The fields at Sleight Farm, near Bath, are not much to look at. One is bare earth and deeply rutted, reminiscent of land that has been subjected to the rootling behaviour of wild boar. “This,” says environmental consultant Dominic Woodfield, “was the most rubbish. Overgrazed and compacted, and it’s had fertilisers, too.”
To start the process of ecological recovery, Woodfield, site manager Simon Nash and farm manager James Fowles introduced a couple of Tamworth pigs to the field. The pigs’ rootling behaviour creates ruts and exposes the soil, giving seeds other than grass the chance to germinate.
Exactly what happens next, the team isn’t really sure, but the action of the pigs should be a kickstart, precipitating natural processes that can bring the field back to life. In time, one can imagine it supporting nesting skylarks, vole-hunting barn owls and the occasional mad March hare.
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Protecting biodiversity
This field is a perfect example of why the UK ranks in the bottom 10 per cent of all countries in the Biodiversity Intactness Index – but it is also on the frontline of a revolution. Because the transformation being plotted at Sleight Farm isn’t born purely out of altruism, nor from government subsidy, but because the landowners have received money from a developer.
There is arguably no more existential question for the human race than how we halt and reverse declines in wildlife. There is a basic premise that if we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves, because we rely on it for so much – food, water, protection from flooding and mitigation of climate change.
It was once thought the solution was a question of raising awareness – through, for example, wildlife documentaries. Then there was hope that governments would sort things out through international agreements, and, to a certain extent, they did. The Rio Conference on biodiversity in 1992 and the Paris Agreement of 2015 were both hailed as game-changers at the time. Yet none of this seems to have worked.
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How is private funding help nature?
In the past decade or so, a potential new saviour has emerged. Somewhat alarmingly, perhaps, it’s the very same entity that has arguably played the biggest role in wreaking environmental destruction in the first place: the private sector. Companies. Investors. Pension funds.
But this new funding model for nature has not taken off either – not yet, anyway. Take the UN’s REDD+ programme, which aims to help developing countries maintain carbon-rich tropical forests by paying them not to chop them down. It was initially funded by international governments but, as long as a decade ago, it was hoped that the private sector would step in and take on more of that burden.
Sadly that hasn’t happened. And after all, if the private sector doesn’t have to contribute, then why should it? Some big companies like to demonstrate they are environmentally responsible by contributing to, for instance, voluntary carbon offsetting schemes (including those under the REDD+ umbrella).
The problem with such schemes is that they are often accused of being little more than greenwashing: in general, the money paid is a tiny percentage of turnover, and the schemes themselves often achieve only marginal benefits for the environment.
But in England, there is now a policy that requires developers to compensate for the nature lost to their development. It’s called Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), and became mandatory in 2024.
What is Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG)?
BNG is complex but the legislation essentially requires developers to assess how much wildlife is on the land they are building on, in the form of biodiversity units. They then either recreate the same number of units, plus 10 per cent, on-site or pay for enhancement or restoration of nature elsewhere.
While BNG is being forced on developers, some business people see it as an opportunity. Take brothers Philip and Andy Brainin, owners of the aforementioned Sleight Farm and cofounders of Biofarm, a company that helps both landowners and private companies with BNG deals.
“Working in BNG appealed because it addressed three big issues,” says Andy Brainin. “Climate and nature being in a disastrous state; the need to build more housing without harming nature; and farming becoming unviable for landowners.”
The Brainins are creating ‘habitat banks’ – essentially, parcels of enhanced nature – and selling the resulting biodiversity units to companies in need.
Why is Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) important?
Given the government’s target to build 300,000 homes a year, it’s estimated that, annually, BNG could result in the enhancement or restoration of 15,000ha of new wildlife habitat and drive £135–270 million into conservation. Or, at least, those were the figures. Labour recently announced it could ease or drop BNG requirements for small and medium-sized house-builders, which could nearly halve the amount of money going towards conservation.
And that is perhaps the biggest weakness of the policy: again, if the private sector doesn’t have to spend money enhancing wildlife, it probably won’t. It’s also not clear how the proposed Planning and Infrastructure Bill will impact the new policy.
How can private sector companies be convinced to help?
But what if you could persuade private-sector companies that safeguarding biodiversity was in their interest, rather than something being foisted upon them? That’s the concept that Rebalance Earth, a ‘boutique fund manager’, is working on.
Here’s how it works: pension funds need to invest clients’ money in something that will provide a return. That could be companies listed on the stock market or government bonds.
Managing director Robert Gardner believes Rebalance Earth can provide a return by investing in nature, because the private sector is increasingly impacted by natural events such as flooding. “Network Rail and the Highways Agency think a third of their railways and roads are at risk from flooding, and that will increase to 50 per cent in the next 25 years,” he says.
Flooding also affects water companies, whose creaking infrastructure is less and less able to cope with heavy downpours. And what if electrical substations or supermarkets were to flood? A report from Oxford University has predicted that 12 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is at risk from climate-related issues.
Gardner puts that in perspective: “At the peak of the Covid lockdown, there was an 11 per cent drop in GDP, and that was very short and sharp,” he says. In other words, if that was bad, the damage from climate-related events could be far worse.
But there are solutions. “We identify where there’s material financial pain [to the private sector] and then identify the nature-based solutions that offer valuable ecosystem services,” says Gardner.
“We then go to the supermarkets, airports and water companies, and say, ‘If we reduce your flood risk by 80 per cent, if we help unlock £2 billion worth of development capital, you need to pay us for that.’”
These solutions could be restoring peat or planting trees in upper catchments, rewiggling rivers or returning beavers to a wetland, and thus increasing its water storage capacity. Rebalance Earth is talking to the private sector about funding river and peatland restoration, and will this year launch a £150 million exemplar fund.
A total of £5 trillion is invested by pension funds in the UK and this will double to £10 trillion by 2035. If just 2 per cent of that £5 trillion were invested in nature, Gardner argues, that’s £100 billion, which would go a long way.
What is carbon offsetting?
As noted earlier, carbon offsetting has acquired a dubious reputation. In the UK at least, that could be changing. Here, some companies are willingly investing in carbon credits up to five times the cost of those in larger schemes in Africa or Asia.
Engineering consultancy Arup, for example, has bought 10,000 tonnes of carbon credits (at £100 a tonne) as a voluntary offset for its own emissions. It purchased these from Nattergal, a nature restoration company that aims to generate a return from rewilding projects.
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Carbon credits vs biodiversity units: what's the difference?
Carbon credits are different to biodiversity units under BNG, because you are literally just paying for someone to sequester carbon on their land – but, done properly, they can have a positive impact for wildlife, too.
Nattergal deals in biodiversity units as well as carbon credits. With investment from a partner, it has bought what chief commercial officer Claire Traynor describes as three “degraded arable farms”. By introducing moderate interventions (deer fences, for example) and using natural processes, it is restoring wildlife to these farms and, like the Brainin brothers, selling the ensuing units to developers needing to meet BNG obligations.
Nattergal has so far secured 1,700 biodiversity units (on about 1,000ha) that can be sold. “Entry-level units come in at £25,000–£28,000,” says Traynor, “and range up to, say, a water course unit, which is complex to deliver and comes in at £120,000–£140,000.” Nattergal is also looking at how it can ‘sell’ the natural flood management properties of restored land to, for example, insurance companies.
What are the challenges?
These projects can be a challenge, though, and Julian Matthews knows this all too well. In 2021, he founded the Real Wild Estates Company. As with Nattergal and Biofarm, the idea was to leverage money for nature restoration from the private sector. But the company folded last year.
“We knew it was going to be tough. We were pioneers – the first people to really monetise [nature] for landowners,” says Matthews. “People are cynical about being able to make money out of nature – there’s a huge cultural problem with that.”
He argues that part of the issue, in the UK at least, is lack of scale. Companies looking to invest in carbon credits don’t want estates of hundreds of hectares, they’re looking for landscapes comprising hundreds of thousands of hectares. “In the same way, a banker is going to get out of bed for £10 million, not £10,” he points out.
What about the future?
For all the optimism around the private financing of nature restoration, there are still huge question marks over whether it will ever come to anything. A report by Bloomberg found that of $208 billion directed towards nature conservation in 2023, $165 billion (79 per cent) came from the public sector.
And though the biodiversity offsets market – schemes such as England’s BNG programme – is expected to reach $160 billion by 2030, that is still a fraction of the $1.15 trillion (five times the current figure)that experts say is needed to stop further declines in nature.
Back at Sleight Farm, Andy and Philip Brainin are being shown the progress so far. The hedges are blousy with flowering blackthorn, and Woodfield and Nash discuss rewetting the lower field, which could possibly attract wetland birds such as snipe.
Time will tell, but I can’t wait to visit Sleight Farm in five or 10 years’ time, because I have a feeling that it will be something very special. The jury is out, however, on whether private finance – through BNG or carbon credits, or via flood alleviation or mitigating other natural impacts – is likely to have had a significant effect in the rest of the country, or indeed the world, in that time.
But there is also a sense that private finance could be one of our last hopes.
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Top image: pine marten in the UK. Credit: Getty
