24 November 2025 2 menit
Forests and Finance Releases 2025 Edition of Banking on Biodiversity Collapse
After a decade of glossy “net-zero” promises, the numbers tell a different story: the world’s biggest banks have pumped USD 429 billion into companies destroying tropical forests — including USD 72 billion in the last 18 months alone. Investors aren’t backing away either; they’ve increased their exposure to forest-risk companies by nearly USD 8 billion since the Paris Agreement. Voluntary alliances like GFANZ and the Net Zero Banking Alliance were supposed to fix this, but instead they’ve fractured, stalled, or quietly abandoned their ambitions. The result? Forest-risk lending keeps rising, deforestation keeps accelerating, and the financial sector continues underwriting biodiversity collapse while publicly claiming climate leadership.
The Forests & Finance Coalition’s new Banking on Biodiversity Collapse 2025 report makes the next step unmistakably clear: regulation is no longer optional. Governments must make it illegal for banks and investors to profit from deforestation and rights abuses — because self-regulation has failed, and the Amazon can’t survive another decade of paper promises. Brazil’s leadership matters, but without strong safeguards and binding rules that shut off the money pipeline to destructive activities, forests will continue to fall.
“Voluntary promises have failed — it’s time to make destructive finance illegal. Our data shows that while banks and investors talk about sustainability, their money is still burning through the world’s forests. Governments must step in with binding rules that make it unlawful to profit from deforestation and rights abuses.”
— Steph Dowlen, Forest Campaigner, Rainforest Action Network