Round Table Discussion at Number 10 Downing Street: Mobilising Nature Finance for Biodiversity Restoration

Our Chairman, David Hill, was invited by the Rt Hon Thérèse Coffey to a round table discussion and presentation at Number 10 Downing Street on mobilising nature finance for farmers and land managers.

Representatives from the finance sector, agriculture and land management listened to an excellent speech by the Secretary of State in which she set out her obvious passion for getting more finance into nature and natural capital as part of the Government’s drive to address catastrophic biodiversity decline over the past five decades. Dr Coffey set out the Government’s ambitions and promised to set the frameworks to enable private investment to scale rapidly.

There were some excellent presentations from people working on the ground including from Barratt Developments on the importance they place on Biodiversity Net Gain, as well as a demonstration of the nature finance toolkit produced by the Green Finance Institute who are doing a great job as a hub for everything you need to know about nature finance.

David said ‘I was really impressed by the way that nature finance is aggregating people from different sectors in order to find solutions to protecting and restoring our natural environment. And the Secretary of State was clearly on message around the urgency needed and how the Government can give confidence to the investment community. Nature recovery is all about private investment into largely private landholdings and that is essential if we really are going to shift the dial on biodiversity restoration.