The age of forest restoration has arrived.

Between 1990 and 2020, our planet lost 420 million hectares of forest cover, with grave consequences for climate, biodiversity and resource security. For years, large-scale restoration efforts were hindered by concerns around cost-effectiveness and results — but science has come a long way.

Yields are higher, and the cost is lower. Advances in methods for measuring carbon storage, creating three-dimensional maps of forest, planting and surveying wildlife populations have removed technical impediments. Now, new financial models are removing the final barrier to large-scale restoration.

Philanthropy alone cannot restore, rewild and conserve hundreds of millions of hectares, especially in tropical systems in the global south. The money simply doesn’t exist. We must find ways to unlock private capital for restoration. Fortunately, commercial restoration projects are now under way across the world and forward-thinking companies are building a strong business case for investing in nature.

For generations, conservationists believed economic production and environmental protection were mutually exclusive goals, but BTG Pactual, the largest investment bank in Latin America, is challenging that notion. In Brazil, where vast forests have been converted into cow pastures filled with invasive alien grasses, the company’s Timberland Investment Group (TIG) is raising $1 billion for reforestation – and convincing agricultural communities that planting trees is better than cutting them down.

In 2022, TIG invested in their first restoration site: 24,000 hectares of degraded pasture in the Brazilian Cerrado, a once-rich landscape devastated by deforestation and overgrazing. They’re restoring half the portfolio to its native state with a mix of native trees, protecting the restored forest in perpetuity and selling high-quality carbon credits on the global market.

The other half is planted as a managed timber farm, producing Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified timber to supply the growing demand for wood products and create long-term livelihoods for local people. Over a two-year period, TIG has started restoring more than 10,000 hectares, and monitoring is showing the swift return of native wildlife with over 500 species identified across the portfolio.

Elsewhere in Brazil — in the Amazon and Atlantic Forest — a company called re.green is working to restore one million hectares with native species and capture 15 million tonnes of carbon each year. Like TIG, their model also centres around high-quality carbon removal credits.

The company has also trained more than 280 community members in beekeeping, seed collection and firefighting. In many cases, once plots reach maturity, local people are also encouraged to sustainably harvest and sell forest products like acai and cupuacu, Brazil nuts and bacaba. The wide variety of livelihood opportunities helps to reinforce the value of standing forests, securing long-term community support for the restored areas.

These strategies challenge fundamental assumptions about nature conservation and have drawn their share of criticism. Indeed, scrutiny is an unavoidable consequence of innovation, but it’s hard to argue with the results.

In 2024, TIG inked deals with Microsoft and Meta, who together agreed to purchase up to 11.9 million carbon removal credits – and the company has now secured more than $500 million in financial commitments, including from the UK government and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

Likewise, re.green has signed twin deals with Microsoft, which will purchase 6.5 million removal credits and support the restoration of 33,000 hectares of forest, an area roughly three times the size of Paris. Though restoration is capital-intensive in the earliest stages, these companies believe their projects could deliver respectable returns to shareholders over time.

Mastercard is taking a different approach to financing large-scale projects, turning the “cost” of restoration into a competitive advantage. Mastercard recognizes preserving nature is an important foundation of the global economy, and they possess unparalleled reach through their global payment network, which has more than 150 million acceptance locations, thousands of banking partners and other customers, and the consumers and businesses that carry more than 3.4 billion cards.

In 2020, Mastercard founded the Priceless Planet Coalition, providing their partners with a plug-and-play opportunity to finance high-quality restoration projects. Mastercard funds the operational costs of the projects so that all partner contributions can go directly toward the restoration work.

With a goal of funding the restoration of 100 million trees, the Priceless Planet Coalition has selected, vetted and financed a portfolio of 22 projects around the world — and enlisted leading conservation organizations to implement them.

The coalition also finances long-term monitoring for five years post-planting to ensure every project provides lasting benefits for climate, biodiversity, and communities. Members of the Mastercard payment network, Mastercard’s customers, and other partners can engage in the coalition, and many have integrated Priceless Planet fundraising into their product offerings, using restoration to drive toward other key performance indicators, like customer acquisition.

Today, the coalition includes more than 150 partners, including companies like American Airlines and Lyft, Barclays and HSBC, and General Motors and Unilever. Together, they have raised the funds to restore 26 million trees across six continents, creating 2.6 million workdays for local people and potential carbon sequestration estimated at 941,726 tonnes based on the trees planted once they reach maturity.

The coalition underscores the value of pre-competitive collaboration — no one company can own this space, and collective action can create substantial economies of scale.

There’s no one way to restore land at scale. There are, however, common threads that bind together these successful strategies.

The first is the profit potential, which not only unlocks new sources of investment but also drives essential research into cost-effectiveness and permanence. The second is a commitment to rigorous monitoring, which allows funders to identify issues before they become crises and double down on unexpected successes.

The final differentiator is close attention to what happens outside the boundaries of the project site – broad visibility is how implementers can maximize positive externalities while minimizing unintended spillover effects.

The tide is turning. We have the scientific knowledge required to restore vast ecosystems, cultivated and field-tested by leading conservation organizations, as well as promising models for funding that work. We’re also seeing a historic wave of interest from companies and financial institutions. Now, it’s incumbent on governments to do their part: clarify and strengthen land rights, subsidize regenerative industries, and help de-risk these novel investment classes.

Brazil is leading by example. The government’s national climate commitment includes 12 million hectares of forest restoration by 2030, and they’ve already backed those goals with federal programs to accelerate the adoption of climate-smart agriculture and restore up to 40 million hectares of degraded ranchland.

These ambitious policies have already attracted significant co-financing: Last year at the G20, a group of public and private funders, called the Brazil Restoration and Bioeconomy Finance Coalition, pledged to raise at least $10 billion for forest projects by 2030.

In November, delegates from 200 countries will gather in Belem for COP30, where they will have the opportunity to follow the host nation’s lead, reclaim humanity’s future, and build the forest restoration economy that we all deserve. They must be bold — enormous opportunity awaits those willing to move quickly.

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/04/new-model-forest-restoration-nature-communities-investors/