On 11 September 2026, Seneca Impact Advisors participated in ReThink HK 2026, where Jean-Marc Champagne, Managing Director, moderated the panel discussion Financing Nature & Resilience: How to Structure Bankable Deals. The session examined one of the most important challenges facing the nature finance market today: how to turn growing interest in nature and climate resilience into transactions that can attract investment and achieve scale.
The panel brought together a diverse range of perspectives from across the financing ecosystem. Participants included Tom Holland, Founder and Managing Partner of Development Finance Asia and Vana Holdings, who shared insights from developing and financing nature-based and restoration projects across Southeast Asia; Audrey Underhill, Business for Nature Specialist at ADM Capital Foundation, who discussed investor expectations, measurement, and natural capital frameworks; Yinglin (Zoe) Jiang, Senior Vice President of Sustainability Strategy at Bank of China (Hong Kong), who provided a commercial banking perspective; and Ritesh Thakkar, Senior Advisor and Head of Asia Pacific at Convergence, who examined blended finance trends and market development.
Nature finance has moved rapidly from a niche topic to an area of growing interest for governments, financial institutions, investors, and corporates. Yet despite this momentum, relatively few nature and resilience transactions successfully attract capital and reach financial close. The discussion therefore focused not only on the opportunities within the sector, but also on the practical challenges of structuring projects, allocating risk, mobilizing capital, and developing investment opportunities that meet both commercial and environmental objectives. This theme of moving “from ambition to execution” remained central throughout the session.
One of the recurring themes was the need to build a stronger pipeline of investible opportunities. While there is no shortage of projects seeking funding, many still require additional technical, financial, and organizational support before they are ready to engage investors or lenders. Panelists discussed the importance of project preparation, transaction structuring, stakeholder coordination, and risk allocation in helping bridge this gap and move projects toward implementation.
The conversation also explored the complementary roles that commercial banks, blended finance mechanisms, concessional capital, and private investors can play in supporting nature and resilience investments. Participants highlighted the importance of reducing risk, improving project bankability, and deploying capital in ways that can help unlock larger flows of private investment. At the same time, there was recognition that successful transactions must be grounded in strong project fundamentals rather than financial engineering alone.
Another important area of discussion was the growing role of measurement and disclosure frameworks. The panel examined how approaches such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) can help organizations assess nature-related risks and opportunities while improving transparency and credibility across the market. Participants noted that stronger measurement systems will be increasingly important as investors seek greater confidence in both environmental outcomes and financial performance.
The session concluded with a shared view that the challenge today is no longer generating interest in nature finance. The challenge is translating that interest into well-structured transactions that investors and lenders can support. Building stronger project pipelines, strengthening partnerships, improving risk-sharing mechanisms, and aligning environmental outcomes with commercial objectives will all be critical to scaling investment in nature and climate resilience across Asia.
