A vision grounded in Thailand’s strengths
From global tourism to value-added manufacturing, Thailand is aiming for more resilient growth. It is demonstrating the possibilities for protecting the country’s rich natural assets while boosting competitiveness, employment, and the livelihoods of the coastal fishing communities, smallholder farmers, and rural households who depend on those assets more directly. Yet in 2018, natural capital, like agricultural land, forests, coasts, and minerals, represents 11 percent of Thailand’s total per capital wealth, down from 21 percent in 2005, as two decades of rapid growth have resulted in trade-offs leading to resource depletion and climate risks that threaten economic productivity, financial sector resilience and vulnerable communities. Thailand’s national strategies and the Bio-Circular-Green economic model seek to reconcile this, pivoting toward data-driven resource management and long-term competitiveness.
Scaling up climate and nature finance will play a key role. According to the Thailand Country Climate and Development Report, Thailand will need an additional USD 219 billion in climate‑related investments over the next 25 years, equivalent to about 2.4 percent of cumulative GDP. Public resources alone will not be sufficient to meet this challenge. The financial sector—especially banks— will play a decisive role in mobilizing private capital at the scale and speed required.
The GPS partnership: enhancing Thailand’s resilient growth and development
The World Bank’s Global Program on Sustainability (GPS) helps governments and markets integrate nature into decisions by supplying high-quality data, analytics, and tools that enrich a country’s understanding of natural capital’s contribution toward a sustainable economic model. In Thailand, GPS-aligned support is focused on: (i) strengthening sustainable finance (for example, policy dialogue, technical assistance and knowledge sharing on taxonomy implementation in the financial sector); and (ii) expanding decision-useful evidence on natural capital to inform policy and regulatory approaches that integrate nature into the financial sector.
From data to action: where nature and policy mee
- Financing the transition. Complementing the country’s Sustainable Financing Framework and sustainability bond issuances, Thailand has implemented key actions to strengthen the overall sustainable finance ecosystem. Since 2023, the Bank of Thailand (BOT) has required banks to assess climate-related financial risks and offer sustainable financial products. For example, through the BOT-supported “Financing the Transition” program, eight commercial banks are now offering financial products tailored to SME’s green transformation needs, including factory upgrades, clean technology adoption, and the shift to lower-carbon operations in manufacturing, agriculture, and construction. The Thailand Taxonomy has also been launched as a reference tool to standardize asset classification and support green and transition finance, with many follow-up capacity building efforts for taxonomy implementation in the financial sector including a webinar supported by GPS. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) mandated Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and climate risk disclosure in listed companies’ annual reports, aligned with recommendations from the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.
- Water and climate resilience priorities. Thailand’s upcoming Country Partnership Framework FY2027-2032 emphasizes building resilience to climate change and improving water resources management. It focuses on managing flood and drought risks, which significantly affect agriculture and tourism—two of the country’s major economic sectors. To address these issues, the World Bank is also supporting the government on its ambitious Chao Phraya River Flood Risk Mitigation Program. The World Bank has also partnered with the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) Office and 43 public-private stakeholders to establish a Multi-Stakeholder Water Platform for the EEC region, to advance sustainable, inclusive and climate-resilient water management. By integrating the development and growth agenda, these efforts help align investment and policy with long-term resilience.
- Sustainable ocean resources. Thailand is developing a national Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) framework, with World Bank Group technical engagement and support from its multi-donor PROBLUE Trust Fund, to balance conservation, coastal livelihoods, and growth. Ongoing dialogue on blue finance aims to mobilize capital for integrated seascape management and coastal resilience, connecting ocean health to economic opportunity.
Building institutions for the long term
Progress rests on institutions and collaboration. In Thailand, this includes regulators, economic agencies and planning bodies, natural resource agencies, the statistical and academic communities, and financial institutions that generate and use data. Recent work to improve corporate ESG reporting, develop taxonomy, and strengthen ESG integration in public and private finance are laying the groundwork for durable, system-wide uptake. On the ocean agenda, Thailand’s MSP framework, anchored in the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources and supported by cross-government coordination, provides the institutional backbone for a coherent, multi-sector approach to managing and sustainably financing coastal and marine assets.
