Making the health benefits of evironmental action measurable & investable
Every person deserves to live in an environment that supports their health and wellbeing. Yet, many people don't - the World Health Organization estimates that at least one-in-four human deaths are due to modifiable environmental risks.
These health damages ultimately translate into economic costs borne by governments, businesses, and communities. Investing in climate and nature - alongside healthcare systems - is therefore an investment in preventing disease, that improves people’s live, delivers cost savings for governments and businesses, and enhances environmental outcomes.
Yet the USD 8.2 trillion sustainability finance market does not see nature's role in securing health as an investment opportunity.
Ecosystems, Finance & Health (EFH) exists to change this.
Our aim is to identify where and when health and environmental benefits align, and how investments can be designed to capture them.
This will create new revenue streams and financial incentives that link climate and biodiversity action to improvements in people’s health and wellbeing.
OUR CORE BELIEFS
01
Nature underpins more than half of global GDP and is critical to addressing climate change, yet ecosystems are degrading faster than ever → engineering and financing their resilience remains one of humanity's most vital unsolved capabilities.
02
Financial markets are paying closer attention to nature-related risks and opportunities, but still capture only a fraction of nature's economic value → human and livestock health benefits represent a significant share of that unpriced value.
03
The public and private sectors will only fund ecosystems for their role in preventing disease if they can capture the resulting cost savings or reduced exposure to financial, reputational, or political risk → but ways to measure and financially structure these benefits simply don't exist.
04
Scientists have the expertise to unlock environmentally-derived health benefits, and when brought together with practitioners and the financial sector → this knowledge can direct capital towards solutions that ensure ecosystems and people's health and livelihoods flourish together.
WHAT WE DO
Identify investment cases for climate, health & nature
Measure health benefits
Work with the financial sector to capture value
WHERE WE WORK
Africa must lead this transition.
EFH is grounded in the continent.
Why Africa?
The continent sits at the intersection of the world's most important sustainability challenges — and its greatest opportunities.
It contains some of the planet's most important ecosystems, fastest-growing populations, and largest unmet needs in health, food security, climate resilience and economic development.
At the same time, Africa is a hotbed of innovation in conservation, restoration and sustainable finance.
If we can demonstrate that investments in nature generate measurable health and economic returns here, we can transform how climate, nature and health are financed globally.
OUR IMPACT
Over the next decade, EFH will generate new science, bankable projects and replicable investment blueprints that show how the contributions of climate action, conservation and restoration to improved health and wellbeing can be valued — all designed and scaled from Africa.
Concepts with commercial potential will be positioned to feed into existing investment pipelines, such as the Africa Natural Capital Alliance and FSD Africa’s Nature-First Innovation Lab.
Our efforts will:
Reduce the scientific, technical, and institutional barriers that prevent investors from considering health benefits in climate, nature, and food-system investments.
Unlock at least USD 1.5B in aligned capital through thirty bankable projects that link climate, conservation and restoration to improved health, resilience and wellbeing, which demonstrate real-world impact for people and nature.
Open a pathway from philanthropic funding to public and commercial capital for disease prevention.
Mainstream health benefits for investors, through reusable tools, metrics, and financial blueprints.