With thousands of acres of habitat creation underway, Environment Bank is dedicated to nature recovery as the solution to tackle the critical issue of biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse.
Working in close collaboration with Natural England and the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), the Environment Bank team have helped shape nature recovery policy and guidance in the UK – one of the most biodiversity-depleted countries on earth – leading to the successful implementation of biodiversity net gain (BNG), an essential piece of environmental legislation.
Our team generated enough Biodiversity Units to ensure an effective legislation rollout in early 2024. The recovery sites created to generate these Biodiversity Units is providing many landowners and farmers across England with a welcome income diversification opportunity alongside enormous benefits to local communities and ecosystems.
Our ambition doesn't stop with BNG – working alongside leading biodiversity related organisations and policy makers such as Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), Science-Based Targets Network (SBTN), and UK Business and Biodiversity Forum (UKBBF), we are now excited to offer nature based solutions, enabling businesses to meet their nature positive goals through our Nature Shares product.
Our level of investment and expertise sets us apart from many other environmental organisations. Environment Bank is part of the Gresham House British Sustainable Infrastructure Fund (BSIF II) portfolio, which operates with an investment philosophy to provide real asset-based solutions to environmental and societal challenges. We have secured £240m to establish landscape-scale recovery sites managed with the highest levels of ecological integrity.
Gresham House is a specialist alternative asset management group, dedicated to sustainable investments across a range of strategies, with expertise covering forestry, housing, infrastructure, renewable energy and battery storage, public and private equity with assets under management in excess of £6bn as at December 2021.
Our leadership team
Catherine Spitzer, Chief Executive Officer
With a background in law, consultancy, and business coaching – Catherine has spent her career scaling businesses using agile and digital strategies. This has included leading a private equity-backed, rapid scale-up tech business and delivering international growth. Prior to joining Environment Bank in 2024, she transformed the traditional professional services firm, Bidwells, into a progressive and sustainable business for the future. Core to Catherine’s success is driving a commercial culture at all levels and focussing on the people, placing inclusion and engagement at the heart of what she does.
Jonathan Halford, Chair
Having chaired 11 private equity investments over a period of 15 years, Jonathan joined Environment Bank in 2024, bringing with him an enormous wealth of experience to the leadership team. Jonathan originally trained as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse and served as CEO of Forest Group where he led the delivery of a radical business transformation plan which was awarded the RBS Private Business Transformation of the Year Award.
Emma Toovey, Chief Ecology Officer
Managing a team of ecological and land management specialists, Emma ensures technical excellence across Environment Bank’s Habitat Bank projects. With a dedication to high-quality nature restoration, she ensures that sound ecological principles and technical integrity underpin every decision Environment Bank makes as a business. After playing a leading role in the development of Environment Bank’s Biodiversity Net Gain product, Emma has been instrumental in establishing our newest natural capital asset class, Nature Shares. This product will provide a valuable solution for companies looking to make a meaningful investment in nature with demonstrable environmental gains. Emma has two decades of ecological consultancy experience across diverse industries, working with a range of stakeholders, including landowners, developers and planning authorities.
Jonathan Lydiard-Wilson, Chief Strategy Officer
Joining the team in 2024, Jo brings a wealth of experience in developing new business models that deliver long-term value in the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and impact sectors. Formerly Partner at Accenture, Jo was the global lead for energy management and co-ordinator for the Energy Transition where he played a key role in driving the growth of Energy Transition Services across the business and was responsible for the coordination of key business channels. He was also the International CEO for a global energy and sustainability consultancy that was later acquired by Accenture. In addition, Jo has been a Trustee of the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT).
Henry Burn, Chief Revenue Officer
With over a decade of experience in driving revenue growth and executing successful business strategies within high-growth start-up environments, Henry excels at building teams, infrastructure, and processes from the ground up. He has a proven track record in implementing innovative products and customer acquisition strategies that exceed revenue targets. Prior to joining Environment Bank, Henry was the Vice President of Commercial at Hubble, where he oversaw profitability routes and commercial strategy to emphasise sustainable growth.
Peter Bachmann, Gresham House PLC
Peter is the Managing Director of the Sustainable Infrastructure division at Gresham House, Co-Fund Manager for BSIF and member of the board of Gresham House Asset Management and the Sustainability Executive Committee. Peter has over 22 years of public and private equity investment and fund management experience and has invested into and exited over 170 infrastructure and technology companies. Peter is also a Senior Associate at the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL) Accelerator. Peter is an active investor in early-stage sustainability companies.
Ruth Murray, Gresham House PLC
Ruth is an Associate Director at Gresham House in the Sustainable Infrastructure division. Ruth has 20 years’ of infrastructure experience through her first career as a Projects lawyer during which she worked on infrastructure projects both large and small across a range of sectors. Prior to joining Gresham House, Ruth spent 15 years at a top 100 law firm where she was a senior partner who founded and was the head of the Projects Team, head of the Energy and Waste Sector Team, and she spent 3 years as a member of the firm’s management board.
Our founder
Professor David Hill CBE DL
David founded Environment Bank in 2006 and introduced the concept of Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) to the UK, seeing it through to its implementation under the Environment Act 2021. David retired from the company in early 2024 in order to devote time to other ventures. For example, he has recently established a think-tank looking at how best to promote environmental markets to fund nature restoration across the world.
David has 45 years of experience in the land-based and farming sectors and founded one of the first environmental consultancies in the UK. He has a doctorate in ecology from the Department of Zoology at Oxford University and is an established author of a number of ecological textbooks and scientific papers.
A passionate conservationist, he was a founding member and Deputy Chair of Natural England, a board member of the government’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee, and a member of the government’s Ecosystem Markets Taskforce. He is a commissioner with the independent Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, a board trustee of the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, and Chair of the Northern Uplands Nature Partnership.
He writes widely on environmental policy, interviews key players in the environmental sector through his podcast davidhillpodcast.com, and regularly contributes to government audits, policy reviews, and select committees.
