From Fringe to Financial Infrastructure: Why Insurance is the Missing Link in Scaling Natural Capital
From a podcast insight to building GaiaSicura, and why insurance is now central to unlocking nature markets at scale.
Kita Earth’s Report Findings: Markets are at an Inflection Point
About a year ago, Natalia Dorfman, CEO & Co-Founder at Kita Earth, appeared on a podcast discussing carbon insurance, which led me to read Kita’s first Gross Written Carbon report.
That moment was the catalyst.
The insights in that report played a key role in the genesis of GaiaSicura, (that and an epiphany in a kayak), and shaped a clear view that if nature was to become an investable asset class, risk must be understood, structured and transferred.
Fast forward to today and the second edition of the Gross Written Carbon report demonstrates how far the market has come in a short time and crucially how much further it needs to go.
Businesses face increasing financial exposure due to biodiversity loss and climate risk, making investment in carbon and natural capital solutions more and more critical. As we see carbon markets shift from niche mechanisms to core financial infrastructure, the following trends have emerged:
Convergence of voluntary and compliance markets
Increasing deal complexity
Permanence and long-term delivery becoming central
Growth of new technologies (e.g. engineered removals)
Greater participation from institutional investors
Despite this momentum, markets remain constrained.
Why? Because the risks are still not fully understood, priced, or transferred - there is a lack of confidence, creating a structural ceiling that needs to be overcome.
From Growth to Friction: The Real Barrier to Scale
Every emerging market reaches a point where growth meets friction.
In carbon and natural capital markets, the barrier is no longer awareness or demand - it is confidence. Nature-based assets introduce complex risks which are difficult to quantify and transfer; delivery failure, nature degradation or damage, negligence, and counter-party default all translate directly into financial loss for those looking to release capital.
Specifically markets lack:
underwriting frameworks to assess project-level risk at a replicable and reliable scale
Unifying datasets creating standardised applications that can translate to financially literate, but ecologically naive institutions
permanence guarantees that extend beyond project developers’ balance sheets
Without these and other fit-for-purpose mechanisms, these uncertainties remain concentrated with buyers and investors, suppressing liquidity and limiting participation.
“As transaction volumes grow and more sophisticated deal structures emerge within carbon markets, insurance is no longer a peripheral consideration, but an increasingly integral component of market infrastructure itself. At the same time, permanence is gaining prominence as a critical requirement, further reinforcing the role of insurance as part of the solution. ”
From Carbon to Nature: The Next Frontier
Carbon markets have made great headway but represent just one area of the declining ecosystems affecting our planet - and focus has been on transaction protection, not nature itself.
Natural capital markets - spanning a broad range of biodiversity; soil, water and ecosystem services - are the next stage of this evolution. But are coupled with greater complexity and a shortfall of data and insights to effectively measure and structure risk.
This is because they are living, physical entities with performance-dependent value, not abstract financial instruments.
Performance is measured in years and decades, not milliseconds. As a result, there is a heightened need for critical risk infrastructure and the industry players to deploy it.
Nature as an Asset Class
To be treated as an asset class, natural capital must transform from niche to mainstream, and to achieve this requires the following:
Defined and measurable risk profiles → enabled through underwriting and standardised data frameworks
Reliable performance expectations → supported by delivery insurance products and third-party verification
Concise mechanisms for downside protection → including natural asset restoration insurance, credit invalidation cover, and long-duration permanence insurance
Every emerging market reaches a point where growth depends not on innovation, but on confidence at scale.
Without mechanisms to secure the underlying assets:
Investors must either overprice risk, avoid the market entirely, or have to be highly restrictive in the limits they impose with their capital
Buyers lack assurance that outcomes will be delivered, stifling nascent demand
Ultimately, markets will remain fragmented and stagnate.
Core Barrier: Confidence & Reliability
This is crucially a problem of risk allocation. Today, buyers and investors absorb the majority of downside financial exposure, whilst project developers bear the brunt of restrictive contractual obligations to try and mitigate this risk, reflecting a lack of mature mechanisms to transfer and distribute risk.
As highlighted in the report, insurance is now moving from the periphery of carbon markets to becoming embedded financial infrastructure, precisely because it enables risk to be quantified, priced, and transferred, a move that is mirrored across natural capital markets.
This shift is critical. By redistributing risk across insurers, reinsurers, and capital markets, insurance provides not only protection, but a “stamp of confidence” and a structured framework for participation.
In doing so, it creates the conditions required for natural capital to scale beyond a specialist market and into a mainstream asset class.
Unlocking Capital through Insurance
The report’s concept of Gross Written Carbon - where risk is understood and transferable - frames insurance as the catalyst for capital mobilisation.
As embedded infrastructure, insurance allows for greater participation, liquidity, and sophisticated transactions, which in turn enables:
Investors to participate without carrying unlimited downside risk where not limited by harsh contract terms
Buyers to trust that what they purchase will be delivered
Markets to standardise, scale, and integrate into broader financial systems
Without it, markets rely on specialist knowledge and high risk tolerance - no scaled market allows for this.
For GaiaSicura, this translates directly into nature markets:
→ Insurance doesn’t just protect natural capital assets.
→ It makes them investable in the first place.
A Signal of What’s Coming
Carbon insurance alone is projected to grow into a multi-billion dollar market, reaching:
~$1.8 billion annually by 2030
$10–30 billion annually by 2050
These figures are significant but equally indicative.
They signal that risk transfer is becoming crucial to climate and nature markets.
Natural capital markets will follow a similar path, but only if the same infrastructure is put in place.
In Reflection: What Can Change in a Year
On a personal note just a year on from first listening to the original podcast I was then sitting alongside Natalia Dorfman on another recording. To also, the same week, be featured in the second edition of the report alongside some of the world’s largest brokers is a reminder of how quickly this space is transforming.
Kita’s leadership in this space has been inspirational, and the way the rest of the market is rising to address these fundamental issues in that wake is a strong indication of positive change.
So much has been built in a short space of time, yet we are only at the beginning of unlocking what is actually possible, and getting to where we really need to be.
At GaiaSicura, we see insurance not simply as a protective layer but as a core, and crucial, mechanism currently missing from the market, which can enable nature to function as an investable and scalable asset class.
Ultimately, securing a future for nature is not just about recognising its value but it is about building the systems that allows that value to be trusted, financed, and sustained at scale. - fundamentally leading to a net-positive outcome for all.
Start Structuring Risk For Your Nature Project
Speak with GaiaSicura’s specialists in nature insurance, natural capital risk transfer, and ecosystem restoration protection, to explore how your project can be de-risked, financed, and delivered with confidence.