Current approaches to allocating funding to sustainability, climate and environmental protection lack strategy and coordination, compounding the problem of inadequate funding levels, claims a new report from consultancy firm Conatix. For example, says the Sustainability Financing Strategy 2009 Report, over the past two decades, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) – the largest single player in environmental finance – has spent only a portion of the inadequate funds it manages for the World Bank and the United Nations, although the money is urgently needed. Lack of transparency and bureaucracy are responsible, as well as poorly defined strategy to address the most pressing environmental problems. Even a successful climate deal in Copenhagen will not solve these underlying problems, warns the report.

The mention of Copenhagen clearly shows the report’s target, its release coming two weeks before the meeting. It sketches out a solution to the problem, offering a framework for targeting future environmental initiatives by tracing the key vectors of planning time, geographic reach, investment scale and organizational complexity. It also includes a matrix for planning efficient use of funds, private, public or philanthropic, from $100,000 to $100 million. In short, remarks Uwe Birkel, Conatix policy outreach director, ‘The report is a compass in the jungle of global environment financing.’