A consortium of groups and organisations in Scotland on Thursday announced an investment plan for a new restoration project that in part will rely on a partnership with a nature fintech platform that recently won a contract with the government to develop a biodiversity credit system.
Community organisations, national agencies, and green finance land management specialists have banded together to form Nature Finance Fife, they announced, a framework designed to fund nature restoration schemes in eastern Scotland.
The Dreel Burn River catchment by the coastal town of Anstruther has been designated as a pilot project area.
CreditNature, which is in the process of developing a platform for biodiversity credits in Scotland known as Nature Impact Tokens, has been included as Nature Finance Fife’s technology partner.
“We are delighted to be working with local partners to develop a plan to create a voluntary biodiversity credit system that meets the needs of Nature Finance Fife,” CreditNature Founder and CEO Cain Blythe said in a statement.
“The CreditNature methodology is an ideal fit to build capacity locally to address landowners’ business concerns with community-led stewardship of the river and wider landscape, while also contributing to our mission of accelerating rewilding and unlocking nature-positive investment around the world.”
CreditNature’s Nature Impact Tokens will be based on its Natural Asset Recovery Investment Analytics (Naria) framework, which it launched in August.
When it signed its contract with the partly devolved Scottish government’s Civtech programme just over three months ago, the company said it planned to issue its first tokens within the scope of that 12-month contract.
CHIPPING IN
The initiative’s backers hope that earning credits from the restoration efforts mean that the costs won’t be carried by Scottish taxpayers alone, and that private businesses will contribute via the purchase of units.
“It is clear to us that the financial burden should not in fact fall entirely on the public purse to address. Rather, funds allocated by both the local authority and Scottish government should be used to catalyse action and funding from the private sector,” said Jeremy Harris, CEO of the Fife Coast & Countryside Trust, the project’s lead partner.
“This includes a growing number of private companies [that] are on a journey to becoming ‘nature positive’ in the way they do business, and to protect the natural environment, upon which we all, ultimately, depend.”
While England is in the process of legislating its Biodiversity Net Gain scheme, there is no corresponding policy in Scotland, where regulators are instead putting their faith in a nascent voluntary biodiversity crediting programme.
Last month the government issued an open call for projects aiming to support current and future markets.
COMMITTED
Public agency NatureScot is another of the participants in the consortium.
“As we tackle the climate-nature crisis with a growing urgency, everyone has the responsibility to get us to net zero,” said Chief Executive Francesca Osowska.
“Our support for Nature Finance Fife is part of our commitment to offer communities, companies, charities and individuals across Scotland the opportunity to develop bold business cases and financial models which will attract the investment required to restore nature.”
Growth in natural populations of fish and molluscs, improvement to local water quality, and drought resilience are among the benefits the consortium hopes to see from the Dreel Burn River project.
By Stian Reklev – stian@carbon-pulse.com
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