The climate crisis and biodiversity loss are two closely interconnected challenges. While public and private attention to climate change has grown significantly in recent years, biodiversity conservation continues to suffer from a substantial lack of funding. At a global level, this biodiversity funding gap is one of the main reasons why the nature conservation targets of the previous decade were not achieved.

In Lombardy as well, forests and protected areas play a crucial role in providing essential ecosystem services—from habitat conservation to climate and water regulation. However, public funding for their management is often discontinuous and poorly suited to long-term planning. In this context, there is a clear need to activate new governance and financing models capable of engaging the private sector and directing additional resources towards measurable, verified actions aligned with biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation objectives.

BioClima – Biodiversity and Climate is an initiative promoted by the Lombardy Region within the LIFE IP GESTIRE 2020 project, developed with the technical support of Etifor and the contribution of Fondazione Cariplo. The objective was to test an innovative public–private partnership model to finance biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation actions, and the enhancement of ecosystem services generated by regional forests and protected areas.

The BioClima model is based on a blended finance mechanism, in which public funding acts as a lever to attract private capital. The initiative was structured around three integrated components:

• a regional call for proposals of €3.5 million addressed to protected area management bodies, requiring them to activate private co-financing equal to at least 30% of the total project cost;

• a technical facility service, financed by Fondazione Cariplo and managed by Etifor, to support entities in project design, application to the call, and the mobilisation of private co-financing through the WOWnature platform;

• the measurement, verification and certification of ecosystem service impacts according to international standards—such as the FSC® Ecosystem Services Procedure—to ensure the quality of interventions and the credibility of corporate contributions.

Etifor coordinated the BioClima Technical Facility, supporting protected area management bodies throughout the entire process: from identifying priority interventions and structuring projects, to engaging companies and certifying the impacts generated. Our contribution included technical project design, support in mobilising private funding, scientific assessment of ecosystem services, and communication and stakeholder engagement activities.

At the end of the project (December 2025), BioClima delivered concrete and verifiable results, both in environmental terms and in the mobilisation of public and private resources. In particular, the initiative made it possible to:

• implement 12 biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation projects in Lombardy’s protected areas;

• mobilise over €5.6 million in total, including more than €1.5 million in private co-financing, activated through the involvement of over 100 corporate sponsors;

• plant more than 66,000 trees, through new forest creation, hedgerows, tree lines and ecological enrichment activities;

• improve over 300 hectares of existing forests and deliver 27 hectares of biodiversity-specific interventions;

• certify 4,635 hectares under the FSC® standard, including 1,463 hectares with validated or verified positive impacts on ecosystem services.

Alongside environmental outcomes, BioClima also generated significant media and territorial impact, including:

• 350+ mentions in national and local media;

• over 40 on-site events;

• more than 1,500 people directly involved in project discovery and engagement activities.

BioClima has proven to be a successful pilot, capable of activating private sector engagement, strengthening public authorities’ capacity, and generating measurable environmental impacts. At the same time, the experience highlighted areas for improvement to make the model even more effective and replicable. Building on these results, Etifor aims to further develop and scale the BioClima model in Lombardy and in other regional contexts, contributing to the wider adoption of innovative financing mechanisms for biodiversity conservation and natural capital protection.

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