Conservation International: Unlocking finance for coastal and marine enterprises

The blue economy supports over 30 million jobs worldwide and underpins the livelihoods of around 3 billion people, many of whom live in coastal communities that depend directly on healthy marine and coastal ecosystems for food security and income.

At the same time, 55% of global GDP depends on nature, yet economic growth has often come at the expense of biodiversity, particularly in emerging markets. Coastal ecosystems such as mangroves and seagrasses play a vital role in climate mitigation, shoreline protection and sustainable fisheries, but they continue to be degraded due to unsustainable practices and lack of investment.

Nature-positive enterprises that could help reverse this trend often struggle to access early-stage finance. Many fall into the “pioneer gap” between grant funding and commercial investment, limiting the scale and impact of solutions that could protect ecosystems while strengthening coastal livelihoods.

Building on these lessons, Swiss Re Foundation is supporting CI Ventures, Conservation International’s venture philanthropy platform, through its Oceans Window, to help unlock finance for early-stage, nature-positive enterprises operating across coastal and marine ecosystems.

In this partnership, the focus is on scaling a portfolio of high-impact businesses through flexible financing instruments, including loans, revenue-based financing and equity-like structures that can catalyze the protection and restoration of critical coastal ecosystems, while strengthening sustainable livelihoods in coastal communities, particularly in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The approach prioritizes business models where impact is embedded in core operations, aligning ecosystem restoration and biodiversity protection with long-term economic viability.

Through CI Ventures, Conservation International aims to unlock finance for early-stage, nature-positive enterprises in the coastal and blue economy that would otherwise struggle to access investment. With support from Swiss Re Foundation, the programme is expected to enable investment into two high-impact enterprises operating across coastal and marine ecosystems in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Over time, this partnership is expected to contribute to thousands of livelihoods supported, around 100–150 jobs created, and more than a thousand hectares of coastal ecosystems (including mangroves) protected, restored or under improved management. The programme also targets meaningful reductions or avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions, while demonstrating that nature-positive businesses can be both impactful and investable, helping to mobilize additional capital for climate and biodiversity solutions.

• Conservation International
• Conservation International Ventures, LLC | Conservation International

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