About the Lab
Our mission is to incubate and finance sustainable landscapes that deliver impacts on the Global Sustainable Development Goals.
The Landscape Finance Lab was founded within the conservation organisation WWF in 2016 to test the best approaches for regenerating and attracting finance for landscapes at scale.
Since then, we have:
- experimented with programme development in over 20 landscapes
- used those experiences to refine our methodology
- designed landscape-scale finance instruments and global funds for investing in landscapes
- partnered with leading organisations across conservation, finance, corporates, academia and civil society
- created a growing suite of training materials and resources
- and built a vibrant, collaborative community of landscape practitioners and green investors, working to make sustainable landscapes a reality
In 2021 the Lab established itself as an independent not-for-profit with a global remit, and a vision to create the conditions for nature, culture, communities and fair economies to thrive in landscapes.
We are grateful for the support we have received from WWF, and from our core funder the Laudes Foundation.
Read our Stocktake 2021-2022 Report
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What we do
We unlock the untapped potential of landscapes: unique settings where climate, biodiversity and sustainable development challenges can be tackled together, creating synergies for maximum impact.
What do we mean by the ‘untapped potential of landscapes’?
Ask most people to think of a ‘landscape’ and they might describe a tropical beach, rolling hills, a snaking river, or snow-capped peaks. But landscapes are more than just a pretty view.
Landscapes are large, complex, living systems where people and nature interact. They have distinct histories, cultures, environmental conditions, political structures and economic realities.
Landscapes become degraded when the needs of its different human and non-human inhabitants become imbalanced. Ecosystems cease to function, biodiversity declines, economies become increasingly extractive and exploitative, and inequality in communities becomes exacerbated.
Working at landscape-scale requires holistic thinking to tackle all of these problems, as interventions in a landscape must be coordinated across sectors. It also requires patience and trust for impact to last over generations. This presents challenges, but also huge opportunities for far-reaching, deep impacts that reinforce one another and create virtuous cycles.
The Lab’s work is structured around three core interrelated workstreams, each one supporting and enhancing the work of the other two:
Landscapes
We support project developers and landscape partnerships to design sustainable, investable restoration programmes by providing them with evidence-based tools, methods, and tailored technical assistance. The Lab uses an incubation model to guide landscape teams, their local stakeholders and their investors through four key stages, from initial scoping and conceptualising, through structuring, developing and funding.
Finance
We bridge the gap between restoration practitioners and investors by working with landscapes to translate their visions and conservation goals into investable propositions. We create innovative financial mechanisms, build project pipelines and act as advisors so the right kind of funding reaches landscapes at the right time to ensure their long-term sustainability.
Learning
We work across sectors and disciplines to build a movement for landscapes, and position them as the most powerful tool for making large-scale impact on climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development goals. We build sector learning and impact through partnerships and collaborations with other organisations, training and development, advocacy, research, and communications.
Are you a project developer with a great idea? We want to hear from you.
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