The Broadway Initiative has launched the Nature Market Dialogue, the space in which stakeholders and influencers can collaborate on the future of UK nature markets. The launch took place on the 25^th March during a roundtable that marked the commencement of the Dialogue’s first workstream, a deep dive into nature market governance.

Nature remains in decline. Biodiversity and ecosystem services continue to suffer despite increased public interest and funding, philanthropic efforts and government regulation. Conventional markets have proved incapable of driving investment in the natural capital on which human flourishing and planetary health rely, so nature markets have emerged as a solution.

The Nature Market Dialogue is bringing together all the key voices to realise the potential for high integrity nature markets. The Broadway Initiative’s State of UK Nature Markets 2023 built on the work of multiple partners to identify three key challenges: governance, demand drivers and policy continuity.

Supported by Esmée Fairburn, the Nature Market Dialogue aims to harmonise and synergise the excellent work being undertaken to crack these barriers and secure agreement on what needs to be done next. The Dialogue will develop a new consensus to respond to the government’s pending consultation on mobilising voluntary green finance and negating greenwash, building the necessary momentum to carry nature markets into the future. The first workstreams are intended to take 18 months to complete, but the Dialogue is here to stay.

The Dialogue launched on the 25th March with the initiation of the governance workstream, at a roundtable in partnership with the Environmental Markets Board, Frontier Economics and Arup. Ministers, officials, finance experts and leaders from business and farming gathered to learn both from each other and from the mistakes of the voluntary carbon markets. The roundtable marked the beginning of a process that will surface a consensus among all market participants.



Peter Young, Broadway Chairman and Chair of the Nature Market Dialogue steering committee, said: ‘The Nature Market Dialogue is a vital intervention in the development of high integrity nature markets precisely because it is a dialogue. We are asking everyone with expertise or opinions to head to the project website https://www.naturemarketsdialogue.uk/participation to register their desire to participate. Only by building true, broad consensus and working in a co-ordinated way will we be able to unleash the potential of nature markets to reverse the biodiversity crisis.’

Annabelle Ong, a Director at Frontier Economics, said: ‘Frontier Economics is delighted to host the first Roundtable of “The Nature Market Dialogue”. We urgently need to find ways to accelerate nature recovery and Nature Markets can play an important role in facilitating private investment in nature recovery. I am looking forward to bringing together stakeholders from a wide range of sectors to discuss how we can avoid the pitfalls of voluntary carbon markets and create high integrity nature markets that deliver for the environment and society.’