Return-based investments for nature include a range of finance strategies and mechanisms that seek both positive environmental impacts as well as financial returns to a business owner or investor. Investments are defined as: “the outlay of money usually for income or profit” (Merriam-Webster, accessed Jan 10th, 2020). In conservation finance terms, there are multiple elements that could make financial investments either beneficial or detrimental for conservation. Investments that are detrimental to nature are potential targets for finance strategies that reduce harmful impacts or decrease harmful investments. While return based investments are often associated with for-profit enterprises, NGOs and other non-profits, including The Nature Conservancy, can and have executed return based investments. The Nature Conservancy released an in-depth report in 2019 summarizing potential opportunities for private investment in natural capital, and found rapidly growing interest in prioritizing natural capital on the part of investors (Cooper and Trémolet, 2019).

These strategies and mechanisms can be divided in a number of ways, including private vs capital markets, impact vs finance priorities, investment size (microfinance through large sovereign bonds), and debt/loan-based products vs equity and ownership-based approaches (Forest Trends, 2016, Cooper and Trémolet, 2019). Many of these categories are overlapping and non-exclusive; for example, many types of investors use a combination of debt and equity instruments to achieve their investment goals. The following categories seek to capture and describe some of this variation (adapted from Credit Suisse, 2016).