The Environment Bank has launched a new asset class to help corporates invest in high impact nature restoration through Biodiversity Credits. The launch of this pioneering sustainable investment mechanism will provide the global private sector with a fully funded, low risk opportunity for investing in nature restoration and recovery.
Biodiversity credits are quickly becoming a part of the global policy agenda. Earlier this week (18 September) the Taskforce for Nature Related Disclosures (TNFD) published its framework, aimed at addressing the knowledge gap within corporations on the financial risks and dependencies on nature and to anticipate mandatory requirements on nature reporting.
As a result, the private sector is increasingly aware of the critical importance of nature in reaching net zero targets, and the opportunity and risks that exist within the market. Robust and accessible schemes aligned with existing frameworks (such as TNFD) that provide the certainty of impact and high integrity delivery are therefore vital.
Backed by $300 million of funding, Environment Bank is offering partners fully funded sustainable investments aimed at restructuring the valuation, pricing, and market risk of nature investments globally, whilst creating a new transparent blueprint for the creation of biodiversity through Biodiversity Credits. The organisation is pioneering in its approach to Biodiversity Credits and it is now offering these first of its kind credits for sale.
It is on track to deliver 6000 acres of habitat creation in the UK this year with hundreds more projects in the pipeline. By 2025, it expects to have restored an area equivalent to the size of Manhattan across England. These landscape scale projects, co-designed with local partners, rebuild entire ecosystems including species rich grasslands, woodlands, wood meadow, scrub, grassland mosaics and wetlands. The established infrastructure of ecosystems and habitats across the UK – one of the most nature depleted countries in the world – acts as a blueprint for Environment Bank’s expansion globally to support the net zero transition with nature at its core.
The Environment Bank, which is based in the UK, consists of a team of industry leading ecologists, and each project is subject to long term monitoring, independent verification, robust compliance and ecological integrity. All projects are created specific to the local environment, both in terms of local ecology as well as the nearby communities that are closely consulted.
Founded and chaired by Professor David Hill, the Environment Bank is led by James Cross, former CEO of Natural England who has spent his career working closely with industry and UK government.
James Cross said, ‘Environment Bank’s Biodiversity Credits mark a new value proposition for the private sector to support nature uplift across ecosystems, removing the barriers that have historically existed in biodiversity investments. Scalable and impactful delivery of nature restoration projects will be key to tackling climate change, and the private sector has a huge role to play. Biodiversity Credits will make nature economically viable. We do not get to net zero without nature, and it’s time to put repairing the planet first on the agenda.’
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