net-zero accounting as a deduction

(ii) What it is not

the same as an offset claim (offsets assert equivalence; contributions do not)
a way to avoid emission reductions
a soft accounting move (rigorous contribution claims require evidence of additionality, durability, and outcome, only without the equivalence assertion)

Rationale. The shift from offset to contribution is one of the four structural shifts the No. 2 issue identified in nature finance, and it represents the maturing of corporate climate-and-nature claims in response to evidence that many offsets fail the additionality and permanence tests required for equivalence. The publication's editorial position is that contribution claims, properly structured, protect both the integrity of corporate disclosure and the legitimacy of nature-finance flows — and that the field's binding constraint for the next decade is the methodology and verification infrastructure for contribution rather than for offset.

References.

VCMI Claims Code of Practice (2023 and updates)
Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) guidance on Beyond Value Chain Mitigation
University of Utah roadmap for net-cooling nature-based climate solutions
Science (AAAS) synthesis on the benefits and limits of nature-based solutions

MEASUREMENT FAILURE (ANALYTICAL FRAMING)

Definition. The analytical move, used in the NbS Praxis editorial voice, of framing apparent contradictions in finance figures, project outcomes, or institutional claims as failures of measurement infrastructure rather than as substantive disputes between sources. The framing recognizes that competing figures often arise from different definitions, taxonomies, or scopes rather than from disagreement about underlying facts, and that the field's response should be to invest in shared, decision-grade definitions rather than to litigate the gap.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the framing applied in the No. 2 issue to the gap between UNEP's State of Finance for Nature figure on a narrower boundary (~USD 23 billion, 2026) and the UNEP FI nature-badged figure (~USD 102 billion, 2023) — both correct against their respective definitions. The two figures are three years apart, and the narrower one is the later one, so if private nature finance grew over the interval the definitional gap is wider than the headline fourfold, not narrower
what fails is the field's ability to produce a number that holds when quoted twice

(ii) What it is not

a dismissal of measurement disputes as merely technical (the consequences are real and substantial)
a counsel of relativism (some figures are better-sourced than others, and the publication maintains the primary-versus-secondary discipline)
an excuse for vague reporting

Rationale. The measurement-failure framing is one of the publication's most distinctive analytical moves and is part of what positions NbS Praxis above generic synthesis. It also generalizes: the framing applies equally to disputes about NbS project outcomes (where source and methodology differences explain apparent contradictions), to MRV controversies, and to the offset-to-contribution debate. Practitioners trained to recognize measurement failure as a category can move conversations from accusation to architecture.

References.

Original to NbS Praxis editorial voice (No. 2 issue, June 2026)
methodologically informed by debates in carbon-accounting standards (e.g. WRI/WBCSD GHG Protocol revisions)
the broader literature on indicator construction in international development (Davis, Kingsbury and Merry, "Indicators as a Technology of Global Governance," Law and Society Review, 2012)

GREEN BOND

Definition. A debt instrument whose proceeds are earmarked exclusively for projects with environmental benefits, issued under a recognized set of voluntary principles or a regulatory standard that specifies use of proceeds, project evaluation, management of proceeds, and reporting. The defining feature is the ring-fencing and disclosure of where the money goes, not a difference in the bond's credit risk.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a sovereign or corporate bond financing renewable energy, sustainable water management, or ecosystem restoration, with annual allocation and impact reporting against the ICMA Green Bond Principles or the EU Green Bond Standard

(ii) What it is not

a guarantee of environmental outcome — the No. 2 issue noted that green bonds still cannot prove they are green, meaning the use-of-proceeds promise is only as credible as the measurement and verification behind the reported impact

Rationale. Green bonds are the most mature of the labeled instruments converging on nature finance, and they illustrate the recurring theme that a label is not proof. In urban NbS a dedicated maintenance reserve carried within a green-bond structure is one of the mechanisms that turns a one-off capital outlay into a durable, permanence-respecting asset.

References.

International Capital Market Association, Green Bond Principles (2021 edition)
Climate Bonds Initiative standards and market reports
Regulation (EU) 2023/2631 on European Green Bonds

LAND VALUE CAPTURE (LVC)

Definition. Land value capture is the family of fiscal instruments through which a public authority recovers for the public purse some share of the increase in private land and property value that public investment, or a public decision such as a rezoning, creates. Its core instruments are the betterment levy, a charge on properties that benefit from a specific public work (known in Colombia as contribución de valorización), and the land-value-increment charge on the uplift arising from administrative acts (the Colombian participación en plusvalía), alongside related mechanisms including tax-increment financing, the sale or auction of development rights, and developer exactions.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a betterment levy ring-fenced to fund the maintenance and extension of an urban green corridor whose presence raises adjacent land values
a plusvalía charge that recycles a share of rezoning gains back into the district that generated them
the betterment financing that has paid for a large share of Medellín's arterial roads through the city's valorization fund

(ii) What it is not

a general property tax levied irrespective of any specific public investment
a one-time developer fee unconnected to measured value uplift
and it is not, in itself, a guarantee of equity, since poorly designed capture can fall on the very residents an intervention was meant to protect

Rationale. Land value capture is the central financing argument of the brand's urban nature work and the instrument the Medellín long-form identifies as the program's single largest missed opportunity. A nature-based asset that raises the value of the land around it is, in fiscal terms, an asset capable of funding its own maintenance and its own extension; capturing that uplift both creates the dedicated, ring-fenced revenue stream that solves the permanence problem that kills most urban NbS and, by recycling value back into the host district, begins to make equity resilient rather than incidental. The mature toolkit for capture sits almost entirely in the transit sector, and the frontier the brand argues for is its transfer from transit to nature.

References.

Martim O. Smolka, Implementing Value Capture in Latin America: Policies and Tools for Urban Development (Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2013)
Jason Cohen, Mark Dietz, and Shi-Ling Huang, “Green Infrastructure, Home Values, Land Value Capture, and Equitable Property Assessment,” Lincoln Institute of Land Policy working paper (2023)
Ley 388 of 1997 (Colombia), arts. 73–90 on participación en plusvalía
Constitución Política de Colombia (1991), art. 82

RESILIENT EQUITY (EQUITABLE RESILIENCE)

Definition. Resilient equity is the brand's term for an equity gain engineered to survive over time because it is secured in structure, tenure, or a dedicated revenue stream, rather than announced at a project's opening and left to the goodwill of a design. It draws on the scholarly concept of equitable resilience, which asks not only whether a system recovers from shock but who benefits and who bears the cost when it does, and insists that resilience-building attend to the underlying distribution of rights, assets, and power.

Examples.

(i) What it is

Durban's Buffelsdraai community reforestation program, where local tree-preneurs earn redeemable credits and the gains are protected because the land is municipally owned and so not exposed to redevelopment displacement
a land-value-capture mechanism that recycles uplift into the host community so that rising amenity does not simply price out the residents it was meant to serve

(ii) What it is not

a participatory design or a gardener-training scheme that delivers benefits during construction but leaves no structural protection once the founding champions move on, as the brand argues was the case in Medellín
and it is not a synonym for equity in the abstract, since the distinctive claim is durability secured through structure

Rationale. Resilient equity is the small but load-bearing piece of vocabulary the Medellín long-form introduces to name the hinge of its social argument: that the difference between a city that secures an equity gain and one that merely intends it is whether the gain is built into tenure and financing or left to design intent. It ties the brand's equity commitment directly to its financing argument, because the same instrument that funds maintenance, land value capture, is also what can make equity durable.

References.

Nilufar Matin, John Forrester, and Jonathan Ensor, “What is equitable resilience?” World Development 109 (2018): 197–205
Zachary B. Lamb and Lawrence J. Vale, The Equitably Resilient City: Solidarities and Struggles in the Face of Climate Crisis (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2024)
on the failure mode it guards against, Melissa García-Lamarca, Isabelle Anguelovski et al., “Challenging the financial capture of urban greening,” Nature Communications 13 (2022)

RESULTS-BASED PAYMENTS (RBP)

Definition. Results-based payments are disbursements made only after a defined climate or environmental outcome has been achieved and independently verified, in contrast to payments made for inputs, activities, or units delivered. In the nature and climate field the term spans the payment architecture for verified emission reductions under the UNFCCC's REDD+ framework, performance-based forest and ecosystem payments by multilateral funds and the World Bank, and project-level schemes that pay community growers for trees that survive rather than for trees that are planted.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the Green Climate Fund's REDD+ results-based payments, which reward verified reductions in deforestation emissions
the World Bank's East Kalimantan Emission Reductions Payment Agreement in Indonesia, which pays on measured performance
Freetown's reforestation campaign, which pays growers on geotagged, verified tree survival recorded as a digital token

(ii) What it is not

payment for activities or inputs regardless of outcome
a grant disbursed against a workplan
and it is not self-executing, since it depends entirely on a credible measurement, reporting, and verification system and on a domestic budget willing to keep paying once donor finance ends

Rationale. Results-based payments matter to the brand because they are where the measurement argument becomes a financing reality: a benefit that cannot be independently verified cannot carry a results-based payment, and a payment that turns on survival rather than planting forces the falsifiable outcome that plant-and-walk-away schemes never publish. Their central vulnerability, that they live or die on whether domestic budgets keep paying after the donor stops, is precisely the permanence-of-financing question the brand presses across its urban and forest work.

References.

UNFCCC, Warsaw Framework for REDD+, Decision 9/CP.19 (2013)
Green Climate Fund, REDD+ Results-Based Payments Pilot Programme, Board decision B.18/07 (2017)
World Bank, Indonesia East Kalimantan Emission Reductions Payment Agreement (Forest Carbon Partnership Facility)

GREENWASHING

Definition. Greenwashing is the practice, whether deliberate or the product of loose definitions, of presenting a product, instrument, portfolio, or organization as more environmentally beneficial than the evidence supports. In nature and climate finance it appears wherever a green or nature label is attached to an instrument whose use of proceeds, project selection, or post-issuance reporting cannot demonstrate a real and additional environmental outcome.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a green bond whose proceeds add little beyond conventional debt yet still carry the green label
a nature-badged headline finance figure that sweeps in instruments with no measurable nature outcome
an offset claim asserting neutrality on the basis of credits that fail tests of additionality, leakage, or permanence

(ii) What it is not

an honest contribution claim backed by verified data and a stated provenance caveat
a genuine green instrument with credible nature metrics and safeguards
and it is not merely a presentational sin, because it misprices risk and erodes the credibility of the whole category

Rationale. Greenwashing is the failure the brand's editorial line is built to counter through its insistence on contribution over offset and on measurement as infrastructure rather than reporting. It is the predictable consequence of the field's definitional disorder, the same disorder that lets private nature finance for a single year be reported as anywhere between twenty-three and one hundred and two billion dollars depending on the taxonomy chosen, and it is the reason the brand argues that the scarce skill is no longer originating deals but producing numbers that survive being quoted.

References.

On green-bond labeling and greenwashing, the peer-reviewed study in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (Springer Nature, 2024) on the dual impact of green bonds
Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) Recommendations, final framework (September 2023)
UNEP, State of Finance for Nature 2026

PAYMENT FOR ECOSYSTEM SERVICES (PES)

Definition. Payment for ecosystem services is a voluntary transaction in which a well-defined environmental service, or a land use likely to secure that service, is bought by at least one buyer from at least one provider, on the condition that the provider continuously secures its provision. The service is typically watershed protection, carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, or landscape beauty, and the payment converts an externality that markets ordinarily ignore into a contracted, recurring revenue stream for the land steward who supplies it.

Examples.

(i) What it is

Costa Rica's national Pago por Servicios Ambientales program, which pays landholders for forest conservation, reforestation, and agroforestry from earmarked fuel-tax and water-tariff revenues
a downstream water utility paying upstream farmers to maintain the forest cover that protects a catchment
a conservation payment conditioned on verified standing forest rather than on trees planted

(ii) What it is not

a one-off grant or subsidy carrying no conditionality
a pure offset transaction in which a buyer claims the reduction against its own target
a national-scale results-based payment for an already-realized and verified emissions reduction, a related but distinct architecture. PES rewards the continuous provision of a service rather than a discrete, certified outcome

Rationale. Payment for ecosystem services is the financing logic that sits upstream of the catchment in the brand's urban nature work. The Medellin long-form argues that the cheapest interventions usually lie upstream in the wider basin, where PES can pay the land stewards who protect the water, soil, and forest that a downstream city depends on. PES matters to the practice because conditionality is its defining discipline. A payment that flows only while the service is secured is the rural counterpart to the survival-based payment and the ring-fenced betterment levy, each tying money to a verifiable, ongoing result rather than to an intention.

References.

Sven Wunder, “Payments for environmental services: some nuts and bolts,” CIFOR Occasional Paper No. 42 (Bogor: Center for International Forestry Research, 2005)
Sven Wunder, “Revisiting the concept of payments for environmental services,” Ecological Economics 117 (2015): 234–243
Stefano Pagiola, “Payments for environmental services in Costa Rica,” Ecological Economics 65, no. 4 (2008): 712–724
Costa Rica, Ley Forestal No. 7575 (1996) and the Fondo Nacional de Financiamiento Forestal (FONAFIFO) PSA program

THE INTEGRATED CLAIM (ONE PROJECT, ONE ACCOUNT)

Definition. The integrated claim is the practitioner discipline of documenting a single nature-based intervention so that one verifiable account carries its climate-mitigation, climate-adaptation, and biodiversity outcomes together, legible at once to the several buyers that finance each — most concretely a treasury that budgets nature on a core public line and an insurer that prices nature inside a risk model. The term names the shift from presenting a project as either a carbon asset or a biodiversity asset toward building it as one account in which all three outcome classes are measured, evidenced, and able to withstand third-party scrutiny.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a mangrove or peatland project whose single results framework records sequestered carbon, quantified coastal risk reduction, and a documented biodiversity outcome, each traceable to a method a third party can check
a project structured so a public treasury and a private insurer can both read the value relevant to them from the same account

(ii) What it is not

a project that asserts co-benefits rhetorically without measuring them (see Integrated Primary Outcomes)
a bundle of separate carbon and biodiversity claims sold twice into different markets, which invites double counting
a marketing narrative of “multiple benefits” unsupported by a single auditable ledger

Rationale. The integrated claim is the practitioner instruction the brand drew from the June 2026 London, United Kingdom, convenings, where climate and nature fused in political language, in an insurance-underwriting methodology, and in public-budget framing while no disbursed instrument appeared. The scarce skill it names is no longer structuring one bankable asset but positioning a project so that a single account carries both its climate and nature values for more than one buyer at once. It is the constructive companion to the measurement-failure framing: measurement failure diagnoses why claims come apart, and the integrated claim specifies the account that has to hold for capital to move.

References.

NbS Praxis, “The Climate-Nature Nexus in Practice,” Weekly Briefing No. 5, 27 June 2026 (origin of the framing in the brand voice)
United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, Global Roundtable on Sustainable Finance 2026 (nature-into-climate-risk-underwriting methodology, organizer-described, to be verified against UNEP FI’s published output on release)
Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, Recommendations (final framework, September 2023)
Green Climate Fund, Initial Investment Framework and updated investment criteria (2014, updated 2022), on scoring projects against primary outcomes

NATURE IN CLIMATE-RISK UNDERWRITING (RESILIENCE UNDERWRITING)

Definition. Nature in climate-risk underwriting is the emerging insurance-sector practice of incorporating the risk-reduction services of ecosystems — a mangrove belt that attenuates storm surge, a floodplain that absorbs peak flows — into the models by which insurers price and underwrite climate risk, so that a protected or restored ecosystem is treated as measurable risk reduction rather than as charitable expenditure. Pricing of this kind is the precondition for the buy-side instrument that a priced, insurable nature asset requires: an insurer can only reward an ecosystem that its risk model can read.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a methodology that lets an underwriter credit a coastal wetland with a quantified reduction in expected flood loss
a parametric or indemnity structure whose pricing reflects the protective value of a restored ecosystem
the treatment of ecosystems as resilience infrastructure inside an insurer’s risk model, paired on the public side with a treasury that budgets that same nature on a core line

(ii) What it is not

a philanthropic or corporate-social-responsibility contribution to conservation
a disclosure exercise alone (frameworks such as TNFD surface nature-related risk but do not price it into a premium)
a catastrophe model that ignores ecosystem condition
a nature claim asserted without a method an actuary can audit

Rationale. The June 2026 UNEP FI Global Roundtable presented a first-of-its-kind method for integrating nature into climate-risk underwriting, alongside sector guidance from the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, and the brand reads this as infrastructure for pricing rather than committed capital — the tooling that lets an insurer price a mangrove or a floodplain as risk reduction. For a practice built on the climate-and-nature nexus, underwriting is one of the two buyer-side channels, the insurer’s risk model and the treasury’s budget line, that an integrated claim must satisfy, which is why the discipline of measurement recurs as the binding condition on whether the mechanism delivers capital.

References.

United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, Principles for Sustainable Insurance Initiative (launched 2012), and Global Roundtable on Sustainable Finance 2026, London, 23–25 June 2026, “From Risk to Resilience” (the nature-into-underwriting method is organizer-described; the specific 2026 methodology should be verified against UNEP FI’s published output when released)
Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, Recommendations (2023)
NbS Praxis, Weekly Briefing No. 5, 27 June 2026

PARAMETRIC INSURANCE (FOR NATURE-BASED RISK TRANSFER)

Definition. Parametric insurance is a coverage structure that pays a predetermined amount automatically when an objectively measured parameter — wind speed, rainfall, a modeled storm-surge height — crosses a pre-agreed trigger threshold, rather than following the traditional indemnity process of assessing and verifying an actual loss after the fact. Applied to coastal and marine ecosystems, it is the instrument that lets a reinsurer pay against an ecosystem's protective service as soon as a hazard event occurs, funding restoration and maintenance before a lengthy claims process could otherwise begin.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the policy written for the Mesoamerican Reef off Quintana Roo, Mexico, developed by a Coastal Zone Management Trust with Swiss Re and The Nature Conservancy, which pays out on a wind-speed trigger with proceeds restricted to reef restoration
the mangrove-monetization model of Conservation International's Restoration Insurance Service Company, which structures insurer payments around a modeled flood-risk-reduction benefit

(ii) What it is not

the same as indemnity insurance (indemnity pays the assessed loss after a claims process; parametric pays a fixed amount on trigger, which is faster but carries basis risk — a possible mismatch between the payout and the actual loss)
identical to the broader practice of Nature in Climate-Risk Underwriting (that entry covers the general incorporation of ecosystem risk-reduction into insurer risk models; parametric insurance is one specific instrument within that practice, distinguished from indemnity-based structures)
a substitute for the restoration work itself (the payout typically funds restoration and maintenance rather than replacing the need for it)

Rationale. The brand's Coastal Protection long-form (draft, July 2026) identifies parametric insurance as the proof of concept for financing an appreciating coastal asset, because a trigger tied to a modeled hazard converts an ecosystem's protective service into a priced, insurable cash flow without waiting on the loss-adjustment process a conventional indemnity policy requires. The instrument's practical value for practitioners is speed: a portfolio built on parametric triggers can pay for reef or mangrove repair within days of a storm, which is what keeps a protective ecosystem's recovery from lagging the next hazard season.

References.

Swiss Re Institute and The Nature Conservancy, joint reporting on the Mesoamerican Reef parametric insurance policy, Quintana Roo, Mexico (2018)
Conservation International, Restoration Insurance Service Company (RISCO) program documentation
InsuResilience Global Partnership, publications on parametric climate and disaster risk insurance for climate-vulnerable countries

DAMAGE FUNCTION (in coastal and nature-based risk assessment)

Definition. A quantified relationship, used in catastrophe modeling and hazard risk assessment, among ecosystem or asset condition, hazard intensity, exposure, and expected loss, that translates a physical hazard event of a given severity into an estimated magnitude of damage. In coastal nature-based solutions, a damage function is what converts a general claim that an ecosystem provides protection into a site-specific, underwritable estimate of avoided loss for a defined hazard, belt width, vegetation condition, and exposed-asset profile.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a modeled curve or equation specifying how expected property or infrastructure loss changes as storm-surge height, wind speed, or wave energy increases, calibrated to local bathymetry, ecosystem condition, and asset exposure
the technical object that must specify its counterfactual, meaning the loss that would occur without the ecosystem present, and quantify its own uncertainty, before an “avoided loss” claim can be treated as underwritable rather than narrative

(ii) What it is not

a single global coefficient that can be applied uniformly to any hectare of mangrove or reef, since performance depends on belt width, vegetation density, bathymetry, and storm characteristics that vary by site
a substitute for a full risk assessment, since a damage function addresses only the hazard-to-loss link and must still be combined with exposure and vulnerability data specific to the assets at risk

Rationale. The damage function is the technical link the Coastal Protection long-form identifies as the difference between a credible, hazard-specific financing case and an inflated global-benefit claim: global estimates of mangrove- or reef-averted damage establish that the economic value is real but cannot be locally monetized without a site-specific damage function. Its absence is why “avoided loss” so often remains a narrative rather than a proposition an underwriter or a public investment appraisal can rely upon, which links this entry directly to the practice's insistence, expressed through Nature in Climate-Risk Underwriting and Parametric Insurance, that an insurer or a treasury can only price what its own risk model can read.

References.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group II, Chapter 3, “Oceans and Coastal Ecosystems and their Services” (2022)
P. Grossi and H. Kunreuther, eds., Catastrophe Modeling: A New Approach to Managing Risk (New York: Springer, 2005), on the hazard-exposure-vulnerability structure of catastrophe damage functions
P. Menéndez, I. J. Losada, S. Torres-Ortega, S. Narayan and M. W. Beck, “The Global Flood Protection Benefits of Mangroves,” Scientific Reports 10 (2020): 4404

THE MIGRATING CONSTRAINT (ANALYTICAL FRAMING)

Definition. The migrating constraint is the brand’s analytical device for reading the climate-and-nature finance field over time: at any moment one binding constraint holds back the flow of integrated capital, and as each constraint is eased the binding one moves — down the finance stack from legitimacy to assurance to measurement to the accounting-and-standards base layer, and then across to demand and, most recently, to governance and integration. The framing treats the field’s progress not as steady acceleration but as the successive relocation of the single bottleneck that most limits disbursement.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a reading in which the scarce factor shifts from whether nature finance is legitimate, to whether claims can be assured, to whether outcomes can be measured, to whether the accounting rails exist, to whether a buyer exists, to whether climate and nature will be governed and budgeted as one system
a diagnostic that locates where a given week’s development sits on that track and therefore what the next binding constraint will be

(ii) What it is not

a claim that earlier constraints are permanently solved (a constraint can bind again if standards or demand regress)
a linear maturity model with fixed stages
a substitute for project-level analysis, since the constraint binding a specific project may differ from the one binding the field

Rationale. The migrating constraint is the throughline the brand’s weekly briefing has tracked across its first five issues, and naming it lets the practice state precisely what changed in a given week and what to watch next rather than treating each development as isolated news. Its practical value is anticipatory: a practitioner who can see the constraint about to move can position ahead of it, which is the same logic that places the highest-leverage work inside the codification layer, where the rules governing the next binding constraint are written.

References.

NbS Praxis, “The Climate-Nature Nexus in Practice,” Weekly Briefing Nos. 1–5 (June 2026), where the framing was developed issue by issue
the institutional milestones the framing maps include the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures final framework (2023), the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting—Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA, 2021), and the UNEP FI Global Roundtable on Sustainable Finance (2026). This is the brand’s own analytical framing, offered as an editorial lens rather than an externally standardized term

THE ECONOMIC-VALUE STACK VS. THE CONTRACTED FINANCING STACK (ANALYTICAL FRAMING)

Definition. The practitioner discipline of separating everything a nature-based intervention is economically worth, avoided losses, carbon value, biodiversity value, livelihood value, and general welfare, from the narrower set of cash flows and risk-bearing instruments a project can rely upon because they are legally contracted, budgeted, or appropriated. The economic-value stack answers the question of how much an ecosystem is worth in aggregate; the contracted financing stack answers the narrower and decisive question of which of those values a specific, named payer is legally obligated to pay, to whom, and under what performance conditions.

Examples.

(i) What it is

recognizing that a global estimate such as USD 65 billion in mangrove-averted property damage is a real figure in the economic-value stack but is not, by itself, a cash pool that can service project debt, because no single payer is obligated to remit any part of it to a specific project
building a financing case only after a beneficiary, a payment basis, a legal authority, and a performance metric have been identified, at which point a portion of economic value converts into a contracted, bankable cash flow
a mangrove hectare that produces four value streams, carbon, coastal protection, fisheries and livelihoods, and biodiversity, of which only carbon has a contracted payer in most restoration portfolios

(ii) What it is not

a claim that economic value is fictitious or unimportant, since the economic-value stack is what justifies public investment, grant funding, and policy attention in the first place
a one-time distinction, since the same project can add tiers to its contracted financing stack over time as new payers, such as a coastal-management trust or a parametric-insurance premium, are brought under contract

Rationale. This distinction is the organizing discipline of the Coastal Protection long-form and names, in reusable language, a failure mode that recurs across the practice's advisory and toolkit work: conflating an ecosystem's total economic value with its bankability, which produces the appearance of a financeable project without the underlying contracts. It sharpens the practice's existing insistence, carried since the Measurement Failure and Integrated Claim framings, that headline valuation figures and disbursable finance are different categories that must not be quoted as if interchangeable.

References.

Original to NbS Praxis editorial voice (Coastal Protection long-form, “Coastal Protection that Appreciates,” July 2026). The underlying distinction between economic and financial project analysis draws on standard multilateral development bank practice, as codified in Asian Development Bank, Guidelines for the Economic Analysis of Projects (2017), and World Bank project economic and financial analysis guidance

NATURE CREDITS (AND BIODIVERSITY CREDITS)

Definition. Tradable units representing a verified, quantified, and time-bound biodiversity or ecosystem outcome, such as the restoration, protection, or measurable improvement in condition of a defined area, purchased to finance nature-positive action. The European Commission's roadmap defines the units as quantifiable and fungible representations of verified biodiversity outcomes that can be registered, pooled, banked, and traded. The terms nature credit and biodiversity credit are used interchangeably in most institutional material, with nature credit the broader of the two.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a unit purchased voluntarily to fund a measured gain in habitat condition, issued against a published methodology and recorded on a registry
the pilot schemes running in France, Estonia, and Peru under the European Union roadmap

(ii) What it is not

a biodiversity offset, which discharges a legal no-net-loss or compensation obligation attached to a specific permitted impact, and which the roadmap treats as a separate instrument
and not a carbon credit, since no greenhouse-gas quantity is claimed and no emissions liability is discharged

Rationale. The unresolved problem in this market is fungibility. A tonne of carbon dioxide is interchangeable wherever it is avoided or removed, while a hectare of restored peatland in Estonia and a hectare of restored dry forest in Peru are not interchangeable in any ecologically meaningful sense, which makes the design of a tradable unit far harder than the carbon precedent suggests. That difficulty explains both the slow pace of the market and the recurring argument that voluntary demand alone will not scale it. A biodiversity lead at the European Investment Bank argued in July 2026 that a compliance framework may eventually be needed, a market-design opinion rather than institutional policy, and the distinction is the kind a practitioner should preserve when citing it.

References.

European Commission, Roadmap towards Nature Credits, published 7 July 2025, https://cinea.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/eu-publishes-nature-credits-roadmap-boost-private-investment-nature-positive-actions-2025-07-07_en, with pilot activity in France, Estonia, and Peru and an expert group convened to advise the Commission
International Union for Conservation of Nature, resource brief on nature credits
the Biodiversity Credit Alliance and the International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits, named in the roadmap as international partners in the development of the framework

METHODOLOGY RISK (ANALYTICAL FRAMING)

Definition. The risk that a change to the crediting methodology under which a project was designed, whether a tightened baseline, a conservatism ceiling, a revised sampling protocol, or a suspended method, alters the project's issuance schedule and therefore its cash flow, its capacity to service debt, and its valuation, without any physical change at the site and without a single issued credit being cancelled. Methodology risk is the transmission channel through which a technical decision taken by a standard-setter or regulator becomes a financial event for a project already in the ground.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a regulator recommending that units above a conservatism ceiling be temporarily withheld rather than cancelled, which delays revenue, raises sampling and revalidation costs, and can put a contracted offtake delivery obligation out of reach
a standard reopening a sector methodology for revision while projects built on the earlier version are mid-term

(ii) What it is not

fraud or greenwashing, since the project may be competently executed and the site-level science sound while the method is revised beneath it
and not reversal risk, which is a physical loss of stored carbon rather than a change in how the storage is counted

Rationale. This framing exists because the field's default vocabulary treats verification as an administrative step that follows capital, which misplaces the risk in time. Method selection, baseline construction, sampling design, and the treatment of permanence and leakage are design conditions that must be credible before commitment and remain credible for the life of the claim. Naming the risk locates the remedy: method-risk diligence conducted before financial close, financial models stress-tested against a conservative ceiling and delayed issuance, and financing and offtake agreements that state explicitly who bears the consequence when expected units are withheld rather than cancelled.

References.

NbS Praxis, Weekly Briefing No. 10, "When the Method Becomes the Risk," 1 August 2026, which develops this framing from the week's regulatory evidence
Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, consultation on the Australian Carbon Credit Unit scheme's Soil Organic Carbon 2021 method, opened 28 July 2026
Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee, Information Paper on the Offsets Integrity Standards, https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/erac-information-paper-offsets-integrity-standards.pdf. The framing is original to the NbS Praxis editorial voice
the regulatory sources support the underlying facts, not the label

SUSTAINABILITY-LINKED LOAN (SLL)

Definition. A loan or contingent credit facility whose economic terms, typically the interest margin, vary with the borrower's performance against pre-agreed sustainability performance targets measured by selected key performance indicators. The proceeds are not ring-fenced and may fund general corporate purposes, which is the defining difference from a use-of-proceeds instrument. The market's voluntary framework, the Sustainability-Linked Loan Principles issued jointly by the Loan Market Association, the Asia Pacific Loan Market Association, and the Loan Syndications and Trading Association, sets five core components: selection of the key performance indicators, calibration of the sustainability performance targets, loan characteristics, reporting, and verification.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a corporate revolving facility whose margin steps down on achievement of a deforestation-free supply-chain target and steps up on failure
a term loan priced against an external sustainability rating

(ii) What it is not

a green loan or a green bond, whose defining feature is the ring-fencing of proceeds to eligible projects
and not a statement that the borrower's activities are sustainable, since borrower and lenders set the indicators and targets themselves against no statutory benchmark

Rationale. The instrument is where the perimeter of an indicator, rather than the truth of a label, decides what a financing actually disciplines. Global Witness reported in August 2026 that more than 100 banks arranged USD 31 billion in sustainability-linked lending to Indonesian palm-oil companies facing deforestation allegations, and the finding is not that lenders classified deforestation as nature-positive but that a sustainability-linked structure coexisted with serious nature-related allegations. The practitioner questions follow from the structure: whether the chosen indicators reach the borrower's most material nature impacts, whether the performance boundary extends into the supply chain, whether the targets are ambitious against a credible baseline, and whether missing a target carries a financial consequence worth pricing. A portfolio's nature risk cannot be inferred from the presence or absence of labeled products.

References.

Loan Market Association, Asia Pacific Loan Market Association, and Loan Syndications and Trading Association, Sustainability-Linked Loan Principles and accompanying guidance, most recently revised in 2025
Global Witness, investigation into sustainability-linked lending to Indonesian palm-oil companies, published 5 August 2026, London, United Kingdom, reporting USD 31 billion in lending arranged between 2018 and 2025 and USD 950 million in commitments to a single company against satellite-based deforestation inferences that the company firmly refutes
NbS Praxis, Weekly Briefing No. 11, “When the Measure Becomes the Market,” week to 8 August 2026, where the mechanism is set out

THE RECONCILIATION BURDEN (ANALYTICAL FRAMING)

Definition. The burden a project carries when several independently written rule regimes converge on a single site and none of them was designed to compose with the next, so that the work of making them fit falls on the applicant. The framing holds that the burden is paid less in fees than in schedule and in dependence on institutions the proponent cannot direct, and that regimes therefore stack multiplicatively in risk rather than additively in money: each regime introduces a gate, most gates are held by a ministry, a registry, a legislature, or a cabinet outside the project, and any single stalled link stalls everything downstream.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a mangrove call requiring an area-based conservation designation against Convention and International Union for Conservation of Nature criteria, a credible pathway to credits under a standard aligned with the Core Carbon Principles, and an aim of national authorization under Article 6, composed privately by a publicly funded foundation because no public standard composes them
a conservation grant that exceeded its beneficiary target more than fourfold while recording nothing against its protected-area objective, the enabling designation decree still pending when the grant closed

(ii) What it is not

a claim that a new master constraint has been found, since project preparation, access, financing terms, rights and tenure, fiduciary capacity, and ecological verification each bind independently
not an argument that any individual regime is unreasonable, since each is defensible on its own terms
and not a general theory of fragmentation, since composition works reliably inside a family of rules sharing an author community, a vocabulary, and a purpose, and stops at the family boundary

Rationale. The framing exists because the field reads regime proliferation as a compliance story and prices it as a compliance cost, when the costs that bite are the ones that never arrive as an invoice: the economic cost of delay, and the risk that a project never completes at all. Locating the burden in schedule and dependency moves the remedy out of contract negotiation and into project preparation, and converts it into questions a team can ask before design closes: which approvals are held by institutions we do not control, and who holds each one; which regime is load-bearing, in the sense that its failure kills the project rather than delaying it; and what must start in month one because nothing can compress it later. The framing also carries its own dissolving condition, which is what distinguishes it from an assertion. A binding cross-family composition mechanism, whether a Convention instrument with legal force or a disclosure standard absorbing taxonomy and carbon-accounting logic into a single reporting obligation, would move the reconciling upstream to the rule-writers and retire the framing.

References.

NbS Praxis, “The Reconciliation Burden: What One Mangrove Hectare Must Prove, and to Whom,” monthly long-form, August 2026, where the framing is developed from the record reviewed there and where the underlying cases are separately sourced. Original to the NbS Praxis editorial voice rather than received institutional terminology, and offered as an editorial lens
it should be flagged as such when the public-facing Glossary page is built

THE REPORTING GAP (ANALYTICAL FRAMING)

Definition. The analytical move, used in the NbS Praxis editorial voice, of asking whether an apparent shortfall in delivery is a shortfall in the underlying work or a shortfall in the reporting that would make the work visible. The framing holds that an area-based ledger counts only what a national system reports, so an unreported hectare and an unrestored hectare are indistinguishable in the total, and that the two call for opposite remedies: implementation support in the first case, monitoring finance in the second.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the International Union for Conservation of Nature's 2026 restoration ledger recording 124.3 million hectares of government-reported restoration against roughly 1.2 billion hectares pledged, a figure its compilers describe as a floor precisely because restoration that is never reported cannot be counted
the resulting question of whether Sub-Saharan Africa's reported 5% of pledges reflects under-delivery or under-reporting

(ii) What it is not

a defense of poor performance, since the framing does not assume the missing hectares exist
and not a claim that measurement is the only binding constraint, since a reporting gap and a delivery gap can and often do coexist in the same total

Rationale. The framing exists because the field has begun to publish delivery ledgers faster than it has built the national reporting systems that feed them, and a ledger read without this distinction turns a data problem into a verdict on a country. The practical consequences are specific. A program designer should establish whether the host country's national reporting would capture the program area at all, and where it would not, write the data flow to the national focal point into the design rather than assuming the work will surface. A finance officer should treat a low reported ratio as a diagnostic question rather than a scoring input, because the instrument that fits an absorptive-capacity problem is not the instrument that fits a monitoring problem. The framing is a companion to measurement failure, which concerns figures that disagree because their definitions differ; the reporting gap concerns figures that are absent because no system produced them.

References.

NbS Praxis, Weekly Briefing No. 13, “The Ledger Arrives Before the Money,” week to 22 August 2026, where the framing is developed from the week's evidence and where the underlying items are separately sourced
International Union for Conservation of Nature, Global Restoration Achievements Database report, launched at the seventeenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 21 August 2026, for the 124.3 million hectare figure, its construction from official national reporting under conservative overlap rules, and the compilers' own description of the total as a floor. Original to the NbS Praxis editorial voice rather than received institutional terminology, and offered as an editorial lens
it should be flagged as such when the public-facing Glossary page is built

SOVEREIGN AND NON-SOVEREIGN CHANNELS (IN FRAGILE CONTEXTS)

Definition. The distinction between finance that flows to, through, or with the endorsement of a national government, which is the sovereign or public sector channel and includes loans and grants to the state and any fund access requiring a national authority's endorsement, and finance that reaches private, non-governmental, or community actors without the state as counterparty, which is the non-sovereign channel. In fragile and conflict-affected settings the two channels can diverge completely: multilateral banks and climate funds may suspend the sovereign channel while humanitarian, community-resilience, philanthropic, and carbon-market money continues to move through non-sovereign routes.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the Asian Development Bank's position in Myanmar, where the bank states that it temporarily put on hold public sector project disbursements and new contracts effective 1 February 2021, alongside a USD 100 million package from the Asian Development Fund, approved in June 2025, to deliver integrated humanitarian assistance and build long-term community resilience outside the public sector channel
a Green Climate Fund concept note that cannot proceed because a no-objection from the national designated authority is unobtainable, while a voluntary carbon project on the same coast continues to issue and sell credits
the Global EbA Fund's medium-size priority topic on ecosystem-based adaptation for human development and security, which grants to non-government applicants

(ii) What it is not

a statement that non-sovereign money is easy in fragile contexts, since donors' due diligence, sanctions screening, and reputational tests apply
a way around a fund's country-led access rules, which the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage and the Green Climate Fund enforce by design
a permanent condition, since re-engagement follows political change

Rationale. A financing strategy for a fragile country that lists the multilateral climate funds is a list of closed doors. Sorting every candidate source by channel first tells a practitioner which options are live, which are dormant until re-engagement, and which non-sovereign routes carry the work in the meantime, among them multi-donor community funds, humanitarian and development programs, philanthropy, and credit sales with buyer diversification. The distinction also explains why carbon credits became the default revenue line for coastal restoration in such settings: the voluntary market is the one channel that never needed the state's signature, which is both its usefulness and its fragility.

References.

Asian Development Bank, Myanmar, and Myanmar: In-Depth, recording the temporary hold on public sector project disbursements and new contracts effective 1 February 2021 and stating that the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance rose from 1 million in 2021 to 16.2 million in 2026, page last updated 19 May 2026, https://www.adb.org/where-we-work/myanmar and
Asian Development Bank, ADB Approves $100 Million for Humanitarian Relief and Community Resilience for the People of Myanmar, 17 June 2025
Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, Funding Cycle under the Barbados Implementation Modalities, on country-led origination through national focal points
Global EbA Fund, Medium-size Grants Call for Proposals, priority topic on ecosystem-based adaptation for human development and security
All verified 20 September 2026. The entry follows the Asian Development Bank's own term, public sector, in preference to sovereign where the bank's position is described

TWO-PHASE FINANCING PATHWAY (ANALYTICAL FRAMING)

Definition. An NbS Praxis editorial framing for sequencing the finance of a nature-based portfolio in two funded phases. A preparation phase, financed by a catalytic grant, builds the site-level adaptation evidence base and the ledger of who benefits from each asset, appraises the candidate financing channels against the certainty of a payer, and takes two or three selected options to investment-ready stage through a stage gate. An implementation phase then closes and executes those options, typically blending adaptation grants through an accredited intermediary, contracted payments from beneficiaries, an upgraded credit stream, and philanthropic or results-based capital. The pathway responds to the finding that grant and concessional capital carry an outsized role in the early years of an ecosystem finance program, ahead of the commercial capital they later crowd in.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a Global EbA Fund grant of up to USD 500,000 over 24 months that produces a financing strategy, an Adaptation Fund or Green Climate Fund concept note through an accredited intermediary, a term sheet for a protection payment, and an Article 6-ready credit structure, followed by 24 to 36 months of closing those arrangements
a stage gate at month nine to twelve that scores options on payer certainty, time to first cash, transaction cost, country-risk exposure, and separability from the carbon claim

(ii) What it is not

a feasibility study, which appraises one design rather than a menu of payers
a single-fund application
a promise that the preparation grant funds implementation, which it never does

Rationale. Most nature-based portfolios are financed off one revenue line, usually carbon, because carbon is the line that needed no payer to be found. The other value streams of an ecosystem asset, among them protection, fisheries and livelihoods, and biodiversity, have no payer until someone builds the evidence and the contract, and building them is a project in itself with its own budget and funder. Naming the two phases keeps that work from being improvised inside an implementation budget, and it matches the windows that exist: catalytic grant facilities fund the first phase, and the climate funds, beneficiaries, and markets fund the second.

References.

NbS Praxis editorial framing, September 2026, an original coinage whose authority rests on the publication's own analytical work rather than on an external source
Systemiq, The Mangrove Breakthrough Financial Roadmap, published 9 November 2023 and launched around COP28, on the outsized role of grant and concessional capital in the near term
Global EbA Fund, 8th Call for Proposals for Small-Size Grants, on the guidance that a funded project may serve to develop a larger proposal to another funding mechanism
Hubert Jenny, Coastal Protection that Appreciates: What Nature-Based Solutions Reveal About Financing Resilience, NbS Praxis (16 July 2026), on value that has no payer

EMISSION REDUCTIONS PURCHASE AGREEMENT (ERPA)

Definition. A forward contract under which a buyer agrees to purchase a stated volume of future carbon credits, or other verified environmental units, from a project or a jurisdiction at an agreed price and delivery schedule, often with a prepayment or advance that finances part of the project's development and operating costs before any unit is issued. The instrument originated in the World Bank's carbon funds, where the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development styles it an emission reductions payment agreement rather than a purchase agreement and publishes general conditions for it, and the purchase-agreement form of the name is the one the voluntary market has generalized for offtake contracts between buyers, investors, and project developers.

Examples.

(i) What it is

an investor financing the rehabilitation of a mangrove site in exchange for future credits, as Key Carbon reports doing for a 1,500-hectare project in Bokpyin Township, Tanintharyi Region, Myanmar, in 2022
a corporate buyer contracting for annual deliveries from a registered project over ten years at a fixed or floor price
a jurisdictional results-based payment agreement with delivery milestones, verification conditions, and buffer-pool provisions

(ii) What it is not

a spot purchase of issued credits
a guarantee of issuance, since delivery risk stays with the project unless the contract shifts it
a grant, even when prepaid, because the advance is repaid in units

Rationale. For a developer without access to the climate funds, a prepaid offtake is project finance: it converts a future revenue line into present capital. The price a developer can command depends on the tier the future units will fall into, which is why the integrity label and the authorization status of those units belong in the contract rather than in the marketing. Diversifying buyers across several agreements is also the cheapest hedge available against a single buyer's exit or a re-sorting of the market.

References.

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, General Conditions Applicable to Emission Reductions Payment Agreements for Forest Carbon Partnership Facility Emission Reductions Programs, 1 November 2014, https://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org/system/files/documents/FCPF%20ERPA_General%20Conditions_November%201%202014.pdf, listed among the Facility's legal documents at
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, General Conditions Applicable to ERPA Framework Agreements and ERPA Phase Agreements for BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes Emission Reductions Programs, 31 May 2021
Key Carbon, Worldview partnership page, on the financing of a mangrove restoration project in Bokpyin Township, Tanintharyi Region, Myanmar
Verified 20 September 2026. No generic, fund-agnostic World Bank Carbon Finance Unit template was found in the public record, so the two fund-specific general conditions above are the primary instruments this entry cites

OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE ELIGIBILITY (ODA)

Definition. The country classifications that gate access to most climate and nature funds. The list of official development assistance recipients maintained by the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development defines which countries' activities count as official development assistance, and many funds restrict eligibility to it. Within the list, the United Nations category of least developed countries and the group of small island developing States attract allocation floors and priority windows. Least-developed-country status moves through a three-step chain: the Committee for Development Policy recommends graduation after a country qualifies at two consecutive triennial reviews, the Economic and Social Council endorses the recommendation, and the General Assembly takes note of it in a resolution and determines the date, with graduation following a minimum of three years after the recommendation.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the Global EbA Fund's 8th small-size call, which places its primary geographic focus on ODA-eligible small island developing States and least developed countries
the Green Climate Fund's floor for the share of adaptation resources directed to least developed countries, small island developing States and African States
the minimum allocation floor for small island developing States and least developed countries under the Barbados Implementation Modalities of the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage
Myanmar as a least developed country and Malaysia as an upper-middle-income country that remains ODA-eligible but is neither

(ii) What it is not

a measure of climate vulnerability, which the categories only proxy
a permanent status, since graduation and income-group changes move countries across thresholds, with Bangladesh, Lao People's Democratic Republic and Nepal scheduled to graduate in 2026
a substitute for a fund's own eligibility rules, which may add or remove countries

Rationale. Country category is the first gate in any fund routing, and it is checked last by most proponents. A portfolio spread across countries in different categories should expect different windows for each, and a country approaching graduation should expect windows to close on a known date. The current list is the one effective for reporting on 2025 flows, and the Committee's triennial review, planned for 2026, has been postponed to 2027 while the graduation criteria are reviewed, so a practitioner should read the list rather than assume a refresh. Checking the United Nations least-developed-country portal and the current DAC list, rather than a news report, is a two-minute discipline that prevents a misrouted concept note.

References.

↑ Back to index

Part Six

Urban Nature-Based Solutions Terms

Terms specific to nature-based solutions at the city scale, surfaced through the Medellín inaugural long-form and the comparator-city analysis that supports it. These terms describe the operational vocabulary of urban climate-and-nature integration, in which heat, water, and biodiversity are addressed as one designed package rather than as separate agendas.

URBAN HEAT ISLAND (UHI)

Definition. The tendency of built-up areas to be warmer than their surrounding countryside, because hard, dark surfaces absorb and re-radiate heat, vegetation and its cooling evapotranspiration are scarce, and waste heat from buildings, vehicles, and industry accumulates. The effect is strongest at night and intensifies during heatwaves.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the several-degree temperature difference between a dense, paved district and a vegetated periphery
the condition that urban tree canopy, green corridors, and blue-green infrastructure are designed to mitigate

(ii) What it is not

the same as global warming, though the two compound dangerously
the urban heat island is a local, land-surface phenomenon that city design can reduce even as background temperatures rise

Rationale. The urban heat island is the problem statement behind much of urban NbS, and the Medellín piece turns on it: the city's green corridors are credited with a roughly 2°C average and up to 10°C localized cooling, figures the brand treats with explicit provenance discipline against the independent benchmark of Iungman et al.'s estimate of about 0.4°C cooling from lifting tree cover to 30% across European cities.

References.

Oke (1982) The energetic basis of the urban heat island, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society
United States Environmental Protection Agency, Heat Island resources (
Iungman et al. (2023) Cooling cities through urban green infrastructure: a health impact assessment of European cities, The Lancet

GREEN CORRIDOR (COOL CORRIDOR)

Definition. A connected, linear network of street trees, planted medians, and vegetated stream banks running through a city, designed to lower temperatures, reconnect fragmented habitat, and provide shaded active-travel routes. The cool-corridor framing emphasizes the heat-mitigation function; the green-corridor framing emphasizes ecological connectivity. Both describe the same asset class.

Examples.

(i) What it is

Medellín's Corredores Verdes, a network of roughly thirty interconnected avenue and stream corridors planted with hundreds of thousands of trees and smaller plants and maintained by a trained workforce drawn from low-income communities

(ii) What it is not

a single park or a one-off street-tree planting
the defining features are connectivity and the maintenance financing that keeps the network functioning beyond its first political cycle

Rationale. The green corridor is the signature urban NbS asset of the brand's inaugural long-form, and it carries both signature analytical moves: the measurement-failure discipline applied to its cooling figures, and permanence as the binding constraint, since the most common failure mode is operational neglect five to ten years in rather than capital cost. It is also the clearest illustration of integrated primary outcomes at city scale, with heat, biodiversity, public health, and mobility delivered by one intervention.

References.

C40 Cities, case study of Medellín's Green Corridors (
Municipality of Medellín (Alcaldía de Medellín) reporting on the Corredores Verdes programme
Iungman et al. (2023), The Lancet, on the cooling and health effects of urban green infrastructure

SPONGE CITY

Definition. An urban water-management approach, codified as national policy in China, that uses permeable surfaces, wetlands, bioswales, retention ponds, and green roofs to absorb, store, and slowly release rainfall, so that the city behaves like a sponge rather than shedding water through pipes. The aim is to reduce flooding, recharge groundwater, and improve water quality while delivering green amenity.

Examples.

(i) What it is

Wuhan and the other pilot cities under China's national Sponge City Programme, where large public investment retrofits districts to capture a defined share of annual rainfall on site

(ii) What it is not

a model that transfers cheaply
the brand's comparator analysis treats the sponge city as a case of programmatic scaling that depends on a multi-billion-dollar institutional precondition most cities cannot replicate

Rationale. The sponge city is one of the six comparator cases the Medellín piece uses to isolate a single transferable lesson — here, the limits of programmatic scaling without commensurate fiscal capacity. It anchors the brand's insistence that urban NbS lessons are conditional on institutional preconditions rather than universally portable.

References.

China Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Technical Guidelines for Sponge City Construction (2014), with State Council Guiding Opinions on Sponge City Construction (2015)
Chan et al. (2018) Sponge City in China — A breakthrough of planning and flood risk management in the urban context, Land Use Policy
World Bank publications on sponge city approaches

CLOUDBURST MANAGEMENT

Definition. The planned management of extreme, short-duration rainfall in cities through a deliberate combination of grey infrastructure (pipes, tunnels) and blue-green infrastructure (retention squares, daylighted channels, parks designed to flood safely), so that water has a designed place to go when drainage capacity is exceeded. The approach treats surface flooding as a design parameter rather than a failure.

Examples.

(i) What it is

Copenhagen's Cloudburst Management Plan, developed after the 2011 deluge, which routes extreme runoff through streets and multifunctional public spaces engineered to hold water temporarily
New York's hybrid cloudburst program combining grey and green at scale

(ii) What it is not

routine stormwater drainage sized for ordinary rain
cloudburst management is specifically about the rare, high-intensity event that conventional pipes cannot carry

Rationale. Cloudburst management is the comparator case that demonstrates utility-grade planning and a financing model for extreme-rainfall resilience, and it reinforces the brand's argument that bankable urban NbS is long-horizon risk engineering rather than a tidy issuance story. It also shows multifunctional public space — water squares that are plazas on dry days and basins in a storm — as a way to extract several outcomes from one capital outlay.

References.

City of Copenhagen, Cloudburst Management Plan (Skybrudsplan, 2012)
New York City Department of Environmental Protection cloudburst resiliency program documentation
C40 Cities resources on urban flood resilience

Related terms. Sponge City; Blue-Green Infrastructure; Green Bond.

BLUE-GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE

Definition. The planned network of water elements (blue) and vegetation (green) — wetlands, bioswales, rain gardens, green roofs, urban forests, daylighted streams — used together to deliver stormwater management, cooling, biodiversity, and amenity as an alternative or complement to conventional grey infrastructure. The term emphasizes that water and vegetation are engineered as one integrated system.

Examples.

(i) What it is

Singapore's Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters (ABC Waters) programme, whose design guidelines codify blue-green features so they can be procured predictably
the underlying asset category beneath green corridors, sponge cities, and cloudburst schemes

(ii) What it is not

ornamental landscaping added after the engineering is fixed
blue-green infrastructure is functional infrastructure whose hydrological and thermal performance is designed and, ideally, monitored

Rationale. Blue-green infrastructure is the umbrella asset class beneath the brand's urban NbS vocabulary, and Singapore's ABC Waters guidelines are the reference case for codification — the standardization that lets a city procure these assets reliably rather than as bespoke pilots. Codified design standards are, in the brand's framing, what move blue-green infrastructure from pilot to platform.

References.

Singapore Public Utilities Board (PUB), Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters (ABC Waters) Design Guidelines (
Ghofrani, Sposito and Faggian (2017) A comprehensive review of blue-green infrastructure concepts, International Journal of Environment and Sustainability
European Environment Agency reports on green and blue infrastructure

GREEN GENTRIFICATION

Definition. Green gentrification is the process by which urban environmental improvement, such as a new park, greenway, or green corridor, raises the amenity and therefore the rents and property values of a neighborhood, attracting wealthier residents and displacing the lower-income residents and communities of color the greening was often meant to serve. It names the distributional paradox that an environmentally positive intervention can be socially regressive.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the rent and price increases that follow high-profile greenway investments and price out incumbent residents
the documented risk that green investment routed into lower-income districts triggers the very displacement it sought to remedy

(ii) What it is not

an inevitability, since equity-oriented policy such as secured tenure, municipal land ownership, or land value capture recycled into the host community can blunt or prevent it
and it is not an argument against urban greening, but an argument for designing greening so that its benefits are retained by existing residents

Rationale. Green gentrification is the principal social risk attached to the brand's urban nature work and the failure mode that the concept of resilient equity is meant to guard against. It is why the Medellín long-form treats the question of whether corridor investment displaced residents as the hinge of its equity argument, and why it insists that an equity gain is only secure when built into structure rather than left to a responsive design.

References.

Kenneth A. Gould and Tammy L. Lewis, Green Gentrification: Urban Sustainability and the Struggle for Environmental Justice (New York: Routledge, 2017)
Melissa García-Lamarca, Isabelle Anguelovski et al., “Challenging the financial capture of urban greening,” Nature Communications 13 (2022)
Isabelle Anguelovski and the Barcelona Laboratory for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability (BCNUEJ)

↑ Back to index

Part Seven

Loss and Damage

Terminology from the loss and damage track of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and from the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage. This vocabulary is younger than the rest of the glossary and behaves differently. Much of it is enumerated rather than defined in treaty text, several of its most-quoted conventions originate outside the Convention altogether, and the Fund's operating parameters change at every Board meeting. Entries in this part therefore carry as-of dates more often than elsewhere, and distinguish throughout between what a decision establishes, what a secretariat paper describes, and what the field repeats without a source.

LOSS AND DAMAGE

Definition. The harms arising from the adverse effects of climate change that are not, or cannot be, avoided by mitigation and adaptation. No decision of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change defines the term. The 1992 Convention text does not contain the phrase at all; Article 8 of the Paris Agreement recognizes the importance of averting, minimizing, and addressing loss and damage without defining it; and the secretariat's own 2012 technical paper states that the Convention does not define the term as used by the work programme on loss and damage. Nor does the institution built to respond to it: the Governing Instrument of the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage runs to seventy-three paragraphs across sixteen chapters without a definitions article, and its paragraph 2 states a purpose — assisting particularly vulnerable developing countries in responding to economic and non-economic loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including extreme weather events and slow onset events — which qualifies the object of the Fund’s assistance rather than fixing the meaning of the term. The nearest thing to an authoritative usage is a convention rather than a definition. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change records in its Sixth Assessment Report that research has taken capitalized Loss and Damage to denote the political debate under the Convention, and lowercase losses and damages to denote harm from observed impacts and projected risks, economic and non-economic, a usage the report attributes to the literature and scopes expressly to itself.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the destruction of a coastal settlement by a storm surge no feasible defense would have stopped
the permanent salinization of an atoll's freshwater lens
the loss of a burial ground, a language, or a fishery to displacement and warming

(ii) What it is not

a legal claim. Decision 1/CP.21 agreed that Article 8 of the Paris Agreement does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation, and that firewall conditions everything built downstream of it, including what the Fund can be asked to do. Nor is the capitalization convention a treaty rule: the practice of writing capitalized Loss and Damage for the policy agenda under the Convention and lowercase losses and damages for the underlying harms comes from the research literature by way of the IPCC glossary, and no decision establishes it

Rationale. A practitioner needs to know that the imprecision here is structural rather than accidental, because it explains why the architecture built on the term is contested and why each instrument draws its own boundary. Where the line between adaptation and loss and damage falls determines which fund a project belongs to and which budget line pays for it, and since no agreed definition draws that line, it is settled call by call. The same reticence shows in where the liability disclaimer sits. Decision 1/CP.28 recalls in its preamble the understanding that funding arrangements, including a fund, are based on cooperation and facilitation and do not involve liability or compensation, while the Governing Instrument annexed to that decision says nothing about liability at all. The disclaimer lives in a recital rather than in the instrument that governs the Fund. For nature-based work the useful reading is the limits framing. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds that many species and ecosystems are near or beyond their hard adaptation limits, where no further adaptive action can avoid the risk, while the people who rely on those ecosystems to survive are near or beyond their soft limits, which additional finance, institutions, or technology could still lift. Ecosystem-based adaptation operates in the space above the hard limit. Below it, the vocabulary is loss and damage.

References.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992), in which the phrase does not appear
Paris Agreement, Article 8, and decision 1/CP.21, paragraph 51, which agrees that Article 8 “does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation,” both in FCCC/CP/2015/10/Add.1
UNFCCC secretariat, Slow onset events, technical paper FCCC/TP/2012/7, 26 November 2012, whose footnote 3 states that “The Convention does not define the term ‘loss and damage’ as used by the work programme on loss and damage,”
decision 1/CP.13, the Bali Action Plan, paragraph 1(c)(iii), the term's first appearance in a COP decision
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group II, Summary for Policymakers footnote 19, for the scoping of “losses and damages” to adverse observed impacts and projected risks, economic and non-economic
and the same report's Annex II Glossary, entry “Loss and Damage, and losses and damages,” which is where the capitalization convention sits and which attributes it to research rather than to the Convention — the Summary for Policymakers does not discuss capitalization at all
decision 1/CP.28 and its annexed Governing Instrument of the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, in FCCC/CP/2023/11/Add.1, https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cp2023_11a01E.pdf, whose paragraph 2 states the Fund’s purpose and whose paragraphs 7 to 9 state its scope without defining the term, and whose preamble, not the Governing Instrument, carries the understanding that funding arrangements including a fund are based on cooperation and facilitation and do not involve liability or compensation
IPCC AR6 Working Group II, Frequently Asked Question 4 on adaptation and its limits

WARSAW INTERNATIONAL MECHANISM (WIM)

Definition. The body established by decision 2/CP.19 at the nineteenth Conference of the Parties in Warsaw, Poland, on 23 November 2013, under the Cancun Adaptation Framework, to address loss and damage associated with impacts of climate change, including extreme events and slow onset events, in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. It carries three functions: enhancing knowledge and understanding of comprehensive risk management approaches; strengthening dialogue, coordination, coherence, and synergies among stakeholders; and enhancing action and support, including finance, technology, and capacity-building. Its work is guided by an Executive Committee of twenty members, ten from Annex I Parties and ten from non-Annex I Parties, whose permanent composition was fixed by decision 2/CP.20. Two institutions sit in its orbit on different terms. The Santiago Network was established as part of the Mechanism and delivers its technical assistance. The Fund for responding to Loss and Damage was not, being an operating entity of the Financial Mechanism related to the Mechanism by a requirement of coherence rather than by subordination. The Mechanism therefore holds the mandate and the knowledge while the finance sits outside its structure, which is why a country seeking help navigates three bodies with different parentage rather than one.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the institutional home of the loss and damage workstreams, delivering through five expert bodies mapped one to one onto the strategic workstreams of its second five-year rolling workplan for 2023 to 2027 — slow onset events, non-economic losses, comprehensive risk management, human mobility, and action and support

(ii) What it is not

a fund, and not a delivery agency. The mechanism produces knowledge, guidance, and coordination
money moves through the Fund and technical assistance through the Santiago Network, which sits inside the mechanism as a component rather than beside it

Rationale. The mechanism is where the conceptual groundwork a practitioner will eventually cite is actually done, and its expert groups are the reason categories such as non-economic loss and damage have usable structure at all. It also carries an unresolved governance question worth knowing before citing it: decisions 2/CP.19 and 2/CP.20 make the Executive Committee accountable to the Conference of the Parties, while Article 8.2 of the Paris Agreement places the mechanism under the authority and guidance of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties. Successive sessions have deferred the matter, and the working accommodation is a paired-decision practice in which the meeting of the Parties adopts the substantive text and the Conference of the Parties endorses it. A citation that gives only one half of such a pair will read as incomplete to a negotiator.

References.

Decision 2/CP.19, Warsaw international mechanism for loss and damage associated with climate change impacts, adopted 23 November 2013, in FCCC/CP/2013/10/Add.1, https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2013/cop19/eng/10a01.pdf — note that the establishing decision styles the name in lower case throughout, while later decisions capitalize it
decision 2/CP.20, paragraph 5, fixing the permanent composition of the Executive Committee, in FCCC/CP/2014/10/Add.2
decision 4/CP.22, paragraph 2, which recommends that reviews take place no more than five years apart, in FCCC/CP/2016/10/Add.1 (the companion decision 3/CP.22, which approved the workplan framework, is frequently miscited for this point)
decision 2/CMA.2 on the second review
second five-year rolling workplan, annex I to FCCC/SB/2022/2/Add.2
Paris Agreement, Article 8.2. The third review concluded at the thirtieth Conference of the Parties in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025
the date of a fourth review is not fixed by any decision located for this entry, and none should be asserted
decision 2/CMA.2, paragraph 43, which establishes the Santiago Network as part of the Mechanism
and decisions 1/CP.28 and 5/CMA.5, which designate the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage an operating entity of the Financial Mechanism, with the coherence provisions at paragraphs 6 and 7 of the annex on funding arrangements

SANTIAGO NETWORK

Definition. The body established as part of the Warsaw International Mechanism by decision 2/CMA.2, paragraph 43, adopted at the second session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement, held in Madrid, Spain, on 15 December 2019, to catalyse the technical assistance of relevant organizations, bodies, networks, and experts for the implementation of approaches to averting, minimizing, and addressing loss and damage in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Decision 19/CMA.3 gave it six functions, all of them demand-driven; decision 12/CMA.4 gave it a three-part structure of a hosted secretariat, an Advisory Board, and a network of member organizations, bodies, networks, and experts.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a country-driven route to expert support, delivered through country-specific calls for proposals answered by network members, with the first case of technical assistance catalysed for Vanuatu

(ii) What it is not

a funding window. The Network catalyses and may pay for the delivery of technical assistance, with money reaching the provider rather than the country, and it does not disburse recovery, reconstruction, or compensation finance — that role belongs to the Fund. Nor is it hosted by a single agency: decision 6/CMA.5 selected the joint proposal of a consortium of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and the United Nations Office for Project Services, and the two host it together

Rationale. For a practitioner the Network matters as the low-friction entry point into the loss and damage system, and its access rule is unusually permissive in one respect and strict in another. A request may be prepared by a government, an academic institution, a non-governmental or civil society organization, or a community body, so the requester need not be the state; but the request passes the national liaison, or where none has been identified the national focal point under the Convention, on a twenty-one-day no-objection basis, and silence endorses. Volumes remain small against the need: the Network reported more than 20 formally submitted technical assistance requests and eight active at various stages to its Advisory Board in March 2026, and no count of completed requests is published. Its head office is in Geneva, Switzerland, chosen by the Advisory Board in March 2024, and a widely repeated attribution to Nairobi, Kenya reflects a superseded background assessment rather than a decision.

References.

Decision 2/CMA.2, paragraph 43, in FCCC/PA/CMA/2019/6/Add.1
decision 19/CMA.3, paragraph 9, on functions, in FCCC/PA/CMA/2021/10/Add.3
decision 12/CMA.4, paragraph 3 on structure and paragraph 25 on national liaisons, in FCCC/PA/CMA/2022/10/Add.3
decision 6/CMA.5, paragraphs 11 and 19, selecting the consortium of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and the United Nations Office for Project Services and adopting the hosting memorandum of understanding, in FCCC/PA/CMA/2023/16/Add.2
Santiago Network Advisory Board, report and decisions of its first meeting, Geneva, 18 to 20 March 2024, selecting Geneva as the head office
Guidelines and procedures for responding to requests for technical assistance, SNAB/2024/3/06.Rev.2, approved 6 September 2024, for the twenty-one-day no-objection rule
Santiago Network calls for proposals, https://santiago-network.org/opportunities/calls-for-proposals. Operational figures are as reported to the Advisory Board's sixth meeting in March 2026
the Network's own language describes its set-up phase as closing in early 2026 rather than claiming full operation, and no count of completed technical assistance requests is published

FUND FOR RESPONDING TO LOSS AND DAMAGE (FRLD)

Definition. The multilateral fund established by decisions 2/CP.27 and 2/CMA.4, paragraph 3, at the twenty-seventh Conference of the Parties in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on 20 November 2022, and operationalized a year later by decisions 1/CP.28 and 5/CMA.5, which approved its Governing Instrument, provided for a dedicated and independent secretariat, and designated the Fund as an operating entity of the Financial Mechanism of the Convention, also serving the Paris Agreement. Its purpose, stated at paragraph 2 of the Governing Instrument, is to assist developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in responding to economic and non-economic loss and damage associated with those effects, including extreme weather events and slow onset events. The Fund does not ask an applicant to sort a loss into one limb or the other: its funding request template fuses the pair into a single category, and the distinction operates instead at the reporting and portfolio level. The Fund sits alongside the Warsaw International Mechanism rather than under it. The Mechanism is the Convention’s umbrella body for loss and damage and the Santiago Network was established as part of it, but the Fund is an operating entity of the Financial Mechanism and its Governing Instrument never names the Mechanism. The link is one of coherence rather than authority: the annex on funding arrangements to the same decision that approved the Governing Instrument records that those arrangements are to work coherently with and complementary to the Fund through the best use of existing mechanisms such as the Mechanism and the Santiago Network, and asks the Network to align its technical assistance with the Fund’s programmatic approaches. Within the Governing Instrument the only outward institutional obligation is at paragraph 35(n), which makes coordination with the Santiago Network a function of the Fund’s secretariat. It is governed by a Board of 26 members, 12 from developed country Parties and 14 from developing country Parties, the latter distributed across six regional and constituency groupings: three seats each for African States, Asia-Pacific States, and Latin American and Caribbean States, two each for small island developing States and for the least developed countries, and one for developing countries outside those groups. The World Bank serves as interim trustee and as host of the secretariat, which is based in Washington, DC, under a four-year interim arrangement; the Philippines hosts the Board.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the first dedicated multilateral channel for responding to loss and damage, capitalized by voluntary contributions and programming through country-driven funding requests

(ii) What it is not

a compensation mechanism, since the liability firewall of decision 1/CP.21 stands
not an accrediting body, since the Fund runs no accreditation system of its own and relies on entities already accredited to the Adaptation Fund, the Global Environment Facility, or the Green Climate Fund
and not, on the record to date, a disbursing fund, since no funding request had been approved and no money disbursed to any country or project as at the ninth Board meeting in July 2026. The informal name “Loss and Damage Fund” is shorthand
the establishing decisions call it only “the Fund,” and the Board settled the present style later

Rationale. The Fund is the institution a practitioner will be asked about first and understands least well, because its headline number and its usable number are far apart. Three figures must be kept distinct: pledged, signed into contribution agreements, and actually in hand. As at 31 May 2026 the Fund reported approximately USD 826.41 million pledged by 26 countries and the European Union, with 25 contributors having signed agreements, whose aggregate value the Fund does not publish. Contributions actually received stood at USD 455.96 million, of which USD 429.12 million was cash and USD 26.84 million unencashed promissory notes; adding USD 22.76 million of investment income gives the USD 478.72 million of total resources from which the Fund works. Net commitment authority, after administrative budgets, a currency reserve, and prior Board allocations, stood at USD 165.26 million. Against that, the first call brought 176 funding requests into the formal pipeline from 119 countries seeking approximately USD 2.8 billion, of which small island developing States and least developed countries accounted for 106 requests and USD 1.7 billion. The gap between demand and capacity is the single most important fact about the Fund, and it should govern how any project is positioned toward it. Note also a live institutional strain: the Board's own eighth meeting directed its Co-Chairs to seek a common understanding with the World Bank on implementation of the hosting and trustee agreements, and the outcome of those discussions is not public.

References.

Decisions 2/CP.27 and 2/CMA.4, paragraph 3, establishing the fund, adopted 20 November 2022
decisions 1/CP.28 and 5/CMA.5, approving the Governing Instrument and designating the Fund as an operating entity of the Financial Mechanism, in FCCC/CP/2023/11/Add.1 and FCCC/PA/CMA/2023/16/Add.1 — note that these decisions operationalized rather than established the Fund, and that neither uses the present name
decision 5/CP.29, recording the Board's confirmation that the conditions in paragraph 20 of decisions 1/CP.28 and 5/CMA.5 can be met by the World Bank during a four-year interim period — note the wording is that the conditions can be met, not that they have been — and noting the Board's own decision to launch an independent assessment of the World Bank's performance as host no later than at the first Board meeting of 2027
Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, Board and Governance, for the 26-member composition and constituency split
FRLD/B.9/3, report on available commitment authority, and FRLD/B.9/4, interim Trustee report, both as at 31 May 2026
FRLD/B.9/20/Rev.1, report of the Board to COP31 and CMA8, 9 July 2026, for the funding-request pipeline
Board communiqué following its ninth meeting, Manila, Philippines, 10 July 2026, https://www.frld.org/. All financial figures are a 31 May 2026 snapshot and the narrative record runs to 10 July 2026
the Board's ninth-meeting decisions were not published as at the date of this entry, and the tenth meeting is scheduled for Manila in December 2026
decision 1/CP.28, annex II on funding arrangements, paragraphs 6 and 7, in FCCC/CP/2023/11/Add.1, https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cp2023_11a01E.pdf, for the requirement that the funding arrangements work coherently with and complementary to the Fund through the best use of existing mechanisms including the Warsaw International Mechanism and the Santiago Network, and for the alignment asked of the Network — the annexed Governing Instrument itself does not name the Mechanism, and its paragraph 35(n) is the only provision directing the secretariat to coordinate with the Santiago Network
Re-verified 20 September 2026. The Fund had disbursed nothing to any country or project at that date, and had approved nothing: four funding requests were before the Board at its ninth meeting, from Jamaica, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria and Haiti, each of about USD 19 million to USD 20 million, and decision B.9/D.4 only takes note of them, requesting an initial starter package for consideration and approval at the tenth meeting, now set for 15 to 18 December 2026 in Manila, the Philippines. The Fund's funding page records USD 822.06 million pledged as at 15 March 2026 across 27 partners, of which 25 had signed contribution agreements
the figure on the page is older than the Board's July 2026 communiqué, which states that pledges exceed USD 820 million, so the page's date should be carried with the number

BARBADOS IMPLEMENTATION MODALITIES (BIM)

Definition. The start-up phase arrangements of the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, agreed by its Board at the fifth meeting in Bridgetown, Barbados, in April 2025, setting the rules under which the Fund would make its first allocations across calendar years 2025 and 2026. The modalities established a funding envelope, initially USD 250 million and raised to USD 342 million at the Board's ninth meeting in July 2026, a minimum floor of 50% of that envelope for small island developing States and least developed countries, and a request size of between USD 5 million and USD 20 million.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the operating framework for the Fund's first call for funding requests, which opened on 15 December 2025 and closed on 15 June 2026, and against which the Fund will make its first approvals

(ii) What it is not

the Fund's permanent architecture. The modalities are explicitly a start-up construct for two calendar years, and the criteria, ceilings, and windows that follow them are unsettled. Nor is a submitted request an allocation: 176 requests entered the formal pipeline, having cleared an access-modality check rather than a full eligibility or technical review, against an envelope that could fund a small fraction of them, and the Board deferred its first funding decisions rather than approving the four requests assessed at its ninth meeting

Rationale. The modalities are where the Fund's scarcity becomes arithmetic a practitioner can plan against. An envelope of USD 342 million set against USD 2.8 billion of requests means the envelope could fund roughly one-eighth of the value requested — an envelope-to-demand ratio, not an approval rate, since the Board has approved nothing and the figure is commitment authority set aside rather than money allocated. The per-request ceiling of USD 20 million means the envelope supports a small number of awards rather than a broad first round. The 50% floor for small island developing States and least developed countries is the single most consequential design parameter for anyone advising those countries, and it is worth noting that the demand already exceeds it: those groups accounted for roughly 61% of the value requested in the first call. The practitioner reading is that positioning toward the Fund is a multi-cycle exercise, and that the replenishment cycle, which the Board has indicated will begin in 2027, matters more to a pipeline than the start-up envelope does. Two later instruments qualify how the modalities sort requests. The assessment methodology adopted at the eighth Board meeting runs selection in two tiers, where the first is a quality gate carrying no thematic element and the second weighs three co-equal parameters, one of which is a thematic balance that may entail balancing requests responding to economic against non-economic loss and damage, and slow onset against extreme events. The wording is permissive and unquantified, so it cannot fail a request; it can only shape which of several qualifying requests is recommended. The Results Measurement Framework then adds a portfolio-wide reporting obligation while the adopting decision holds it clear of eligibility and selection. The practical reading is that a request is judged on the three funding criteria, and thematic composition enters only when the Secretariat assembles the slate. The first call closed on 15 June 2026, with 98 requests arriving on the final day. Of 198 requests received, 176 entered the formal pipeline and 22 were marked non-compliant, the pipeline covering 119 countries and representing a combined USD 2.8 billion against the USD 250 million initially allocated. At its ninth meeting the Board allocated a further USD 92 million for an initial starter package of requests, taking the project allocation to USD 342 million, together with USD 8 million under the Fund's policy on oversight fees. No funding request was approved at that meeting, and the first funding decisions are expected at the tenth meeting.

References.

Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, Barbados Implementation Modalities pages, including funding criteria, funding cycle, and access modalities
FRLD/B.9/20/Rev.1, report of the Board to COP31 and CMA8, 9 July 2026, for the pipeline composition, the request-size range, and the regional distribution
Board communiqué following the ninth meeting, Manila, Philippines, 10 July 2026, recording the increase of the envelope from USD 250 million to USD 342 million, the reaffirmation of the 50% floor, and the deferral of first funding decisions to the tenth meeting. Figures are as at 9 to 10 July 2026. The Board's ninth-meeting decisions are now published: Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, Compendium of decisions of the Board at B.9, FRLD/B.9/27, dated 5 August 2026, https://www.frld.org/sites/default/files/FRLD_B.9_27_Compendium%20of%20decisions%20of%20the%20Board%20at%20B.9.pdf, so the caveat carried in the August 2026 edition is resolved, although the meeting report itself remains forthcoming. The pipeline figures above are taken from the primary text, Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, Report on the status of the pipeline for the Barbados Implementation Modalities, FRLD/B.9/7/Rev.1, pipeline as at 29 June 2026, https://www.frld.org/sites/default/files/FRLD_B.9_7_Rev.1_Report%20on%20the%20status%20of%20the%20pipeline%20for%20the%20BIM.pdf, and the allocation decisions from decision B.9/D.4 in the compendium
the widely quoted USD 342 million is a sum of the original USD 250 million and the USD 92 million added at B.9 rather than a figure the decision text states. The tenth meeting was moved by decision B.9/D.4 from 7 to 9 October to 15 to 18 December 2026 and will be held in Manila, the Philippines, https://www.frld.org/tenthmeeting. Note that the ninth meeting was also held in Manila, so the city alone does not distinguish the two
Verified 20 September 2026. Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, assessment methodology for the review and selection of funding requests under the Barbados Implementation Modalities (FRLD/B.8/8, eighth meeting, Livingstone, Zambia, 22 to 24 April 2026), for the two-tier selection and the thematic-balance parameter
and the Results Measurement Framework published as FRLD/B.9/8/Rev.1, for the disaggregation obligation and its exclusion from eligibility and selection criteria

ACCESS MODALITIES AND DIRECT BUDGET SUPPORT (FRLD)

Definition. The three routes contemplated for a developing country to receive resources from the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage under its start-up modalities: direct access through direct budget support to a national government, a route adopted in principle in April 2026 but not yet operational; direct budget support in partnership with a multilateral development bank accredited to the Adaptation Fund, the Global Environment Facility, or the Green Climate Fund; and a partnership route through an entity accredited to one of those three funds. Direct budget support means resources delivered into a recipient government's own budget and executed through national public financial management systems, rather than through a project account held by an intermediary.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a request routed through an entity already accredited to one of the three funds, which is how the great majority of first-round requests arrived and how all four requests that reached Board consideration in July 2026 were submitted

(ii) What it is not

, yet: an operational direct-access route. The Fund's own guidance states that the modalities for direct access via direct budget support through national governments remain under development, and that requests submitted under that modality can be approved only once the Board adopts the relevant modalities. Eligibility under it is to be established either from the outcomes of existing external assessments of a country's systems or through a desk review by external experts. Nor is any of this an accreditation process of the Fund's own. The Fund maintains no accreditation system and instead recognizes entities already accredited elsewhere, which means a country's practical menu of partners is inherited from the Adaptation Fund, the Global Environment Facility, and the Green Climate Fund rather than built at the Fund. Nor is direct access the dominant route in practice: of the requests in the Fund's first pipeline, the great majority came through accredited partner entities, and roughly 28% entailed direct access through national entities or governments

Rationale. The distinction between the modalities is the difference between a country building a fiduciary capability it keeps and renting one it does not. Direct budget support is the more consequential of the two for a ministry, because it routes climate finance through the same systems that carry domestic expenditure and therefore attaches to public financial management reform rather than to a project unit. It is also the slower path to a first disbursement, since eligibility rests on an assessment of those systems. For an adviser the sequencing question is therefore explicit: whether to reach the first award through an accredited partner and build direct access behind it, or to invest in the assessment first and accept a later start. The Fund's reliance on other funds' accreditation also means an access strategy for the Fund is rarely separable from an accreditation strategy for the Green Climate Fund or the Adaptation Fund.

References.

Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, Access Modalities under the Barbados Implementation Modalities
Board decision B.8/D.3, adopting modalities and a risk management framework for direct access via direct budget support through national governments, in the compendium of decisions of the eighth meeting of the Board, Livingstone, Zambia, 22 to 24 April 2026
FRLD/B.9/20/Rev.1, report of the Board to COP31 and CMA8, 9 July 2026, for the distribution of requests across the three modalities and the counts of accredited access entities and national focal points. Figures are as at 9 July 2026

COUNTRY SUPPORT SYSTEM (CSS)

Definition. The readiness facility of the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, adopted in principle by the Board at its eighth meeting in April 2026, providing support for the development of funding requests, for the systems a country needs in order to access the Fund, and for institutional strengthening, subject to a cap of USD 250,000 per country against an annual funding envelope of USD 7.5 million, itself subject to an annual Board decision on available commitment authority.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the Fund's analogue to the readiness windows a practitioner will recognize from the Green Climate Fund, aimed at the capability gap that keeps otherwise eligible countries out of a funding round

(ii) What it is not

yet operational. The Board initiated discussions toward launching the system at its ninth meeting in July 2026, and no call for country support requests had been published as at the date of this entry. Nor is it project finance: the ceiling is small by design and the support is preparatory

Rationale. Readiness support is where the difference between a country that reaches a funding round and one that does not is usually made, and the arithmetic of the Fund's first call bears that out: a pipeline dominated by requests routed through accredited partner entities suggests that countries without such a partner, or without the internal capacity to assemble a request, were underrepresented. For an adviser the practical point is one of timing. A country intending to use direct budget support will need its systems assessed, and the country support system is the instrument most likely to pay for that preparation, so the sequencing of a readiness request ahead of a funding request is a design decision rather than an administrative one. Because the facility is not yet open, any workplan that assumes it should carry that assumption explicitly.

References.

Board decision B.8/D.6, operationalizing the country support system and establishing the annual envelope of USD 7.5 million and the cap of USD 250,000 per country subject to an annual Board decision on available commitment authority, in the compendium of decisions of the eighth meeting of the Board, Livingstone, Zambia, 22 to 24 April 2026, https://www.frld.org/meetingdecisionsandreports, with those parameters restated in FRLD/B.9/11, proposed operational modalities for the country support system
Board communiqué following the ninth meeting, Manila, Philippines, 10 July 2026, recording that the Board initiated discussions toward launching the system. Status is as at 20 September 2026, and the question left open in the August 2026 edition is now settled on the primary record rather than merely unresolved. The Board took no decision on the country support system at its ninth meeting: the Compendium of decisions of the Board at B.9, FRLD/B.9/27, dated 5 August 2026, records that documents FRLD/B.9/11, on proposed operational modalities for the country support system, and FRLD/B.9/12, on draft terms of reference for the call for country support system requests, were issued to the Board and that no decision was taken under that agenda sub-item, https://www.frld.org/sites/default/files/FRLD_B.9_27_Compendium%20of%20decisions%20of%20the%20Board%20at%20B.9.pdf. The task had been carried in the Board's updated workplan for 2026, FRLD/B.9/15/Rev.2 of 9 July 2026, https://www.frld.org/sites/default/files/FRLD_B.9_15_Rev.2_Updated%20workplan%20of%20the%20Board%20for%202026.pdf. No call for country support requests had been published on the Fund's website at the date of this entry, and document FRLD/B.9/12 is not among the ninth-meeting documents published

SLOW ONSET EVENTS

Definition. Climate-related processes that evolve gradually from incremental changes occurring over many years, or from an increased frequency or intensity of recurring events, as distinct from a discrete extreme event occurring over hours or days. The category is enumerated, though not defined, in footnote 3 to paragraph 25 of decision 1/CP.16, the Cancun Agreements, which lists sea level rise, increasing temperatures, ocean acidification, glacial retreat and related impacts, salinization, land and forest degradation, loss of biodiversity, and desertification. The list is introduced by the word “including” and is therefore illustrative rather than closed.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the progressive salinization of a delta's groundwater
the retreat of a glacier on which a dry-season flow depends
the loss of a reef's structural complexity to repeated bleaching

(ii) What it is not

cleanly separable from extreme events. The UNFCCC's own technical paper notes that drought is an extreme weather event and also closely linked to slow onset incremental change, and that interactions between the two can push a system across a threshold, citing a case in which mangrove takeover of upland forest and freshwater wetland followed a single storm surge once sea level had reached a critical point. Nor is the enumeration a definition: no UNFCCC decision defines the term, and the description in circulation derives from a secretariat technical paper that attributes the distinction to an external author

Rationale. This is the most directly useful category in the loss and damage vocabulary for nature-based work, for one reason: loss of biodiversity is itself a named slow onset event under the Cancun Adaptation Framework. That places ecosystem loss inside the loss and damage architecture by name rather than by analogy, and it gives a practitioner a treaty hook for framing biodiversity loss as a climate harm rather than only as a conservation concern. The operational consequence is an instrument mismatch worth stating plainly to any client reaching for risk transfer. Extreme events suit parametric triggers, catastrophe modeling, and risk pooling; slow onset processes do not, because there is no discrete triggering event and the losses are indirect, diffuse, and spread over large areas and long periods. The same technical paper observes that integrated resource management and ecosystem-based adaptation are particularly appropriate for slow onset events precisely because they involve long-term strategies for building resilience.

References.

Decision 1/CP.16, the Cancun Agreements, paragraph 25 and footnote 3, in FCCC/CP/2010/7/Add.1
UNFCCC secretariat, Slow onset events, technical paper FCCC/TP/2012/7, 26 November 2012, paragraphs 20, 21, 24, and 55
Paris Agreement, Article 8.1, which pairs extreme weather events and slow onset events without defining either. The formulation that slow onset impacts arise from “a confluence of several different events,” which circulates attributed to the 2012 technical paper, does not appear in that paper and should be cited to the UNFCCC Loss and Damage Online Guide of March 2024 instead

ECONOMIC LOSS AND DAMAGE

Definition. Losses arising from the adverse effects of climate change to resources, goods, and services that are commonly traded in markets and therefore carry a market price. The UNFCCC secretariat’s 2013 technical paper on non-economic losses supplies the formulation — the loss of resources, goods and services that are commonly traded in markets — and attaches two further tests: economic losses are recorded in and manifest through the system of national accounts, and market prices can be used to value them. No decision of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change defines the term, and neither does the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, whose Governing Instrument carries the compound phrase economic and non-economic loss and damage throughout without defining either limb. Note the direction of the pair. Economic loss is the defined term and non-economic loss is the residue, the remainder of items that are not economic items, which is the reverse of the order in which practitioners usually encounter them.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the four the technical paper itself gives, being loss of wages, loss of crops, reduction in tourism revenue, and loss of economic revenue from coastal activity due to inundation
and, cutting across the category, both direct losses immediately attributable to a climate event and indirect losses arising from the system’s response to it

(ii) What it is not

an item that has merely been assigned a monetary figure, since the paper is explicit that valuing a non-economic item through shadow pricing does not migrate it across the boundary, the test being the existence of a market price rather than the availability of a number
not a fixed property of a physical loss, since the same reduction in provisioning services is an economic loss to a household selling its catch and a non-economic loss to a subsistence household
and not, on the strength of this paper alone, the asset side of a disaster loss assessment

Rationale. The definition bundles three criteria as though they were coextensive, and they are not. Tradability is the criterion, national-accounts visibility is the test, and market pricing is the valuation method. The paper concedes the divergence in the same sentence that asserts the test, carving out losses borne in the informal economy, and returns to the point later in observing that environmental goods and services are often not formally part of the economy at all. In a country with a large informal sector, a loss can satisfy the tradability criterion and never appear in the national accounts, so a practitioner who treats the accounts as the boundary will systematically undercount. Two consequences matter for nature-based work. The first is that monetization does not reclassify. Assigning an ecosystem service a shadow price makes it assessable rather than economic, so a project cannot convert a non-economic loss into an economic one by valuing it. The second is that the paper’s own economic examples are overwhelmingly flows rather than stocks, being wages, crops, revenue, and production. It offers no example of damaged infrastructure, destroyed property, or business interruption. A practitioner assembling an economic-loss claim on the asset side is therefore working beyond what this source illustrates and should say which framework supplies that part. Inside the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage the pair is a scope-defining and reporting device rather than an allocative one. It states what the Fund may finance and how the Fund must report, and it never determines who receives money, how much, or on what terms. The funding request template does not ask an applicant to classify a loss at all, offering instead a single checkbox that fuses the two limbs, and the Fund confirms in its own guidance that it holds no formal definition of responding to loss and damage, relying on countries to supply the meaning from their context. The consequence is visible in the Fund’s pipeline: nearly all of the 176 requests in the first call claim both economic and non-economic activities, while roughly 93% address extreme events and 78% slow onset events. Given an undefined binary and no reason to choose a side, applicants claim both, and the distinction that looks foundational in the treaty vocabulary separates nothing in practice. The axes that actually sort the portfolio are event type, timing, access modality, and the floor reserved for small island developing States and least developed countries.

References.

UNFCCC secretariat, Non-economic losses in the context of the work programme on loss and damage, technical paper FCCC/TP/2013/2, 9 October 2013, paragraphs 3 and 44 for the definition, paragraph 42 for the market and non-market gloss and the concession that the distinction is “somewhat arbitrary,” paragraph 45 for the residual construction of the non-economic side, paragraph 48 for the direct and indirect axis, paragraph 58 for the rule that monetization does not reclassify, paragraph 103 for the actor-dependent boundary, and Table 1 for the examples
decision 1/CP.28 and its annexed Governing Instrument of the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, in FCCC/CP/2023/11/Add.1, which uses the phrase without defining either limb
the technical paper states at paragraph 47 that, focusing on non-economic losses, it does not consider coincident economic losses, so its treatment of this category is deliberately minimal
Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, terms of reference for the call for funding requests under the Barbados Implementation Modalities (FRLD/BIM/1, November 2025), whose funding request template at section A.8 offers a single category fusing economic and non-economic loss and damage
the Fund’s Barbados Implementation Modalities frequently asked questions, https://www.frld.org/bimfaqs, which state that the Fund has no formal definition for responding to loss and damage and relies on countries to define it in context
and the Fund’s report on the status of the pipeline (FRLD/B.9/7/Rev.1, 9 July 2026), whose thematic distribution records that nearly all funding requests include both economic and non-economic activities against roughly 93% for extreme events and 78% for slow onset events

NON-ECONOMIC LOSS AND DAMAGE (NELD)

Definition. Losses arising from the adverse effects of climate change that are not commonly traded in markets and therefore carry no market price. The UNFCCC secretariat’s 2013 technical paper on non-economic losses defines the category residually, as the remainder of items that are not economic items, which makes the economic limb the defined term and this one the remainder, and it concedes that the distinction is somewhat arbitrary. No decision of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change defines the category, and neither does the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, whose Governing Instrument carries the compound phrase economic and non-economic loss and damage throughout without defining either limb. The Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism groups them in three areas: losses affecting individuals, such as life, health, and mobility; losses affecting society, such as territory, cultural heritage, Indigenous or local knowledge, and societal or cultural identity; and losses affecting the environment, principally biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Examples.

(i) What it is

the loss of a species from a landscape
the loss of a regulating or cultural ecosystem service for which no market exists
the loss of a sacred site, a burial ground, or a body of place-specific knowledge to displacement

(ii) What it is not

a residual afterthought in the accounting, and not a category with a clean boundary. The technical paper is explicit that damage to natural ecosystems is primarily a non-economic loss because ecosystem services are rarely traded, but that market impacts follow where a service is food or fibre
and it makes the more useful distinction that for subsistence farmers and other vulnerable people, a reduction in provisioning services threatens food security, and the effect of that on well-being is a non-economic loss even though the same service sold would be an economic one

Rationale. This is the category in which the nature side of the climate-and-nature nexus enters the loss and damage architecture, and the entry point is explicit rather than inferred: the technical paper states that the environment has two main assets susceptible to climate change, biodiversity and ecosystems, and the Executive Committee's 2024 paper on non-economic losses takes loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services as its first substantive chapter, although its own subtitle lists that theme second. The practitioner difficulty is that valuation methods thin out exactly where the losses concentrate. The technical paper notes that biodiversity hotspots tend to lie in developing countries, so the heaviest valuation burden falls where the capacity for valuation is lowest, and it points toward participatory rather than economic valuation methods in those settings. That is the same measurement problem this glossary tracks elsewhere, arriving from a different direction, and it is why a project claiming to address non-economic loss and damage should be specific about how it proposes to evidence the claim. The Fund for responding to Loss and Damage carries this category substantively while defining none of it. Its Results Measurement Framework, adopted in July 2026, organizes results into cross-cutting categories that are largely non-economic in the 2013 sense, covering individual well-being including loss of identity and loss of place, cultural practices and intangible heritage including traditional and Indigenous knowledge, and natural assets, systems, and services restored or replaced, a category that names nature-based solutions explicitly and is measured by an indicator counting natural assets brought under improved management. The framework also requires every indicator to be disaggregated between economic and non-economic loss and damage, though the decision adopting it affirms that the framework does not constitute eligibility, selection, or approval criteria, and the monitoring handbook that would supply the classification rule has not been published. No Fund document offers guidance on how to evidence or value a loss that carries no market price. The clearest measure of that vacuum is that the Secretariat’s assessment of the first funding request to clear technical review commends it for proposing to develop methodologies and institutional processes to identify, assess, and monitor non-economic losses: the Fund is proposing to finance a recipient country to build the method the Fund itself lacks. One caution against reading that as simple neglect. On at least one well-sourced account of the negotiations, a funding window confined to non-economic loss was the narrowing option pressed by some contributor countries rather than a concession sought by vulnerable ones, which is a reason the Fund keeps the phrase compound.

References.

UNFCCC secretariat, Non-economic losses in the context of the work programme on loss and damage, technical paper FCCC/TP/2013/2, 9 October 2013, paragraphs 8, 10, 42, 45, 46, 72, 100, and 103
Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism, Non-Economic Losses (2024), featuring loss of territory and habitability, ecosystem services and biodiversity, and cultural heritage
decision 3/CP.18, paragraphs 7(a)(ii) and 10(b), the term's origin in decision text
Paris Agreement, Article 8.4(g). No UNFCCC decision defines the category
the definitions above are the secretariat's and the Executive Committee's own, and the technical paper flags the economic boundary as arbitrary rather than settled
Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, Results Measurement Framework for the Barbados Implementation Modalities, published as FRLD/B.9/8/Rev.1 and listed by the Fund as adopted by decision B.9/D.3 at the ninth meeting, 8 to 10 July 2026, https://www.frld.org/operationalandproceduraldocuments, for the cross-cutting result categories, the indicator on natural assets, the requirement that all indicators be defined by event type and by economic or non-economic loss and damage, and the affirmation that the framework does not constitute eligibility, selection, or approval criteria — note that the published file still carries a draft decision heading and that the compendium of ninth-meeting decisions has since been published as FRLD/B.9/27, dated 5 August 2026, https://www.frld.org/sites/default/files/FRLD_B.9_27_Compendium%20of%20decisions%20of%20the%20Board%20at%20B.9.pdf, so the decision text can now be cited directly, although the meeting report itself remains forthcoming
and the Secretariat assessment of funding request FR-01 (FRLD/B.9/9/Add.1, 26 June 2026). The resemblance between the framework’s categories and the 2013 typology is a reading of the two texts rather than a claim either makes, and the Fund cites no technical paper

EX-ANTE AND EX-POST LOSS AND DAMAGE FINANCE

Definition. The distinction between finance deployed before a climate harm occurs, in order to prevent it or reduce the risk of it, and finance deployed once the harm has occurred or in preparation for a harm that will occur. Ex-ante instruments include early warning systems, anticipatory and forecast-based finance, contingency reserves, and pre-arranged risk transfer such as parametric cover and regional risk pools. Ex-post instruments include relief, rehabilitation, recovery, and reconstruction finance, and the compensation-adjacent measures that arise where a loss is permanent.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a forecast-triggered disbursement released days before a cyclone landfall so that a community can move livestock and secure assets
a recovery grant that rebuilds a fishery after the event

(ii) What it is not

a stable classification of institutions. The same fund can sit on both sides of the line, and the Transitional Committee that designed the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage commissioned analysis spanning early warning and other ex-ante measures, anticipatory and contingency funding, medium- and long-term recovery financing, and options for non-economic loss and damage — a scoping of the questions it wished to examine, not a statement of the Fund's eventual mandate. Nor is the distinction merely technical: it maps onto a live disagreement about what loss and damage finance is for, with one view emphasizing prevention and another emphasizing the unavoidable. The Governing Instrument of the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage describes a scope covering funding complementary to humanitarian response, intermediate and long-term recovery, reconstruction and rehabilitation, slow onset events, and non-economic loss and damage
the ex-ante instruments listed above are not named in it, and a claim that the Fund was designed to cover early warning or anticipatory finance does not rest on that text

Rationale. The distinction is worth carrying because it determines which instruments are even available for a given hazard. Ex-ante risk transfer needs a discrete, observable trigger, which is why it works for cyclones and floods and fails for drought and for slow onset processes generally. That limitation is the reason a portfolio built only on parametric instruments will leave the slow onset harms uncovered, and it is the point at which ecosystem-based approaches earn their place in the argument: where no trigger exists and no insurer will write cover, maintaining the ecosystem that buffers the harm is one of the few ex-ante options remaining. For a practitioner the useful discipline is to state, for each component of a proposal, which side of the line it sits on and what the residual is once it has done its work.

References.

Emily Boyd, Rachel James, and Richard Jones, Typologies of Loss and Damage and Associated Actions, policy brief revised following discussion at the third meeting of the Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism and hosted by the UNFCCC, which sets out the distinction between “… actions which attempt to prevent L&D, or reduce risks (ex-ante), and actions which are intended to deal with actual L&D after it occurs or to prepare for actual L&D which will occur (ex-post)” and maps four stakeholder typologies onto it, https://unfccc.int/files/adaptation/groups_committees/loss_and_damage_executive_committee/application/pdf/policybrief_final.pdf — an expert brief discussed by the Executive Committee, not a Party-agreed text
UNFCCC secretariat, Slow onset events, technical paper FCCC/TP/2012/7, on the unsuitability of parametric products and catastrophe modeling for drought and slow onset processes
UNFCCC Transitional Committee, Synthesis report on existing funding arrangements and innovative sources relevant to addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, TC2/2023/3, 15 May 2023, whose paragraph 11 records the further analysis Committee members requested rather than a description of the Fund
Governing Instrument of the Fund, annex I to decisions 1/CP.28 and 5/CMA.5, for the Fund's own statement of scope

LIMITS TO ADAPTATION (HARD AND SOFT)

Definition. The point beyond which adaptation cannot keep an actor or a system out of intolerable risk. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change distinguishes hard limits, which occur where adaptive actions become infeasible to avoid the risk, from soft limits, which occur where adaptation is constrained by financial, institutional, technological, social, or cultural barriers that additional support could in principle lift. The harm remaining beyond a limit is residual, and it is that residual which the loss and damage vocabulary describes.

Examples.

(i) What it is

a small island becoming uninhabitable through sea level rise and the loss of sufficient freshwater, leaving inhabitants no option but to leave, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gives as its example of a hard limit
a city unable to build shaded and cooled public space for lack of funds, which is a soft limit because money would lift it

(ii) What it is not

a fixed threshold that can be read off a temperature. Limits are specific to a system, a place, and a population, and a soft limit for one group can be a hard limit for another in the same landscape

Rationale. The framing is the cleanest available bridge between adaptation practice and the loss and damage agenda, and it carries a finding that a nature-based practitioner should be able to state precisely: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assesses that many species and ecosystems are near or beyond their hard adaptation limits, while the people who rely on them to survive are near or beyond their soft limits. Read carefully, that is an argument for ecosystem-based adaptation rather than against it, because a soft limit is by definition liftable and finance, institutions, and technology are what lift it. It is also a caution against overclaiming. Where an ecosystem has passed a hard limit, an intervention framed as adaptation is answering the wrong question, and the honest framing of the work is the management of residual harm. Knowing which side of that line a site sits on belongs in the theory of change rather than in the risk annex.

References.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group II, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Summary for Policymakers, and Frequently Asked Question 4, “How are people adapting to the effects of climate change and what are the known limits to adaptation?”, which states that hard limits occur “when adaptive actions become infeasible to avoid risks,” that soft limits “can be overcome if additional financial, institutional or technological support becomes available,” and that “many species and ecosystems are currently near or beyond their hard adaptation limits, and people that rely on them to survive, are currently near or beyond their soft adaptation limits,” https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/about/frequently-asked-questions/keyfaq4/. The Frequently Asked Questions are described by the Panel as outreach material based on the underlying report
the corresponding assessed statements and their confidence levels sit in the Summary for Policymakers and Chapter 16

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A living reference

This glossary is updated every month as new terms enter the practice. Spotted an error, or want to propose a term or an edit? Comments and suggestions are welcome — join the discussion in the Glossary Post to propose edits, examples, or simply comments and remarks. Get in touch at glossary@nbspraxis.com.

Index

How to Use This Glossary

Index

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

I

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

W

Core Framing Terms

CLIMATE-AND-NATURE NEXUS

CLIMATE CHANGE

BIODIVERSITY

NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS (NbS)

ECOSYSTEM-BASED ADAPTATION (EbA)

ECOSYSTEM-BASED APPROACHES

NATURAL AND NATURE-BASED FEATURES (NNBF)

BLUE CARBON

PERMANENCE (in carbon accounting and NbS finance)

CODIFICATION LAYER

INTEGRATED PRIMARY OUTCOMES

CLIMATE OVERSHOOT

NATURE-POSITIVE

NATURAL CAPITAL ACCOUNTING (NCA)

IPSAS 51 (TANGIBLE NATURAL RESOURCES HELD FOR CONSERVATION)

KUNMING-MONTREAL GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY FRAMEWORK (KMGBF)

SOIL ORGANIC CARBON (SOC)

OTHER EFFECTIVE AREA-BASED CONSERVATION MEASURE (OECM)

LAND DEGRADATION NEUTRALITY (LDN)

PEATLAND REWETTING

Climate-and-Nature Finance Institutions

GREEN CLIMATE FUND (GCF)

GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT FACILITY (GEF)

ADAPTATION FUND

GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY FRAMEWORK FUND (GBF FUND)

TASKFORCE ON NATURE-RELATED FINANCIAL DISCLOSURES (TNFD)

UNEP FINANCE INITIATIVE (UNEP FI)

INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY STANDARDS BOARD (ISSB)

TROPICAL FORESTS FOREVER FACILITY (TFFF)

GLOBAL EbA FUND

MANGROVE BREAKTHROUGH

Project Preparation Terms

NATIONAL DESIGNATED AUTHORITY (NDA)

ACCREDITED ENTITY (AE)

CONCEPT NOTE (CN)

THEORY OF CHANGE (ToC)

MEASUREMENT, REPORTING, AND VERIFICATION (MRV)

ADDITIONALITY

FREE, PRIOR, AND INFORMED CONSENT (FPIC)

LEAKAGE (in carbon accounting and NbS)

ARTICLE 6 (PARIS AGREEMENT COOPERATIVE APPROACHES)

VALIDATION AND VERIFICATION BODY (VVB)

REDD+ (REDUCING EMISSIONS FROM DEFORESTATION AND FOREST DEGRADATION)

BENEFIT-SHARING (in REDD+ and NbS finance)

DIGITAL MEASUREMENT, REPORTING, AND VERIFICATION (dMRV)

CONSERVATIVENESS (in crediting methodologies)

REVERSAL AND BUFFER POOL (in carbon crediting)

CORE CARBON PRINCIPLES (CCP)

PARIS AGREEMENT CREDITING MECHANISM (PACM, ARTICLE 6.4)

CORRESPONDING ADJUSTMENT

BIENNIAL TRANSPARENCY REPORT (BTR)

INVESTMENT READINESS (PROJECT PIPELINE PREPARATION)

IMPACT CHAIN (IN ADAPTATION PLANNING)

ADAPTATION INCREMENT

ACCESS CHANNEL (DIRECT, PARTNER-MEDIATED, AND COUNTRY-MEDIATED)

EXECUTING ENTITY

ARTICLE 6 AUTHORIZATION (AUTHORIZED AND UNAUTHORIZED UNITS)