Financing Nature

In this fourth and final episode of the GFI's special series on UK nature finance, host Phoebe Tucker is joined by Annabel Davidson Knight, Community Benefits from Nature Adviser at the Scottish Land Commission, to ask a pressing question as private investment scales up: how do we make sure local communities are included, not sidelined? The conversation explores why community voice matters in natural capital projects, how to avoid repeating historic patterns of exclusion and extraction, recent market developments and the standards emerging to guide good practice, and the practical and financial business case for putting community inclusion at the heart of nature restoration. For listeners who want to learn more about the Scottish Land Commission's work, you can visit its website or explore relevant resources mentioned in this podcast, including the:

• Community benefits from natural capital investment Route Map (April 2025), Scottish Land Commission
• Community Inclusion Standard, Nature Finance Certification Alliance
• Flex 705 V1.0 Nature Markets Community Engagement and Benefits, BSI
• Natural Capital Market Framework, Scottish Government
• Rural Land Market Policy Briefing 2026, Scottish Land Commission (published after podcast recording)

In this third episode of the GFI's special series on UK nature finance, host Phoebe Tucker is joined by Luke Baldwin, Co-Founder and CEO of Nature Broking, to explore the UK’s nature-based carbon market space and, specifically, what needs to happen to unlock growth from a demand-side perspective.

For listeners who want to learn more about Nature Broking's work, you can visit its website, or contact Luke Baldwin on LinkedIn.

In this second episode of the GFI's special series on UK nature finance, host Phoebe Tucker is joined by Jack Spees, CEO of the Ribble Rivers Trust, to talk about how we can unlock investment into nature-based solutions from the UK's water industry.

The discussion centres around the Mainstreaming Nature-based Solutions (MNBS) Programme, a collaborative partnership between 23 organisations that is supported by the Ofwat Innovation Fund to test solutions across eight regions in the UK. Here we talk about the water industry and their recent pressures, regulatory constraints, explorations and potential solutions in scaling investment into nature – and what is needed to unlock this opportunity amid wider water industry reform.

For listeners who want to learn more about the MNBS Programme, you can visit its official website.

In this first episode of the GFI's special series on UK nature finance, host Phoebe Tucker is joined by Seren Patterson, Water Stewardship Manager at the Rivers Trust, to talk about its Replenish model - also known as Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting - in channeling private sector investment into water storage and water quality outcomes.

For listeners who want to learn more about the Replenish model, you can visit the Rivers Trust's Replenish Toolbox, the underlying VWBA methodology (2.0), and a recent blog post written by Patterson (26.06.26) on the rise of water stewardship and the VWBA methodology. You can also read about the Coca-Cola Replenish partnership, mentioned in the episode.

In this final episode of the R4N series, host Helen Avery speaks with Justin Adams, co-founder of Ostara and Reimagining Nature Finance fellow with the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance about the challenges of nature finance, and some big ideas for change.

In this episode, we're joined by Harvey Locke who has been an adviser to governments on conservation for decades, as well as currently holding the position of Vice Chair for Nature Positive for the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas. Over the last 18 months, Harvey has been bringing experts together around the world to develop some big and bold financial solutions to solve our wicked problem of biodiversity loss. 

In this episode, we dive into the U.S. mitigation banking market as part of our ongoing exploration of compliance models and regulated markets. Helen Avery is joined by Adam Davis, co-founder and managing partner of Ecosystem Investment Partners (EIP), a private equity firm that has raised over $1 billion and restored more than 53,000 acres of wetlands and 260 miles of streams across the U.S. since 2007.

Adam shares an in-depth look at what’s actually happening on the ground. He walks us through how EIP set up mitigation banks - from identifying suitable locations to developing and selling credits. Adam also shares key insights into investor appetite, and what’s driving increased interest in nature-based investment opportunities.

The episode also explores what has enabled the U.S. mitigation banking market to scale as it has, with some of the key lessons learned, why it remains attractive to investors, and how other countries could replicate its success. 

In this episode, we’re joined by Tim Male, Founder and Executive Director of the Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), to dive into U.S. mitigation banking and the broader role of regulatory markets. The U.S. is home to the one of the world’s largest regulatory markets, where billions of private-sector dollars are flowing into nature restoration. In this episode we talk about why these models and markets are essential for getting capital moving towards nature.

For listeners who want to learn more about U.S. mitigation banking, check out the R4N Guidebook, co-written with EPIC. It explores how the model was created, the challenges it faces, and key lessons learned along the way.

In this episode Helen Avery is joined by Thomas Pickford, UK Partnerships and Policy Lead at The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and Glenn Anderson, Co-Founder and Strategy Lead at the Wendling Beck - a landscape scale project which has been selling Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) units in the UK.

In this episode they talk about the BNG market, what it is, how it works and the implications for the EU. They also discuss what this looks like for farmers and land mangers who are engaging with BNG.

For those interested in the Wendling Beck Project’s development, the GFI Hive has also written a detailed set of case studies, all found on the GFI Hive Investment Readiness Toolkit: https://hive.greenfinanceinstitute.com/gfihive/toolkit/projects/wendling-beck/

In this episode Emily McKenzie joins us on Financing Nature to share how we move from disclosures into action. She shares where the TNFD is to-date on working with businesses and financial institutions around the world, differences in regional approaches, transition plans and the road to investment.