Scaling Up Biodiversity-Positive Incentives: Reflections from Energon Green Solutions

Biodiversity underpins every aspect of our lives — from the pollinators that sustain our food systems, to forests that regulate our climate, and oceans that provide livelihoods for millions. Yet, human activity is accelerating biodiversity loss at unprecedented rates, threatening the very foundations of health, prosperity, and resilience.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), adopted in 2022, sets out a global mission: by 2030, halt and reverse biodiversity loss. But with only five years left to deliver on this ambitious goal, it is clear that transformative action is needed. One of the most urgent tasks lies in realigning economic incentives — ensuring that financial flows, market mechanisms, and policy frameworks no longer drive biodiversity degradation, but actively reward its conservation and sustainable use.

This is the focus of Target 18 of the GBF, which calls on governments to identify, phase out, or reform harmful incentives while scaling up positive ones.

Why Biodiversity-Positive Incentives Matter

Incentives play a crucial role in shaping human and institutional behaviour. Today, billions in subsidies still go toward activities harmful to biodiversity, from unsustainable agriculture to fossil fuel use. Redirecting these flows — and creating new financial mechanisms that value nature — can unlock enormous potential.

Biodiversity-positive incentives can:

• Mobilise finance: Direct capital toward conservation projects, restoration efforts, and nature-based solutions.
• Stimulate innovation: Encourage startups, companies, and communities to invest in technologies and practices that protect ecosystems.
• Ensure accountability: Provide measurable, transparent mechanisms to track impacts on biodiversity outcomes.
• Deliver co-benefits: Advance climate goals, community resilience, and economic diversification in parallel with biodiversity conservation.

The OECD Report and Green Talks LIVE

This week, the OECD launches its new report, Scaling Up Biodiversity-Positive Incentives: Delivering on Target 18 of the Global Biodiversity Framework. The report highlights policy options, financing tools, and best practices for governments and stakeholders to scale up incentives effectively.

At Energon Green Solutions, we are proud to be attending the OECD Green Talks LIVE webinar that will present the report’s findings, followed by insights from biodiversity experts and policymakers worldwide.

Energon’s Perspective: Technology as an Enabler

As a LegalTech and sustainability-driven startup, Energon operates at the intersection of law, blockchain, and data analytics. We see a critical role for technology in making biodiversity-positive incentives not just ambitious, but effective, scalable, and transparent.

• Blockchain for trust and traceability: Distributed ledgers can ensure that biodiversity credits, payments for ecosystem services, or subsidy reforms are transparent, auditable, and free from greenwashing.
• Data analytics for impact measurement: Advanced modelling and AI-driven analytics can track biodiversity outcomes in real time, strengthening accountability and guiding adaptive policymaking.
• Legal innovation for governance: By aligning digital tools with evolving EU and international legal frameworks, we can design governance mechanisms that ensure biodiversity-positive incentives are legally enforceable and institutionally robust.

Looking Ahead

Scaling up biodiversity-positive incentives requires a whole-of-society approach: governments must reform harmful subsidies, the financial sector must direct flows toward nature-positive investments, and innovators must design solutions that make these incentives effective on the ground.

Energon Green Solutions is committed to being part of this transformation. Through legal expertise, technological innovation, and cross-border collaboration, we aim to build platforms that empower stakeholders to value, protect, and regenerate biodiversity — not just as a moral imperative, but as the smartest investment in our collective future.

🌱 We look forward to sharing our key takeaways from the OECD webinar and continuing to explore how legal and technological tools can accelerate progress toward Target 18 and beyond.