Opportunities, Enablers and Requirements in Advancing Earth Observation for Scaling Nature Finance
Working Paper 1.0: and accompanying survey report from the Leveraging Earth Observation for Nature Finance (LEON) project.
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The Leveraging Earth Observation for Nature Finance (LEON) project, supported by the European Space Agency (ESA), seeks to transform the use of Earth Observation (EO) data in enabling, mobilising and scaling nature-positive finance globally.
LEON’s first major report and an accompanying survey have now been published. Earth Capital Nexus’s Executive Director Nicola Ranger is the reports’ lead author and one of LEON’s co-Directors.
The main report builds upon six months of structured research, landscape analysis and multi-stakeholder engagement to map the opportunities and requirements for EO data within financial decision-making. It establishes the conceptual and operational foundation for the LEON project and its six thematic pilots.
The report combines five principal strands of analysis:
- Assessment of the policy and regulatory landscape for nature finance in Europe
- Synthesis of relevant standards, taxonomies and initiatives shaping nature finance markets
- User requirement analysis based on surveys and consultations with financial institutions and stakeholders
- Examination of the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental drivers affecting EO uptake
- Early insights from six thematic pilot domains designed to test EO applications in real financial contexts.
Key findings:
- Nature finance markets are expanding but constrained by data gaps.
- Earth Observation is widely recognised as a key enabling technology but operational adoption remains limited.
- The regulatory and policy landscape is evolving rapidly with implications for nature finance and EO adoption.
- The findings suggest that EO could become foundational infrastructure for nature finance, enabling financial markets to integrate environmental intelligence into economic decision-making. Realising this potential will require several enabling steps.
- If the challenges can be addressed, EO technologies have the potential to play a central role in enabling the transparency, accountability and scalability required to mobilise nature-positive finance globally.
Authors: Ranger, N., Baena, S., Barzin, S., Barklam, S., Bull, J., Downey, I., Guizar-Coutino, A., Haahr, M., Jwaideh, M., Lambin, R., Mukherjee, H., Pedeboy, F., Shaw, A., Spacey Martin, R., Strange, N., Wollenweber, A. and López Saldana, G.
The accompanying survey report, Earth Observation to Scale Nature Finance: Survey 2025, presents the results of the LEON User Requirements Survey conducted in summer 2025 to understand how EO data can support the mobilisation and scaling of nature finance. The survey targeted financial institutions, data providers and other stakeholders engaged in nature-related investment, risk management and policy.
A total of 27 organisations responded to the general survey, representing banks, asset managers, NGOs, advisory firms, international organisations and other actors operating globally. Respondents represent a diverse range of asset sizes and geographic portfolios, with most institutions operating across multiple regions.
Overall, the survey highlights strong and growing demand for geospatial environmental data in financial decision-making, but also identifies persistent barriers related to data availability, standardisation and integration into financial workflows.
