Broadway Initiative releases State of UK Nature Markets Report

PRESS RELEASE: New report finds interest in UK nature markets still high, but more rapid progress needed to ensure impact and integrity

Broadway Initiative • Oct 30, 2023

The Broadway Initiative today released a review of the progress towards establishing high integrity markets for nature across the UK. The State of UK Nature Markets Report 2023 found that ‘some progress’ has been made towards the goals outlined in the ground-breaking Financing Nature Recovery UK Report published in July 2022, but the most significant opportunities lie ahead.

The State of UK Nature Markets 2023 Report is the first annual review of progress made against the Financing Nature Recovery (FNR) roadmap and recommendations published in June 2022. The FNR Report was described as reflecting an ‘emerging consensus from the farming, business, finance and environment sectors across the country as to the actions needed to support development of these markets’ In the Government’s recently published Nature Markets Framework.

The review was undertaken by the Broadway Initiative with input from experts drawn from across the environmental, business, public and land-based sectors and independently reviewed the actions taken since the publication of the FNR report.

The report highlights three important developments: the British Standards Institution’s Nature Investments Standards Programme; the Nature Markets Framework for England; and the Scottish Government’s Interim Principles for Responsible Investment in Natural Capital. However, the report also found ‘limited progress in translating strategic goals and policy ambition into specific actions to facilitate market development,’ a situation exacerbated by the recent policy uncertainty over Nutrient Neutrality, and recommends rapid action is needed on demand drivers and governance to ensure impact and integrity.

Broadway Initiative Convenor Edward Lockhart-Mummery said: “High integrity nature markets are crucial to addressing the funding gap for UK nature recovery. The UK Government aims to generate £1bn of private investment in nature every year by 2030, and our report has highlighted the structural barriers to reaching that goal. Some progress has been made, but Defra and other departments can do even more, so we are calling on the Government to make the best use possible of the upcoming consultation and review of carbon and nature markets as a vital opportunity to renew the momentum.

“COP 28 is absolutely the moment to make this happen, to reassert the UK’s role as a global leader in green finance."

The Broadway Initiative is ready to support the UK and devolved Governments in delivering the four priorities for action identified in the State of UK Nature Markets 2023:

Create and deliver an implementation plan for a robust governance and institutional architecture for nature markets
Quantify and stimulate private and public sector demand for purchased nature services
Build capacity among Local Authorities, regulators, and land managers of all types, to deliver nature-based projects that can attract private income and investment
Ensure the continued evolution of the stacking principle as a means of future-proofing the supply of land delivering multiple nature benefits

NOTES TO EDITORS

The Broadway Initiative is the coalition of UK trade associations working to 'mainstream' sustainability into the UK economy. Broadway works across the breadth of the business community to understand what is needed to achieve environmental and climate change objectives, then collaborates with UK governments on the frameworks required and develops plans and partnerships in the private sector to implement change.
For further enquiries, please contact liam@broadwayinitiative.org.uk

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BT announce their partnership with UK Business Climate Hub

by Broadway Initiative • 22 Apr, 2024

BT marked Earth Day by announcing their partnership with UK Business Climate Hub, the one-stop-shop for UK SME net zero advice managed by Broadway Initiative. BT announced they were joining the UK Business Climate Hub partnership to help small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) to take steps to halve emissions by 2030, and pointed their SMB clients to the Hub's ‘Seven Steps to Sustainability’. The UK Business Climate Hub is the UK portal for SME net zero advice, developed with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), the international SME Climate Hub and the UK’s main business organisations, energy networks, high street banks and professional bodies. The coalition is managed by the Broadway Initiative and endorsed by the Net Zero Council . Existing members of the coalition include Barclays, British Business Bank, British Chambers of Commerce, Confederation of British Industry (CBI), Electricity North West, Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), HSBC UK, Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA), Institute of Directors (IoD), Lloyds Bank, Make UK, NatWest, National Grid, Northern Powergrid, and Sage.

PRESS RELEASE: Nature Market Dialogue arrives to build vital unity and consensus

by Broadway Initiative • 25 Mar, 2024

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.’

Cross-sector interest in UK Business Climate Hub

by Liam Stokes • 13 Sept, 2023

The launch of the UK Business Climate Hub has been picked up by a number of publications highlighting the value of this new resource to a variety of sectors.